Category Archives: Leadership

Leadership

6 Key Steps To Becoming The Best Possible Leader

Although, many seem to seek, a position of leadership, few become the best – possible leaders! After, over four decades, of involvement, in nearly, everything, involved, with leading, from identifying and qualifying, to, training, developing and consulting to thousands of actual, and/ or, potential leaders, as well as, serving, personally, as a leader, on several occasions, I realize, one of the reasons, for this apparent, lack of/ dearth of, genuine leadership, is, far – too many groups, ignore (or fail to recognize), the importance of taking, seriously, consistently, using, a customized, professionally – designed, training program! With, that in mind, this article will attempt to, briefly, consider, examine, review, and discuss, 6 key steps, needed, to becoming, the best leader, possible.

1. Know, and understand, the organization’s niche, history, heritage, etc: A smart, first – step, is to fully understand, the specific organization’s niche, history, and heritage, and its relevance, in – terms – of, what matters, most, in the shorter, and longer – terms! Without this knowledge, and understanding, how can any leader, hope to, and/ or, expect, to get – through, to his past, present, and potential stakeholders?

2. Identify the group’s strengths, and weaknesses: What are the specific group’s strengths, and weaknesses, and what are the causes/ reasons, for this? How can every strength, be effectively, used, to its maximum potential, while comprehensively, addressing, areas of weakness, and/ or, potential areas? What are the obstacles, and which, may be transformed, to an obstacle, rather than a problem?

3. Expand your personal comfort zone: Wise, effective leaders, proactively, expand their personal comfort zones, rather than limit themselves, by considering, only, the same – old, same – old, approaches, etc! It is essential to put service and representing others, ahead of any personal/ political agenda, self – interest, and/ or, protecting his comfort zone!

4. Listen effectively/ learn/ Empathy: Only, when one, effectively listens, and learns, from every conversation and experience, and gains greater, relevant, expertise, with the objective of obtaining better judgment, and, hopefully, wisdom, his potential to be a better leader, is enhanced! Great leaders proceed, with genuine empathy, and use it, to determine their emphasis!

5. Strategic and action plans: Great leadership requires knowledge, experience, commitment, and discipline, and realizing, strategic planning, is essential, to making a difference, for the better! This must then, be transformed, to perceiving and conceiving of, creating, and implementing, the finest – possible, action plans!

6. Articulate an inspiring, motivating message: When one uses the first – five steps, and then, proceeds, to articulate, an inspiring, motivating message, he maximizes his chances, to become, the best possible leader!

Do you want to become a great leader? Are you up the necessary tasks, etc?

Richard has owned businesses, been a COO, CEO, Director of Development, consultant, professionally run events, consulted to thousands of leaders, and conducted personal development seminars, for 4 decades. Rich has written three books and thousands of articles. His company, PLAN2LEAD, LLC has an informative website http://plan2lead.net and Plan2lead can also be followed on Facebook http://facebook.com/Plan2lead

Article Source: https://EzineArticles.com/expert/Richard_Brody/492539

 

Leadership

The Myth of Leadership Development

Developing leaders is a major strategic action for most large organizations and a multi-million dollar industry for training firms, consultants and universities. But if we have got the meaning of leadership badly wrong, much of this investment could be wasted. There are at least 3 problems with contemporary leadership theory:

1. Leaders are portrayed as occupying positions of authority over others which means that you can’t show leadership until you are in charge of people.

2. The idea that leadership is a learnable skill set fosters the impression that you can’t be a leader without training.

3. By associating leadership with emotional intelligence, what Daniel Goleman himself said is another word for maturity, the impression is created that you cannot lead until you grow up.

The bottom line is that leadership, as currently conceived, is an exclusive club for management level employees, something that those at the front line can only aspire to once they develop the relevant skills and maturity. This is a colossal waste of talent.

Dispersed Leadership and Employee Engagement

A different vision of leadership portrays it as something all employees can do. Certainly, the claim “not everyone can be a leader” is most definitely true when the focus is on what it takes to be a senior executive or even a front line manager. However, when leadership is defined simply as promoting a better way, then all employees who take a stand on any job-related issue, even in a very local, small scale manner, can show leadership to their colleagues and upward to their bosses. Because being a leader is glamorous, all employees can feel more engaged and motivated if they can see themselves as leaders even if they don’t manage anyone. So-called informal leadership means something different – informally taking charge of a group. Simply promoting new directions has nothing to do with being in charge, formally or otherwise, of a group of people.

Examples of Leadership Re-defined

” When Martin Luther King Jr. influenced the U.S. Supreme Court to rule segregation on buses unconstitutional, he had no managerial authority over that organization.

” When the Sony employee who influenced top management to adopt his proposal for PlayStation, they did not report to him.

” A new customer service employee might set an example of a better way of serving customers without being in charge of anyone.

” Whenever you influence your boss to think differently you have had a leadership impact on that person.

None of these examples entails managing the people on whom the leadership impact was felt. The leader sells the tickets for the journey and we need to upgrade our concept of management to take

care of driving the bus to the destination. Of course, further injections of leadership might be required enroute to resell the merits of the journey, but the bulk of the work in getting there requires good management skills. Management needs to be reconfigured as a nurturing, empowering and facilitative function, not just a mechanically controlling one.

