All posts by MYORBITX

Leadership

Hiding Your Leadership: The Jersey Joe Walcott Way of Leading

Former heavyweight champ Jersey Joe Walcott was training for a fight against a boxer who had a ferocious left hook. Asked if he was worried, Jersey Joe replied, “Nope. I’ll take his left hook and put it in his pocket.”

Walcott’s low key, wry, confident attitude matched his boxing style. He hardly looked as if he was fighting at all. It was more like Aikido than boxing, the martial art that controls an attacker by redirecting their energy instead of blocking it.

Jersey Joe didn’t attack. He lured his opponent to him. He shuffled “the Walcott Shuffle.” He created ingenious punching angles. He feinted not only with his hands but with his shoulders. He threw a sneaky right hand counter and a counter-punch left.

In other words, Jersey Joe, to better employ his boxing abilities, hid those abilities. Jersey Joe Walcott provides a lesson in leadership.

To be a better leader, do what most leaders neglect to do, are even ignorant of: hide your leadership.

Why would you want to hide your leadership? After all, isn’t a leader supposed to stand out? When you’re a leader, aren’t you supposed to be the center of attention, telling people to do things?

Yes, that way of being a leader is appropriate if you are viewing leadership in its conventional terms and getting average results.

But if you want to be a leader who gets consistently great results, remember Jersey Joe, if only for this simple, powerful dictum most leaders miss. People are more effective not when they are “ordered to …” but when they “want to …” Having people “want to” through your leadership is the drive shaft of all great results.

Chinese philosopher, Lao Tzu, wrote 2500 years ago: “As for the best leaders, the people do not notice their existence. The next best, the people honor and praise. The next, the people fear; and the next, the people hate … When the best leader’s work is done the people say, ‘We did it ourselves!'” In other words, the best leadership is the hidden leadership.

Leadership is about getting results, however one may define those results. If you can’t get results, you won’t be a leader for long. But, clearly, you can’t get results by yourself. You need others to help you do it. The “best” leader is the leader who gets the “best” results through the good offices of other people.

The best results are tied to a concept I’ve been teaching leaders for almost a quarter of a century: When they seek to get results, they should seek to get more results; they should seek to get faster results; and they should seek to get “more, faster” on a continual basis.

(For a discussion of what results really are I refer you to my web site and the articles section.)

If hiding your leadership doesn’t help you get more results, faster results continually then it should be taken no more seriously than the notion that the moon is made of green cheese.

How does hiding your leadership achieve these results? The HOW is in “want to.” But remember this: the people’s motivation is not the choice of the leaders. It’s the choice of the people. Leaders communicate, the people themselves motivate. They make the choice to motivate themselves. When your leadership is exhibited not on stage but behind the scenes guiding them to be motivated to make that choice, you’re creating the super-charged environment conducive to the establishment of more results faster, continually.

What is the best way to hide your leadership? Hide your leadership by realizing the Leader’s Imperative. “I will lead people in such a way that we not only accomplish the needed results but that we together help one another grow personally and professionally.”

This has two parts: results accomplishments and self-improvement. You are never more powerful as a leader as when, in getting results, you are helping others be better than they are – even better than they thought they could be. And when you’re realizing the Imperative, you are advancing yourself in the best way — by advancing them.

Make hiding your leadership a way of life. Test every leadership situation against the Leadership Imperative. Build the Imperative into your strategy, tactics, and have it be a driving factor in your interpersonal relationships.

Two points of caution. First, don’t mistake, or mistakenly communicate, the pejorative side of “hide.” The word can have a negative connotation: i.e., that you have something to hide, or that you are running away from somebody or something, or that you are being secretive or sneaky.

Use the word in its positive sense; you are hiding your leadership to better realize the Leadership Imperative.

Second, hiding your leadership can turn into a failing if you don’t hide it in a robust way. Hiding your leadership does not mean living an easy life for yourself – i.e., detaching yourself physically and emotionally from the people and doing your own thing. Instead, hiding your leadership means living a hard life for other people – i.e., working hard, taking risks, and putting yourself out to promote their welfare.

You will never know how really good you are as a leader unless you are leading people to be better than they think they are. You’ll have a better chance of manifesting your best leadership when you lead the way Jersey Joe Walcott fought – and have the people say, “We did it ourselves!”

