Chapter 4: Leadership
There have been many books written over hundreds if not thousands of years that try to define Leadership. My definition of leadership is the ability to create a strategic vision and motivate a group of people to unite and successfully work towards a common goal or cause. In essence you are not pushing people towards a goal you are leading them to the attainment of a goal. Organizations achieve more when followers willingly or even enthusiastically pledge support to their leader rather than needing to be bribed, coerced or threatened.
Being a leader requires a special blend of leadership characteristics and leadership styles and skills. Often times that blend is influenced by the situations these leaders find themselves in. As a result leadership is something that can be learned, practiced and refined over time.
Becoming a successful leader is important to my aspirations of being a General Manager or business owner. A general manager is completely responsible for the success or failure of a company’s business. In chapter 1 of this book I listed 15 competencies that successful leaders possess and chapter 2 reveals where I need to improve. This is not an all-inclusive list. I believe those listed are major determinant of success - there are dozens of other competencies that could be added.
Reviewing my self-assessments from chapter two and my development plan in chapter three, the first principle leadership area I researched is my knowledge of behaviors and styles of the most successful leaders. First determining and continually refining my style of leadership, serves as the foundation for applying the rest of the knowledge gained. It will be crucial to always stay current on latest writings by gurus and create an opinion of those points of view apply to me.
In regards to fundamental leadership I want to adopt the style of a generative leader as defined by David Wilkinson in his book “The Ambiguity Advantage”. This article is relevant to my aspirations because it outlines eleven strategies to use when dealing with uncertainty. Leaders often must make decsions with incomplete or ambiguous facts, these strategies are helpful in cutting through the fog of war/business. Based on my self-assesment the content of this article also compliments my strength of decision making and improve my need to be more sensitive to others.
According to Mr. Wilkinson leadership styles can be split into four categories, based on tolerance for ambiguity.
• “Mode one: Technical Leaders” are old-school command-and-control managers. They’re uncomfortable with uncertainty.
• “Mode two: Cooperative Leaders” foster teamwork and collaboration.
• “Mode three: Collaborative Leaders” embrace conflict, risk and failure.
• “Mode four: Generative leaders” are quick to learn new ways of thinking and just as quick to discard old ways of behaving.
Generative leaders are able to learn new ways of thinking and are able to handle complex and contradictory situations. At the same time they are able to overcome obstacles including outdated policies and procedures. They are transformational type leaders, who empower and trust their teams to succeed. They spend much of their time thinking of the future and are able to use their vision to motivate others.
Mode four leaders can use any of the four leadership modes to accomplish their goals. They employ a variety of tactics to wrest opportunity from uncertainty, including these 11 strategies:
1. Identify the type of problem – Generative leaders determine what sort of situation they’re facing and which of the four modes will work best.
2. Know when it’s time to learn and when it’s time to decide – Any crisis allows two responses: The leader can make decisions, or allow everyone to learn from the situation and respond creatively. Great leaders know which approach is warranted in any situation.
3. Remain flexible about how goals are achieved – Generative leaders focus on their visions, but they aren’t married to any particular method of making the vision reality. Flexibility is a touchstone.
4. Behave with emotional intelligence – Emotional intelligence is the ability to understand and control one’s feelings, and to use emotion to inspire others. The more critical the situation, the more important emotional intelligence is. When emotions are running high, an emotionally unintelligent management style can crush morale.
5. Look for diversity – The world is full of teams whose members all think alike. Innovative teams’ members contribute genuinely diverse opinions and worldviews.
6. Learn constantly – Too many leaders feel they must have all the answers. Generative leaders know they don’t know everything and learn all they can. Rather than stating opinions, they pose questions.
7. Seek uncertainty and ambiguity, and rewards will follow – Great leaders look for areas where others are daunted by problems or deny that the problems exist. The areas of greatest risk promise the largest rewards.
8. Know how to solve all types of problems – Generative leaders can solve technical problems, cooperation problems, adaptive problems or generative problems.
