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Is_Your_Leadership_Is_Effective
| Is Your Leadership Is Effective?
In many ways, good leadership is hard to define. It can't be
directly measured. There's no leadership "score" or report card.
In fact often the measure of leadership is qualitative rather
than quantitative - although quantitative results always follow.
So, the questions remains, how can you tell if your leadership
skills are effective?
Plain and simple, leadership is about getting others to take
action. If leadership effectiveness is lacking, less than best
effort is put forth. The better the leadership, the better the
effort. Exceptional leadership inspires the best effort in
others.
Effective leadership is a function of both individual
competencies and organizational culture. What are some signs
that leadership isn’t as effective as it could be? There are a
number of them. They are indications that something is missing
in the leadership equation.
* Inability to Motivate People * Difficulty Attracting/Retaining
the Right People * Low Productivity * Poor Customer Orientation
* High Stress * Isolation * Declining Profits * Ineffective
Delegation * Lack of Creativity * Lack of Initiative *
Ineffective Teams * Poor Communications * Lack of Vision *
Diminishing Revenues * High Turnover
What can be done to improve leadership effectiveness? The answer
is simple to understand and yet not so simple to implement. It
starts with understanding the foundations of what makes someone
an effective leader and what kind of organizational culture is
most effective.
Effective Personal Leadership
When I ask workshop participants about characteristics of both
good and bad leaders, the list never includes issues of
intelligence, technical skills, or effective decision-making!
Instead, the list is full of people-related traits – good
listener, respectful, good communicator, develops others, …
Effective personal leadership can be summarized as being
competent in these skill sets:
* Becoming Influential * Facilitating Teamwork & Collaboration *
Being a Catalyst for Change * Managing Conflict * Developing
Others * Having & Communicating a Compelling Vision
Unfortunately, improving one’s competency in these areas is
often a challenge. Let me explain why… Unlike factual
information, which gets processed in the neo-cortex of the
brain, people-related skills are processed in part of the brain
called the amygdala. This portion of the brain regulates
emotional insights and responses rather than logical insights
and responses. Improving the leadership skills set forth above
require one to break old habits/responses and form new ones, and
we aren’t able to do this simply by learning and acquiring
knowledge. That’s the difference between the neo-cortex and the
amygdala.
There are a couple of inherent challenges with this process.
Pretty much everyone acknowledges that they have room for
improvement. The first challenge is knowing which areas to
improve. We all have blind spots. We're aware of some of our
shortcomings, but usually not all of them. Secondly, breaking
habits and forming new ones requires commitment, persistence,
and time. It usually takes support from others – people who can
point out when you’ve acted in a way contradictory to your
intent. It’s important to use a reliable assessment to identify
areas of growth opportunity. From those results, we can develop
a plan of development which bolsters weaker areas and leverages
stronger areas. The final aspect of a successful personal
development plan relies on having one or more people who can
support you, give unbiased, non-judgmental feedback, and help
you make course corrections.
Organizational Culture
The foundations of a strong organization are:
1. Developing a clear and compelling Purpose 2. Identifying the
organization's Mission to achieve the Purpose 3. Agreeing on a
set of Values by which to carry out the Mission 4. Adopting a
Servant Leader attitude throughout the organization
An organization's Purpose is the "Why" of its existence. It’s
not what it does as much as what it is striving to accomplish.
It is a statement of the greater good it is attempting to
achieve. It answers the question: "Why are we here?" and helps
give clarity and focus to each person in the organization. It is
the yardstick by which decisions are measured.
An organization's Mission is the "What" of an organization. It
is a definition of what the company does to achieve its stated
Purpose. It begins to define the core proficiencies of a
business and helps keep it focused on achieving its Purpose.
An organization's set of Values is the "How" of an organization.
It defines what an organization most values in the execution of
its Mission. It's not an all encompassing list of possible
values as much as a statement of what the organization most
values in its people and their conduct. It defines behaviors and
culture within an organization. It helps set the guidelines of
what is and is not acceptable.
At the core of Servant Leadership is the premise that the
customer is the most important person to the organization. As a
consequence of that premise, it only follows that the most
important people to the customer are the frontline staff.
They're the people who customers interact with on a daily basis.
This understanding leads to the philosophy that the job of the
manager of the frontline people is to make their jobs as easy
and effective as possible so the customer has the best
experience possible. The result is an organizational chart that
looks like an inverted pyramid. This servant attitude focuses
leaders on developing those around them. It leads to people
working together in a collaborative, solution-oriented
environment.
How does one go about developing Purpose, Mission, and Values?
Falling back on our understanding of Servant Leadership and the
importance of everyone in the organization, the creation of
Purpose, Mission and Values requires input from people in all
areas of the company. They (the Purpose, Mission, and Values)
need to be relevant to all involved, they need to be consistent
with one another, and they need to be used consistently as a
yardstick for decisions and policies. There’s nothing worse than
developing Values and just paying them lip-service by not living
them day-to-day. A practice like that lacks integrity and
actually becomes a demoralizer.
In summary, when we combine personal competency in all areas of
leadership skills with an organizational culture which supports
people, their development, and their success, we end up with
exceptional leadership which, in turn, inspires the best effort
in others.
About the author:
Written by Michael Beck, President of Exceptional Leadership,
Inc. a firm which develops exceptional leaders through
leadership enhancement and executive coaching. Michael can be
reached at 877-977-8956 or mbeck@XLeaders.com , and you can
learn more about the company and these ideas at www.XLeaders.com
Permission to reprint with full attribution. © 2005 Exceptional
Leadership, Inc.
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