2006 © The Filson Leadership Group, Inc. All rights reserved.

The author of 23 books, Brent Filson’s recent books are, THE LEADERSHIP TALK: THE GREATEST LEADERSHIP TOOL and 101 WAYS TO GIVE GREAT LEADERSHIP TALKS. He is founder and president of The Filson Leadership Group, Inc. – and for more than 21 years has been helping leaders of top companies worldwide get audacious results. Sign up for his free leadership e-zine and get a free white paper: “49 Ways To Turn Action Into Results,” at http://www.actionleadership.com

PERMISSION TO REPUBLISH: This article may be republished in newsletters and on web sites provided attribution is provided to the author, and it appears with the included copyright, resource box and live web site link. Email notice of intent to publish is appreciated but not required: mail to: brent@actionleadership.com

The author of 23 books, Brent Filson’s most recent books are: THE LEADERSHIP TALK: THE GREATEST LEADERSHIP TOOL and 101 WAYS TO GIVE GREAT LEADERSHIP TALKS. http://www.actionleadership.com

Article Source: https://EzineArticles.com/expert/Brent_Filson/1911

 

Leadership

The New Leadership Is A Sacred Calling

You can greatly improve your job and career performance when you embrace leadership as a sacred calling.

The global marketplace is creating historic changes in human circumstances as broad and deep as those originated by the Industrial Revolution. But one significant change that observers are overlooking involves leadership.

From the outset of the Industrial Revolution, order-giving has been the standard of leadership. The word “order” comes from the Latin root meaning to arrange threads in a woof. In the Industrial Revolution’s early years, workers were “ordered” or ranked like threads in a woof of textile production lines.

But globalization is creating a need for new leadership. Instead of ordering people to go from A to B, the new leadership has people want to go from A to B.

This simple, even simplistic, difference illuminates an enormous leadership opportunity. Clearly, people who “want to” are more competitive than people who are simply responding to orders, given their skills are commensurate. Your arousing want-to in others can be accomplished most effectively when you see your leadership as a sacred activity.

Sacred is commonly defined as being devoted or dedicated to a deity or some religious purpose. But the emergence of the global marketplace has necessitated a new meaning for the sacred. The sacred I speak of is not connected to any principle exclusive to a particular denominational religion. If it were, it could not be applied universally throughout the global market’s interplay of many languages, cultures, and religions. Instead, the sacred aspect of leadership is based on the undeniable fact that all humans everywhere are interconnected through their relationships in profound, practical ways. The sacred flows from the wellsprings of those deep, human relationships.

Paradoxically, this “new” leadership has been manifested since time in memorial. After all, when people needed to accomplish great things, a leader had to first gather them together and speak from the heart. In that gathering, in that speaking, in that sharing something truly sacred was established.

To examine the sacred, we must understand the stuff that leaders’ activities must be made of: results. If you’re not getting results, you won’t be a leader for long. Results come in countless forms and functions. But one thing all results share is they are the outcomes of the relationships people engender to take action.

The word “relationship” comes from a Latin root meaning to “carry back.” To be involved in a human relationships is to both give and get. Such relationships are best realized in leadership when you engage in what I call the Leadership Imperative. The Imperative states: “I will lead others in such a way that we together not only accomplish our needed results but we grow professionally and personally.”

The Leadership Imperative is the rough, organizational equivalent of the Golden Rule that most religions, in one form or another, urge; but don’t confuse it with a guide for conduct exclusively; it’s also a way of getting great organizational results. When people understand that your leadership will improve their lives, their jobs and their careers, you’ll establish a sacred bond with them, and they’ll be more likely to be motivated to accomplish extraordinary things for you.

(An important tool for actualizing the Leadership Imperative is a methodology I’ve been teaching to leaders worldwide for nearly a quarter of a century. See my website for my information on the Leadership Talk.)

In our time, order leadership has held sway in all sectors of business and government. However, order leadership has nothing sacred to offer. Orders are sent, orders carried out or not. Deep, human, “sacred” connections are superfluous, even antithetical, to giving orders. And because order leadership can’t get the consistently great results that the new leadership triggers, the order way of leadership is destined for history’s scrap heap.