9. Listen and talk like a generative leader – Possible communication approaches include: “downloading” (the leader expects his words to translate to clear, direct orders), “debating” (both sides form responses rather than listening) and “active” (both sides try to talk and listen without prejudgment). The next evolution is generative communication, when both sides move beyond active listening and into genuine creative breakthroughs.
10. Pull, don’t push – To push means to coerce someone else to do what you want. To influence by pull, instead, make the effort to understand the other person, learn about his or her concerns, and reach a consensus together.
11. Dump the rules that no longer apply – Generative leaders are pragmatists, willing to rescind rules that only get in the way. Consider the Mensa member who works on the assembly line. She irritated her supervisors by ignoring production rules, but when the top executive visited her on the assembly line, he saw that her decision to break certain rules made sense. He promoted her to a position where she could use her analytical skills.
In the Harvard Business Review (HBR) article “7 Transformations of Leadership” authors David Rooke and William Torbert discuss the concept of action logic. Their research is based on 25 years of extensive survey based consulting with thousands of executives at many well-known companies. This article is relevant to my aspirations because it outlines most effective forms of leadership. In providing examples of each of the action logics clues are given as to how I could transform myself to a higher level of effectiveness.
Using a tool the authors named the Leadership Development Profile, they identify seven action logics: Opportunist, Diplomat, Expert, Achiever, Individualist, Strategist, and Alchemist. (This is a fee based test, I will need to consider taking it in the future.) These tendencies function as a leader’s dominant way of thinking and behaving. Individual and team performance has proved a direct link to which action logic a leader belongs. Least effective are the Opportunist, Diplomats, and Experts. Achievers held the middle ground while Individualists, Strategist, and Alchemists showed consistent capacity to innovate and to successfully transform their organizations. This is pertinent to my aspirations because in order to become a general manager and eventually president, and then succeed once the positions are attained, belonging to higher order action logic is necessary.
· Opportunists are characterized by mistrust and manipulativeness. Opportunities and people are to be exploited and they regard this behavior as legitimate in order to win in a cut throat world.
· Diplomats typically seek approval of higher-ups and want to avoid conflicts at all costs. They pay close attention to the needs of others and strive to cooperate with group norms.
· Experts are just that, workers who strive to perfect the knowledge of their function. Experts make outstanding individual contributors, but poor leaders. They are always right and have the research and data to prove it and as a result are not open to feedback and seldom see the big picture.
· Achievers are open to feedback and understand the importance of relationships and the creativity required to solve workplace challenges. They try to influence people in positive ways and understand the balance between short term and intermediate goals.
· Individualists see that all action logics are a result of environment and biases and can change over time. They communicate well with people from other action logics. Individualists often ignore rule they feel are outdated or irrelevant which can irritate bosses and colleagues.
· Strategists are different from Individualists because of their focus on organizational constraints and perceptions and believe them to be transformable. They are able to create shared visions across other action logics which can lead to personal and organizational transformation. Strategists deal with conflict quite easily which make them good change agents.
· Alchemists have the ability to reinvent themselves and their organizations in significant ways. Alchemists have the capacity to deal simultaneously with many situations at multiple levels. They are charismatic who focus on the truth and live by high moral standards.
The good news here is that it is possible to move up the ladder to the more effective leadership action logics. Doing so takes time, awareness and in some cases coaching either with mentors or peers.
The principle of action logic also applies to teams and organizations as well. Typically the organization will not be able to reach a level higher than its leader; for example a team with an Achiever leader will typically operate at an Achiever level or below. This concept is linked to culture of an organization and can change over time with the right stimuli.
Jim Collins’ HBR article “Level 5 Leadership, The Triumph of Humility and Fierce resolve” discusses what he calls a level 5 leader. His research shows that a level 5 leader is a necessary, but not sufficient, for companies to transform from mediocrity to sustained excellence. This is relevent to my aspirations because of my desire to leave a lasting legacy for my family. I am encouraged because based on my self-assesments I see some aspects of my style inside the description of a level 5 leader. Creating a business that can endure success after my departure is just as important as building the business in the first place.
The author defines 5 levels of leadership where each level in has the ability to bring success to an organization some are very short term or only last as long as the leader is present. Level 5 leadership includes the capabilities of the other 4 levels plus some unique qualities. Interestingly, individuals do not need to proceed sequentially thought the five levels.
· Level 1 leaders are highly capable individuals. They make productive contributions through talent, knowledge, skills and good work habits.
· Level 2 leaders are contributing team members. They contribute to the achievement of group activities and work effectively with others in a group setting
· Level 3 leaders are competent managers. They organize people and resources toward the effective and efficient pursuit of predetermined objectives.
· Level 4 leaders are effective leaders. They catalyze commitment to a vigorous pursuit of a clear and compelling vision and are able to stimulate the group to high performance standards.
· Level 5 leaders are true executives. They build enduring greatness through a paradoxical combination of personal humility and professional will.
There are other factors that a level 5 leader enables during navigating a company from good to great.
· First who. Level 5 leaders first concern themselves with making sure the right people are on board and the wrong people are dismissed, then they figure out strategy.
· Stockdale paradox. Level 5 leaders are able to confront the most brutal facts of their current reality, yet simultaneously maintain absolute faith that they would prevail in the end. Named after Admiral James Stockdale who survived 7 years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam.
· Buildup-breakthrough flywheel. Transformation do not happen overnight, change happens slowly at first then as momentum builds less energy in required to sustain positive forward movement.
· Hedgehog concept. Breakthroughs require simple understanding of three intersecting circles – what can a company be best in the world at, how its economics work best, and what best ignites the passions of its people.
· Technology accelerators. Great companies avoid jumping on technology fads, yet at the same time are pioneers of adopting carefully selected technologies.
· A culture of discipline. Successful good to great transformations display three forms of discipline – disciplined people, disciplined thought, and disciplined action. These forms of discipline eliminate the need for excessive controls, bureaucracy, and hierarchy.
The two qualities that separate level 5 leaders from the others are personal humility and an unwavering will to succeed. Personal humility is anti-intuitive when one things of many larger than life CEOs. Level 5 executives demonstrate modesty and are never boastful. Subordinates observe quiet and calm determination inspired by standards. Their ambitions benefit the company not themselves; as an example take care to pick level 5 successors. When poor results are announced they take responsibility and never blame others.
Unwavering will enables the organization to achieve superb results by demonstrating an unshakable resolve to do what must be done to produce the best long terms results. Level 5 executives will set high standards for themselves and others and not settle for anything less. When success is achieved they deflect credit to other people and the organization even to good luck.
Ronald Heifetz and Donald Laurie’s HBR article “The Work of Leadership” discusses the concept of adaptive change. This is a type of change that is required when organizations must drastically adjust to their markets due to the market shifting and/or their business models becoming outdated. This article is appropriate for my aspirations because the pace of change is many industries is accelerating due to technology, globalization, etc. In order to be a successful General Manager and grow businesses profitably being able to adapt to new realities is inevitable. Based on my self-assesments I am the type of person that embraces change, I must become more sensitive to the effect of change on those around me.
Adaptive work is required when a company’s deeply held beliefs are challenged, and when values that made them successful become less relevant. To some extent many companies see these adaptive challenges every day, disagreements between departments, shrinking customer base, or lack of strategy execution. Mobilizing an organization to adapt its behaviors can be done with the help of six principles.
· Get on the Balcony. Business leaders have to be able to view patterns as if they were looking down from above and recognize a broader context. They must not get distracted by pressure to execute, daily statistics and the fire drill of the day.
· Identify the adaptive challenge. Executives must get their teams to identify for themselves what the nature of the threat to their business is. Customers typically will provide plenty of feedback, however teams must be willing to look into the mirror and be honest with themselves.
· Regulate distress. Adaptive work generates distress. There is a delicate balance required. Executives need to balance the need for some stress and anxiety to motivate and show the need for change with making sure teams are not overwhelmed and give up.