Don’t be put off or discouraged if you can’t immediately see the sacred in your leadership today. First, align your words and actions to conform to the Leadership Imperative. When you do, you’ll see the sacred in the very practical necessities of your daily life. It’s been there all along, waiting for you to find it and realize it. You may be in a bureaucracy that at first blush seems to have nothing to do with the sacred. But I submit that no matter what organization you’re in, what job you hold, you’ll get the best results when you work to manifest the sacred in your leadership. In fact, the sacred is the true reality of what you do, where you do it.

When you’re realizing the sacred calling of the Leadership Imperative, everyone you encounter, every challenge you face, is invested with special meaning that can boost results.

The exigencies of the global economy are demanding a change in the standard of leadership. Your understanding and realizing the new leadership but also its sacred dimensions will notably advance your job and career performance.

PERMISSION TO REPUBLISH: This article may be republished in newsletters and on web sites provided attribution is provided to the author, and it appears with the included copyright, resource box and live web site link. Email notice of intent to publish is appreciated but not required: mail to: brent@actionleadership.com

2006 © The Filson Leadership Group, Inc. All rights reserved.

The author of 23 books, Brent Filson’s recent books are, THE LEADERSHIP TALK: THE GREATEST LEADERSHIP TOOL and 101 WAYS TO GIVE GREAT LEADERSHIP TALKS. He is founder and president of The Filson Leadership Group, Inc. – and for more than 21 years has been helping leaders of top companies worldwide get audacious results. Sign up for his free leadership e-zine and get a free white paper: “49 Ways To Turn Action Into Results,” at http://www.actionleadership.com

For more about the Leadership Talk ==>[http://www.theleadershiptalk.com]

Article Source: https://EzineArticles.com/expert/Brent_Filson/1911

 

Leadership

Leadership – Do We Know What It Is? 4 Pointers To Start You On The Road To Becoming A Leader

A great deal of work has been done by many authors and researchers in trying to identify and define “leadership”. The vast body of research has focused on leadership traits, habits, competencies, behaviours, styles, values, skills and characteristics. Dave Ulrich (Ulrich, D et al, Results Based Leadership, Harvard Business Press, Boston, 1999) categorised much of the research into:

– Who leaders are – values, motives, personal traits

– What leaders know – knowledge, skills and abilities

– What leaders do – behaviours, habits, styles and competencies

However, when one looks at the vast body of research into leadership, it is mostly concerned with: – the inputs of leadership and leaders, – not the outputs – ie. what leaders achieve.

Two significant factors have led to a great deal of the confusion around the issue of “leadership” and the definition of leadership itself.

Firstly, many authors erroneously use “leadership” and “management” interchangeably as if they were the same thing.

Secondly, a great deal of the research into leadership has been with people who are in formal organisational positions (e.g. supervisors, managers, senior executives) – the inference being that leadership is an integral part of the formal management role (Parry, K.W., Leadership Research: Themes, Implications, and a new Leadership Challenge, Leadership Research and Practice, Warriewood 1996).

Our experience in designing, developing and implementing management and leadership development programs, processes and interventions over the last twenty years has led to the development of The Leadership Benchmark™ ([http://www.nationallearning.com.au/index_files/LeadershipDevelopment.htm]), a 360 developmental tool for leaders and aspiring leaders. Much of the initial research emanated from focus groups of key stakeholders (participants, peers, managers, staff, customers, suppliers etc) conducted as part of these development initiatives and the subsequent follow-up interviews, coaching sessions and evaluation processes and forums.

In developing The Leadership Benchmark™, we have clearly delineated that:

– Leadership is different from and distinct to, management – it does NOT necessarily occur as part of a formal management position

– Leadership is contextual and therefore has to do with outputs (what the leader achieves) as much as what the leader is or does (inputs)

1. Leadership v’s Management

Almost 100 years ago, Mary Parker Follett described a manager as “one who gets things done through people”. This description is still used by management educators and scholars today, but in my opinion should be changed to: “one who gets the things done that are described by the organisation in the manager’s role or position description, through the people they have been assigned”. My contention is that, if you are a manager, then:

– You become a manager when you sign on for the job

– You only become a leader when your people say so

So, you get given the title of “manager” from the organisation and people will do things for you (either well or not so well depending on how well you manage them) because of WHAT you are not WHO you are. Only your people (your team, the people you manage) can give you the title of “leader”.