· Maintain disciplined attention. This principle speaks primarily to appreciating diversity, many solutions are found in the dialog of contrasting points of view. This is true at all levels of the organization.
· Give the work back to people. Often works look to the top of the chain of command for solutions and answers. A good leader must make the entire organization recognize that they are accountable for finding the answers. Management needs to let people take initiative to solve problems collectively rather than answers come from the top.
· Protect the voices of leadership from below. Since it is encouraged to give all employees a voice in this process executives must protect against retribution or retaliation for those who are willing to come forward to speak the truth.
Leadership as described above requires a learning strategy. A leader from below or above, with our without authority, has to engage people in confronting challenges, adjusting values, changing perspectives, and learning new habits. There is no need to wait for an assignment or request; an individual can lead when they can codify an adaptive challenge to the business.
The second principle area of leadership research I did was for the first round of developmental plan skills and competencies listed in chapter three. In chapters one and three I described why each one of these competencies is important for my progression as a leader. Specifically I will discuss how to build on my skills strategy and planning and expand my working knowledge of corporate finance and improve my ability to communicate upwards in the organization.
I began to realize, and received confirming feedback from my group, each one of these topics warrants enough attention to be chapters in their own rite. The topic of strategizing and planning will be covered more full in Chapter 9, the topic of business finance in Chapter 10, and the topic of persuasion , which includes networking skills, in Chapter 11.
Exercises and practice routines:
Exercise # 1. Who has influenced you ?
Objective: Reflect on how someone who has positively influenced your life and the lives of the team and using that insight to adopt those best practices into your management style
In a small groups, share a story about an individual you consider being a high-performing leader. Think about the characteristics, behaviors, attitudes and values you admire the most.
• How have you changed your leadership style as a result of that leader’s influence?
• Have someone in your group capture a few of the common themes.
• You have 10 minutes to complete this exercise.
Exercise # 2. The perception of your leadership style
Objective: Taking a step back and gaining a broader self awareness of how others might perceive your leadership style.
Start by thinking about, and taking notes on how someone who has worked with or for you might describe your leadership style to others.
(Most people are their own worst critics. It’s natural to think first about the things we would like to improve. Self-reflection is a useful exercise for adjusting our realities. Whether you find strengths or weaknesses, it’s good to periodically make sure that the expectations you have for others are those that you demonstrate yourself.)
Exercise # 3. Why Learn Good Leadership Skills?
Objective: Powerfully demonstrate the importance of interpersonal and leadership skills in all management and supervisory positions.
Get a group of managers together. Ask them each to privately list 10 things that make them good at their jobs—qualities they have or things they know. When they are finished open the discussion by recording their answers on a whiteboard or flipchart in two categories:
1.Technical skills they possess (if they are engineers, anything related to engineering knowledge; if they are insurance managers, anything related to insurance knowledge, etc.)
2.Skills related to dealing with people (good communicator, approachable, positive attitude, democratic, etc.)
In nearly all cases, managers will construct a longer list of people-related skills than they do technical skills related to the content of their jobs.
This helps to make a case for the need for training and development, particularly in the areas of leadership, teambuilding, and communication. They probably went to school for (and/or have worked for years to learn) the content knowledge of their jobs. But where did they ever get training or instruction in handling people? Most of us are poorly trained in these practical skills and have often had poor role models as well.
http://www.what-are-good-leadership-skills.com/activities-for-leadership-workshops.html
Being a leader requires a special blend of leadership characteristics and leadership styles and skills. Often times that blend is influenced by the situations these leaders find themselves in. As a result leadership is something that can be learned, practiced and refined over time.
Becoming a successful leader is important to my aspirations of being a General Manager or business owner. A general manager is completely responsible for the success or failure of a company’s business. In chapter 1 of this book I listed 15 competencies that successful leaders possess and chapter 2 reveals where I need to improve. This is not an all-inclusive list. I believe those listed are major determinant of success - there are dozens of other competencies that could be added.