In other words, the organisation gives you your “corporate” manager’s hat that lets everyone in the organisation know that you are officially a manager. Then, your people, when they believe in you, give you your leadership badge, your badge of honour!

I am indebted to my colleague Dennis Pratt (Pratt, D., Aspiring to Greatness – Above and Beyond Total Quality Management, Business & Professional Publishing, Sydney 1994) for enabling the clear distinction between leadership and management that has assisted our research in developing The Leadership Benchmark:™ . This distinction is described as:

• Leading: Leadership occurs at all levels of the organisation. The essence of leadership is concerned with creating the following conditions that encourage others to follow:

– A shared understanding of the environment.

– A shared vision of where we are going.

– A shared set of organisational values.

– A shared feeling of power.

• Managing: While the leadership function is “big picture” the management function on the other hand, has a narrower focus. Leavitt described leadership, as “path finding” while management was “path minding”. Management is situational and invloves:

– Getting things done (task focus)

– Through people (relationship focus).

2. Leadership is contextual and is concerned with outputs

The Leadership Benchmark™ focuses purely on the following four outputs achieved in any particular organisational context by the leader:

– A shared understanding of the environment.

– A shared vision of where we are going.

– A shared set of organisational values.

– A shared feeling of power.

Whereas many other (quite legitimate) management 360 tools focus on the management function. Managers who aspire to be leaders therefore need more than the feedback they might get from a normal 360 managerial profile.

3. If you are a manager, what does this mean for you?

Anyone in the organisation can become a “leader” irrespective of their formal organisational position. Just because you have a formal title of “manager” does not mean you are a leader. So for example when a fire breaks out in the building and the brand new young employee who has just completed induction training, and who instructs people to follow the evacuation procedures impeccably, shows as much leadership as the CEO who has just announced the new corporate strategy for everyone to follow.

Here’s a quick test to gain some indication on your status as a leader. Once you have been in your current role for say, 9 to 12 months, ask yourself “Would my people do the things I now ask them to do even if I were not their manager?” If you can truthfully answer “Yes”, then you are well on the path to becoming a leader. I suspect, that many of you will probably answer this with a “Maybe” – try not to be concerned at this, as the road to leadership is a long one, but a truly rewarding one. If you are concerned that it seems to be taking you “forever” to develop as a leader, keep in mind the experience of one of the greatest leaders of our time, Nelson Mandela who spent 27 years in prison waiting to show how he could lead his country!

4. How to develop yourself as a leader

Our research indicates that leaders become leaders because they do four things (at least) for us:

1. They help us understand and make sense of our environment. So for example, when things aren’t working out or are unclear for us, they are able to explain what is happening in practical terms that we can understand.

2. They help give us a sense of direction. They are able to paint a picture of a brighter future and help us believe that we can achieve the things we want to achieve.

3. They give us a belief in the values that are important to us. In doing so, they make us feel part of a team of people that share these values and have the same aims.

4. They are able to make us feel powerful by allowing us the freedom to make decisions about our life, work and the future.

If you are looking to develop yourself as a leader, then I would suggest working with your team to put in place some strategies to achieve the four leadership outputs we have described here.

Copyright 2006 The National Learning Institute

Bob Selden is the Managing Director of the National Learning Institute. He has been an HRD consultant for over 30 years, prior to which he was a line manager in a financial organisation. He is the author of The Leadership Benchmark™ and is a part time member of faculty at the International Institute for Management Development in Lausanne and the Australian Graduate School of Management in Sydney. You can contact Bob at http://www.nationallearning.com.au/

Article Source: https://EzineArticles.com/expert/Robert_Selden/25526

 

Leadership

Leadership, Tribal Spiritual Wisdom, And The Leadership Talk

You can boost your leadership skills and hence your career by understanding this one thing that most leaders miss: great leadership incorporates a spiritual dimension.

This spiritual dimension has been a part of leadership since time in memorial; but in today’s global economy, it is undergoing an historic, universal transformation. It’s a transformation that speaks directly to your individual leadership and career challenges.

However, when we talk about the spiritual in leadership, we must, first and foremost, talk about results — the results leaders achieve. Concrete results. Hard, measured results. Plus, we must talk about getting more of them, getting them faster, and getting “more, faster” continually. Otherwise, there is no sense in delving into the spiritual aspect of leadership.