Reviewing my self-assessments from chapter two and my development plan in chapter three, the first principle leadership area I researched is my knowledge of behaviors and styles of the most successful leaders. First determining and continually refining my style of leadership, serves as the foundation for applying the rest of the knowledge gained. It will be crucial to always stay current on latest writings by gurus and create an opinion of those points of view apply to me.
In regards to fundamental leadership I want to adopt the style of a generative leader as defined by David Wilkinson in his book “The Ambiguity Advantage”. This article is relevant to my aspirations because it outlines eleven strategies to use when dealing with uncertainty. Leaders often must make decsions with incomplete or ambiguous facts, these strategies are helpful in cutting through the fog of war/business. Based on my self-assesment the content of this article also compliments my strength of decision making and improve my need to be more sensitive to others.
According to Mr. Wilkinson leadership styles can be split into four categories, based on tolerance for ambiguity.
• “Mode one: Technical Leaders” are old-school command-and-control managers. They’re uncomfortable with uncertainty.
• “Mode two: Cooperative Leaders” foster teamwork and collaboration.
• “Mode three: Collaborative Leaders” embrace conflict, risk and failure.
• “Mode four: Generative leaders” are quick to learn new ways of thinking and just as quick to discard old ways of behaving.
Generative leaders are able to learn new ways of thinking and are able to handle complex and contradictory situations. At the same time they are able to overcome obstacles including outdated policies and procedures. They are transformational type leaders, who empower and trust their teams to succeed. They spend much of their time thinking of the future and are able to use their vision to motivate others.
Mode four leaders can use any of the four leadership modes to accomplish their goals. They employ a variety of tactics to wrest opportunity from uncertainty, including these 11 strategies:
1. Identify the type of problem – Generative leaders determine what sort of situation they’re facing and which of the four modes will work best.
2. Know when it’s time to learn and when it’s time to decide – Any crisis allows two responses: The leader can make decisions, or allow everyone to learn from the situation and respond creatively. Great leaders know which approach is warranted in any situation.
3. Remain flexible about how goals are achieved – Generative leaders focus on their visions, but they aren’t married to any particular method of making the vision reality. Flexibility is a touchstone.
4. Behave with emotional intelligence – Emotional intelligence is the ability to understand and control one’s feelings, and to use emotion to inspire others. The more critical the situation, the more important emotional intelligence is. When emotions are running high, an emotionally unintelligent management style can crush morale.
5. Look for diversity – The world is full of teams whose members all think alike. Innovative teams’ members contribute genuinely diverse opinions and worldviews.
6. Learn constantly – Too many leaders feel they must have all the answers. Generative leaders know they don’t know everything and learn all they can. Rather than stating opinions, they pose questions.
7. Seek uncertainty and ambiguity, and rewards will follow – Great leaders look for areas where others are daunted by problems or deny that the problems exist. The areas of greatest risk promise the largest rewards.
8. Know how to solve all types of problems – Generative leaders can solve technical problems, cooperation problems, adaptive problems or generative problems.
9. Listen and talk like a generative leader – Possible communication approaches include: “downloading” (the leader expects his words to translate to clear, direct orders), “debating” (both sides form responses rather than listening) and “active” (both sides try to talk and listen without prejudgment). The next evolution is generative communication, when both sides move beyond active listening and into genuine creative breakthroughs.
10. Pull, don’t push – To push means to coerce someone else to do what you want. To influence by pull, instead, make the effort to understand the other person, learn about his or her concerns, and reach a consensus together.
11. Dump the rules that no longer apply – Generative leaders are pragmatists, willing to rescind rules that only get in the way. Consider the Mensa member who works on the assembly line. She irritated her supervisors by ignoring production rules, but when the top executive visited her on the assembly line, he saw that her decision to break certain rules made sense. He promoted her to a position where she could use her analytical skills.
In the Harvard Business Review (HBR) article “7 Transformations of Leadership” authors David Rooke and William Torbert discuss the concept of action logic. Their research is based on 25 years of extensive survey based consulting with thousands of executives at many well-known companies. This article is relevant to my aspirations because it outlines most effective forms of leadership. In providing examples of each of the action logics clues are given as to how I could transform myself to a higher level of effectiveness.
Using a tool the authors named the Leadership Development Profile, they identify seven action logics: Opportunist, Diplomat, Expert, Achiever, Individualist, Strategist, and Alchemist. (This is a fee based test, I will need to consider taking it in the future.) These tendencies function as a leader’s dominant way of thinking and behaving. Individual and team performance has proved a direct link to which action logic a leader belongs. Least effective are the Opportunist, Diplomats, and Experts. Achievers held the middle ground while Individualists, Strategist, and Alchemists showed consistent capacity to innovate and to successfully transform their organizations. This is pertinent to my aspirations because in order to become a general manager and eventually president, and then succeed once the positions are attained, belonging to higher order action logic is necessary.
· Opportunists are characterized by mistrust and manipulativeness. Opportunities and people are to be exploited and they regard this behavior as legitimate in order to win in a cut throat world.
· Diplomats typically seek approval of higher-ups and want to avoid conflicts at all costs. They pay close attention to the needs of others and strive to cooperate with group norms.
· Experts are just that, workers who strive to perfect the knowledge of their function. Experts make outstanding individual contributors, but poor leaders. They are always right and have the research and data to prove it and as a result are not open to feedback and seldom see the big picture.
· Achievers are open to feedback and understand the importance of relationships and the creativity required to solve workplace challenges. They try to influence people in positive ways and understand the balance between short term and intermediate goals.
· Individualists see that all action logics are a result of environment and biases and can change over time. They communicate well with people from other action logics. Individualists often ignore rule they feel are outdated or irrelevant which can irritate bosses and colleagues.
· Strategists are different from Individualists because of their focus on organizational constraints and perceptions and believe them to be transformable. They are able to create shared visions across other action logics which can lead to personal and organizational transformation. Strategists deal with conflict quite easily which make them good change agents.
· Alchemists have the ability to reinvent themselves and their organizations in significant ways. Alchemists have the capacity to deal simultaneously with many situations at multiple levels. They are charismatic who focus on the truth and live by high moral standards.
The good news here is that it is possible to move up the ladder to the more effective leadership action logics. Doing so takes time, awareness and in some cases coaching either with mentors or peers.
The principle of action logic also applies to teams and organizations as well. Typically the organization will not be able to reach a level higher than its leader; for example a team with an Achiever leader will typically operate at an Achiever level or below. This concept is linked to culture of an organization and can change over time with the right stimuli.
Jim Collins’ HBR article “Level 5 Leadership, The Triumph of Humility and Fierce resolve” discusses what he calls a level 5 leader. His research shows that a level 5 leader is a necessary, but not sufficient, for companies to transform from mediocrity to sustained excellence. This is relevent to my aspirations because of my desire to leave a lasting legacy for my family. I am encouraged because based on my self-assesments I see some aspects of my style inside the description of a level 5 leader. Creating a business that can endure success after my departure is just as important as building the business in the first place.
The author defines 5 levels of leadership where each level in has the ability to bring success to an organization some are very short term or only last as long as the leader is present. Level 5 leadership includes the capabilities of the other 4 levels plus some unique qualities. Interestingly, individuals do not need to proceed sequentially thought the five levels.
· Level 1 leaders are highly capable individuals. They make productive contributions through talent, knowledge, skills and good work habits.
· Level 2 leaders are contributing team members. They contribute to the achievement of group activities and work effectively with others in a group setting
· Level 3 leaders are competent managers. They organize people and resources toward the effective and efficient pursuit of predetermined objectives.
· Level 4 leaders are effective leaders. They catalyze commitment to a vigorous pursuit of a clear and compelling vision and are able to stimulate the group to high performance standards.