Results are the stuff that leaders are made of. If they’re not getting results, they won’t be leaders for long. Results come in countless forms and functions. But one thing they all share: they are material consequences of actions.

You can’t see spirit, you can’t hear it, you can’t smell it, you can’t taste it, you can’t feel it; however, if you ignore the non-material that the spiritual encompasses, you’ll give short shrift to your leadership.

Just as the root word for spirit comes from Latin “to breathe” so spiritual dimensions of leadership are its very life-breath; for through it, the greatest results are achieved.

Spirit has been applied to many different things in different fields: to stealth bombers, corporations, rock bands, comic book characters, etc. In religion, spirit is the concept of an innate essence of a being. All religions embrace spirit in many ways. But when applied to leadership, spirit is differently manifested than with organized religions. The spiritual aspect of leadership I’m talking about must be exerted universally in the global market place, across cultures, nations, ethnic groups, etc. No religion has a corner on the spirit of leadership.

Fortunately, there is a universal ground for the kind of spirit needed in today’s leadership: the spiritual wisdom of tribal cultures. Anthropologists have come to identify common features in the diversity of tribal cultures around the world. First, they are earth-based. The relationship between the earth and the people is one of mystical interdependence. Second, the powers of nature, the acts of daily life, birth death, nature and the cosmos are all invested with deep meaning through ritual and dance. Third, most tribal cultures view all individual things that make up our universe — rocks, stars, mountains, rivers, people, animals, fish, etc. — as interdependent.

This interdependence is not just a physical dynamic. Yes, we live on the same earth, breath the same air, and are all mortal. But tribal cultures understand it as a spiritual dynamic as well. Unlike the concept of human souls, which are believed to be eternal and preexisting, one’s spirit according to tribal wisdom develops and grows as an integral aspect of a person living interdependently with the community and its environment.

Today, these interdependent features of tribal spiritual wisdom can be applied with dramatic consequences to global leadership. Just as tribe members saw themselves as interdependent with their tribe and their spiritual deities and dictums, so today’s leaders in order to be truly successful on a global stage must see themselves in similar interdependent terms. However, the difference today is that interdependence is not with a tribe but with people the world over and with the world environment. That’s a profound, spiritual leadership lesson, hard but necessary to actualize, from which great leadership results flow.

How do we actualize this spiritual imperative? Enter the Leadership Talk. I have been teaching the Leadership Talk to leaders of all ranks and functions worldwide for nearly a quarter of a century. It works on the premise that great results happen primarily when leaders establish a deep, human, emotional connection with people. When I first began developing and teaching it, I saw it as a powerful results generator. It is that. In fact, the Leadership Talk is the most powerful leadership results generator of all. But I had not really understood why until recently. Now, I see each one of those descriptors, “deep, human, emotional”, which grew organically out of my having to work with leaders challenged to get great results, are fundamentally spiritual in nature. That’s because they are predicated on the spiritual wisdom of interdependence. (You can find out more about the Leadership Talk on my website.) A key reason the Leadership Talk has helped leaders get great, material results for nearly 25 years is its driving methodologies are fundamentally spiritual.

Globalization is forcing broad and deep changes in human relationships as organizations are being challenged to achieve greater results than ever before. When you understand that the best results come from practical processes bolstered with spiritual dynamics connected to tribal wisdom, you’ll have an opportunity to achieve an unmatched competitive advantage in the world marketplace.

2006 © The Filson Leadership Group, Inc. All rights reserved.

The author of 23 books, Brent Filson’s recent books are, THE LEADERSHIP TALK: THE GREATEST LEADERSHIP TOOL and 101 WAYS TO GIVE GREAT LEADERSHIP TALKS. He is founder and president of The Filson Leadership Group, Inc. – and for more than 21 years has been helping leaders of top companies worldwide get audacious results. Sign up for his free leadership e-zine and get a free white paper: “49 Ways To Turn Action Into Results,” at http://www.actionleadership.com For more about the Leadership Talk: [http://www.theleadershiptalk.com]

Article Source: https://EzineArticles.com/expert/Brent_Filson/1911

 

Leadership

Curiosit-Creativity-Commitment-The Three C’s of Leadership

People who get results are high impact leaders. They are consistent, explicit and concise and they command a presence when they walk into a room. They have enough charisma to turn the dullest moment into a high-energy event. When they move on, others want to go with them. Their openness and honesty creates a legacy which people admire and look up to. They gain commitment and foster trust.