· Level 5 leaders are true executives. They build enduring greatness through a paradoxical combination of personal humility and professional will.
There are other factors that a level 5 leader enables during navigating a company from good to great.
· First who. Level 5 leaders first concern themselves with making sure the right people are on board and the wrong people are dismissed, then they figure out strategy.
· Stockdale paradox. Level 5 leaders are able to confront the most brutal facts of their current reality, yet simultaneously maintain absolute faith that they would prevail in the end. Named after Admiral James Stockdale who survived 7 years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam.
· Buildup-breakthrough flywheel. Transformation do not happen overnight, change happens slowly at first then as momentum builds less energy in required to sustain positive forward movement.
· Hedgehog concept. Breakthroughs require simple understanding of three intersecting circles – what can a company be best in the world at, how its economics work best, and what best ignites the passions of its people.
· Technology accelerators. Great companies avoid jumping on technology fads, yet at the same time are pioneers of adopting carefully selected technologies.
· A culture of discipline. Successful good to great transformations display three forms of discipline – disciplined people, disciplined thought, and disciplined action. These forms of discipline eliminate the need for excessive controls, bureaucracy, and hierarchy.
The two qualities that separate level 5 leaders from the others are personal humility and an unwavering will to succeed. Personal humility is anti-intuitive when one things of many larger than life CEOs. Level 5 executives demonstrate modesty and are never boastful. Subordinates observe quiet and calm determination inspired by standards. Their ambitions benefit the company not themselves; as an example take care to pick level 5 successors. When poor results are announced they take responsibility and never blame others.
Unwavering will enables the organization to achieve superb results by demonstrating an unshakable resolve to do what must be done to produce the best long terms results. Level 5 executives will set high standards for themselves and others and not settle for anything less. When success is achieved they deflect credit to other people and the organization even to good luck.
Ronald Heifetz and Donald Laurie’s HBR article “The Work of Leadership” discusses the concept of adaptive change. This is a type of change that is required when organizations must drastically adjust to their markets due to the market shifting and/or their business models becoming outdated. This article is appropriate for my aspirations because the pace of change is many industries is accelerating due to technology, globalization, etc. In order to be a successful General Manager and grow businesses profitably being able to adapt to new realities is inevitable. Based on my self-assesments I am the type of person that embraces change, I must become more sensitive to the effect of change on those around me.
Adaptive work is required when a company’s deeply held beliefs are challenged, and when values that made them successful become less relevant. To some extent many companies see these adaptive challenges every day, disagreements between departments, shrinking customer base, or lack of strategy execution. Mobilizing an organization to adapt its behaviors can be done with the help of six principles.
· Get on the Balcony. Business leaders have to be able to view patterns as if they were looking down from above and recognize a broader context. They must not get distracted by pressure to execute, daily statistics and the fire drill of the day.
· Identify the adaptive challenge. Executives must get their teams to identify for themselves what the nature of the threat to their business is. Customers typically will provide plenty of feedback, however teams must be willing to look into the mirror and be honest with themselves.
· Regulate distress. Adaptive work generates distress. There is a delicate balance required. Executives need to balance the need for some stress and anxiety to motivate and show the need for change with making sure teams are not overwhelmed and give up.
· Maintain disciplined attention. This principle speaks primarily to appreciating diversity, many solutions are found in the dialog of contrasting points of view. This is true at all levels of the organization.
· Give the work back to people. Often works look to the top of the chain of command for solutions and answers. A good leader must make the entire organization recognize that they are accountable for finding the answers. Management needs to let people take initiative to solve problems collectively rather than answers come from the top.
· Protect the voices of leadership from below. Since it is encouraged to give all employees a voice in this process executives must protect against retribution or retaliation for those who are willing to come forward to speak the truth.
Leadership as described above requires a learning strategy. A leader from below or above, with our without authority, has to engage people in confronting challenges, adjusting values, changing perspectives, and learning new habits. There is no need to wait for an assignment or request; an individual can lead when they can codify an adaptive challenge to the business.
The second principle area of leadership research I did was for the first round of developmental plan skills and competencies listed in chapter three. In chapters one and three I described why each one of these competencies is important for my progression as a leader. Specifically I will discuss how to build on my skills strategy and planning and expand my working knowledge of corporate finance and improve my ability to communicate upwards in the organization.
I began to realize, and received confirming feedback from my group, each one of these topics warrants enough attention to be chapters in their own rite. The topic of strategizing and planning will be covered more full in Chapter 9, the topic of business finance in Chapter 10, and the topic of persuasion , which includes networking skills, in Chapter 11.
Exercises and practice routines:
Exercise # 1. Who has influenced you ?
Objective: Reflect on how someone who has positively influenced your life and the lives of the team and using that insight to adopt those best practices into your management style
In a small groups, share a story about an individual you consider being a high-performing leader. Think about the characteristics, behaviors, attitudes and values you admire the most.
• How have you changed your leadership style as a result of that leader’s influence?
• Have someone in your group capture a few of the common themes.
• You have 10 minutes to complete this exercise.
Exercise # 2. The perception of your leadership style
Objective: Taking a step back and gaining a broader self awareness of how others might perceive your leadership style.
Start by thinking about, and taking notes on how someone who has worked with or for you might describe your leadership style to others.
(Most people are their own worst critics. It’s natural to think first about the things we would like to improve. Self-reflection is a useful exercise for adjusting our realities. Whether you find strengths or weaknesses, it’s good to periodically make sure that the expectations you have for others are those that you demonstrate yourself.)
Exercise # 3. Why Learn Good Leadership Skills?
Objective: Powerfully demonstrate the importance of interpersonal and leadership skills in all management and supervisory positions.
Get a group of managers together. Ask them each to privately list 10 things that make them good at their jobs—qualities they have or things they know. When they are finished open the discussion by recording their answers on a whiteboard or flipchart in two categories:
1.Technical skills they possess (if they are engineers, anything related to engineering knowledge; if they are insurance managers, anything related to insurance knowledge, etc.)
2.Skills related to dealing with people (good communicator, approachable, positive attitude, democratic, etc.)
In nearly all cases, managers will construct a longer list of people-related skills than they do technical skills related to the content of their jobs.
This helps to make a case for the need for training and development, particularly in the areas of leadership, teambuilding, and communication. They probably went to school for (and/or have worked for years to learn) the content knowledge of their jobs. But where did they ever get training or instruction in handling people? Most of us are poorly trained in these practical skills and have often had poor role models as well.
http://www.what-are-good-leadership-skills.com/activities-for-leadership-workshops.html
the-ambiguity-advantage-wilkinson-en-64781.pdf | |
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hbr_7_transformations_of_leadership.pdf | |
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hbr_the_work_of_leadership_dec_2001.pdf | |
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chapter_4_leadership.pptx | |
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Bibliography
Wilkinson, David. The ambiguity advantage: What great leaders are great at. Palgrave Macmillan, 2006.
Rooke, David, and William R. Torbert. "Seven transformations of leadership." Harvard Business Review 83, no. 4 (2005): 66-76.
Collins, Jim. "Level 5 leadership: The triumph of humility and fierce resolve." Harvard Business Review 83, no. 7/8 (2005): 136-146.
Heifetz, Ronald Abadian, and Donald L. Laurie. "The work of leadership." Harvard Business Review 79, no. 11 (2001): 131-141.
Wilkinson, David. The ambiguity advantage: What great leaders are great at. Palgrave Macmillan, 2006.
Rooke, David, and William R. Torbert. "Seven transformations of leadership." Harvard Business Review 83, no. 4 (2005): 66-76.
Collins, Jim. "Level 5 leadership: The triumph of humility and fierce resolve." Harvard Business Review 83, no. 7/8 (2005): 136-146.
Heifetz, Ronald Abadian, and Donald L. Laurie. "The work of leadership." Harvard Business Review 79, no. 11 (2001): 131-141.