Most of us are not born leaders. However, a good percentage of us long to become leaders of men and make deep connections in our careers seeking that ultimate leadership position. It may be Sales Manager, Warehouse Supervisor, Vice President, CFO or even CEO.

To achieve our leadership objective understanding the Three C’s of Leadership is essential:

o Curiosity

o Creativity

o Commitment

Curiosity

Every successful leader demonstrates a curiosity that would not be satisfied without personal examination of what exactly were the causes of failure to meet expectations. This was validated through NAW’s (National Association of Wholesaler Distributors) research “Profiles in Wholesale Distribution Leadership. http://www.nawpubs.org/orderform.html In this project, individual leadership models differed in their specific approaches. The common thread that linked every model together was their respect for the individual and the willingness and ability to listen with an understanding that embellished their own leadership contribution to the organization. The most obvious similarity between these the seven exceptional leaders interviewed was the fact that they were all curious, creative and committed.

Leadership is about curiosity, scenario planning, strategic planning and calculated risk taking. Effective leaders are excellent listeners that have tremendous questioning skills. The power of influence is often in the question and not in the answers. Effective leaders understand this concept. A common trait found in every successful leader I have ever been associated with is unhesitant curiosity. Curiosity about their markets, their business, their industry, their employees and what it takes to grow, prosper and create competitive advantage.

These leaders have accepted the fact that they may not have all the answers. More importantly, they recognize that they don’t have to have all the answers. Changing a leadership style is not the easiest thing in the world to do. Development of their leadership skills is a continuous process. This process includes:

o Enhancement of their instinctive curiosity and a strengthening of their focus on being a customer driven organization. Service and quality become a way of life within the organization and it is used to support their competitive advantage.

o Taking their vision and redefining it as an end game which challenges their executive team to create a strategic plan to meet this end game.

o The recognition that employees are the most precious asset and backing up that recognition by the willingness to invest profits in the development of these employees.

o Empowerment that is accompanied by the resources necessary to succeed and accountability for results.

o Utilizing a board of directors as a resource while sharing management challenges seeking policy and guidance, incorporating contingency planning and scenario planning as a regular exercise.
Wholesale distribution organizations increasingly are characterized by a large and incredibly complex set of independent relationships between highly diverse groups of people. To be successful, today’s leader must determine how to get active involvement built on a platform of creativity, commitment and curiosity out of their employees.
Creativity

Successful leaders take the time to listen, imagine and investigate numerous alternatives. With the involvement of people they forge creative solutions to difficult problems. They challenge their people to stretch, go beyond their previous boundaries and think outside the box. Successful leaders feed off their people and allow their people to feed off of them. They give credit where credit is due. They give recognition as a means of gaining respect. They believe individuals can make a difference. Through these methods they learn to create new insights and possibilities.

Successful leadership means creating a sense of urgency, getting mutual commitment to action. Action steps are always clearly defined and precise. Often, due to the personification of the leader’s own personality and charisma, employees are eager to leap into action – without forethought. A successful leader recognizes this possibility and takes the necessary steps to avoid this pitfall by teaching precision in planning. They are clear and explicit. They communicate with encouraging clarity that commands ownership by everyone involved in the commitments made.

The successful leader is constantly building advantages into the organizations. The belief is that you don’t always have to be better than your competition but you must be different. This concept demands creativity and innovations.

Commitment

Commitment is critical element to success whether the company is in a growth mode, a stabilizing mode or an acquisition mode or any other type of circumstance. Failure to demonstrate commitment by the leader can have negative consequences that inhibit success. Commitment is essential to developing trust. Trust is necessary to get people to reach down deep inside and give everything they have under the most difficult circumstances.

The reason people follow any leader, especially in the business world, is due to trust. The only way to develop trust is by demonstrating personal commitment to success. Talking to people with respect to gain their respect and demonstrating your personal work ethic is part of your commitment. Their respect is a key ingredient to developing trust. Trust is gained when people think the company cares about their welfare and recognizes the role they play in creating a profit.. People have to think that the company not only cares about their problems but that the leader and the company is committed toward making every effort to solve them.

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