Executive Development

What really gets developed in so-called leadership development programs are rounded executives. The truth is that leadership, conceived as challenging the status quo and promoting new directions, is based on youthful rebelliousness, something that is not a learnable skill set. When front line employees with no subordinates stand up for their ideas, they are showing leadership to the broader organization. So-called leadership development programs actually turn employees who are already leaders into managers. This is no bad thing. Organizations need good managers.

This view stands the conventional picture on its head: it is the front line knowledge workers who are the real leaders in organizations, not their managers. Of course, executives can also show leadership, whenever they too promote a better way.

The Benefits of Redefining Leadership

The main benefit is making it clear that all employees can be leaders and that, to do so, you don’t need all the skills associated with being in charge of people. You just need a good idea and the courage to defend it. Further potential benefits include better motivation and engagement of all employees, more innovation and front line ownership, better talent retention and less pressure on senior executives to show all the leadership a complex organization needs.

Why Make the Shift?

Leadership is based on power, traditionally the power of personality to dominate a group. This may still work in politics and public sector organizations but in businesses that compete through rapid innovation, the important power is the ability to generate new products and processes. In a war of ideas, leadership should mean the ability to successfully promote new ideas. So, the reason for making the shift in how leadership is defined is simply that the world is changing from one of stable, physical work to one of dymanic mental work.

See http://www.leadersdirect.com for more information on this and related topics. Mitch McCrimmon’s latest book, Burn! 7 Leadership Myths in Ashes was published in 2006. He is a business psychologist with over 30 years experience of leadership assessment and executive coaching.

Article Source: https://EzineArticles.com/expert/Mitch_McCrimmon/79532

 

Leadership

Turbo Charge Your Career With The Most Powerful Leadership Tool Of All: The Leadership Talk: Part 2

In Part One, I described the Leadership Talk and how it is a much more effective leadership tool than presentations or speeches.

I also described two fundamental premises that the Leadership Talk is based on.

In Part Two, I will show you the purpose of the Leadership Talk. You won’t be able to give a Leadership Talk effectively on a consistent basis if you misunderstand its purpose.

The Leadership Talk doesn’t drive purpose. Purpose drives the Leadership Talk. There is one and only one purpose of the Leadership Talk: that’s to motivate people to be your cause leaders in meeting the challenges you face.

This is important in understanding the difference between Leadership Talks and presentations/speeches.

You’re a leader. You have a task to complete. Do you want the people you lead to simply do the task? Or do you want those people to actually take leadership of accomplishing the task? For the difference between doing and leading in terms of accomplishment is stock car and a formula 1 racer.

Clearly, you can order them to accomplish the task; and if you’re in a position of authority, they will most likely carry out the order. But they might not do it with full commitment. Or they may resent being ordered. Or they may be inclined to do nothing unless ordered, and so after accomplishing the task, they do little else but wait for the next order.

However, their committing to take leadership involves your establishing a special relationship with them.

For instance, going back to the example I used in Part One, if one is a floor sweeper, one does the best floor sweeping, not simply by doing it but by taking leadership of floor sweeping.

Such leadership might entail: taking the initiative to order and manage supplies; evaluating the job results and raising those results to ever higher levels; having floor sweeping be an integral part of the general cleaning policy; hiring, training, developing other floor sweepers; instilling a “floor sweeping esprit”that can be manifested in training; special uniforms and insignias; behavior, etc.; setting floor sweeping strategy and goals.

Otherwise, in a “doing” mode, one simply pushes a broom.

You may say, “Listen, Brent, a job is a job is a job. This leadership thing is making too much of not much!”

Could be. But my point is that applying leadership to a task changes the expectations of the task. It even changes the task itself. Think of it, when we ourselves are challenged to lead and not simply do, our world is, I submit, changed.

Furthermore, though you may order people to do a job, you can’t order anybody to take leadership of it. It’s their choice whether they take it or not.

This is where the Leadership Talk comes in. Using it, you set up the environment in which they make that choice.

The Leadership Talk is not only the most important way to get cause leaders; it is the only way to get them on a consistent basis.

In the final part of this three part series, I’ll show you how to develop and deliver a great Leadership Talks.

2005 © The Filson Leadership Group, Inc. All rights reserved.

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 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 20 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 on the Leadership Talk: [http://www.theleadershiptalk.com]

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

 

Leadership

The 5 I’s Of True Leadership!

After, more than four decades, of personal involvement, in nearly, all aspects, related to leading/ leadership, from identifying and qualifying, to training, developing and consulting to, thousands of actual, and/ or, potential leaders, to serving, personally, as a leader, on several occasions, I strongly believe, many factors are involved and significant, but, the 5 I’s are often, the keys, to true leadership! These must be considered, and utilized, if one wishes, to be a leader, who makes a difference, for the better! With, that in mind, this article will attempt to, briefly, consider, examine, review, and discuss, what these mean, and represent, and why it matters.

1. Integrity: Without genuine integrity, one will never become a real leader! Why should anyone, listen, and believe, anything someone proposes, or says, unless/ until, they truly, believe, the particular leader, maintains absolute integrity! This cannot be, simply, behavior when convenient, but, absolute! Remember, especially, these days, someone is always watching/ observing, so, focus your energies, on, consistently, maintaining these efforts!

2. Imagination: While it’s important, to, think – outside – the – box, and proceed, with a well – developed, and considered, relevant imagination, this must align, with the combination of the history, heritage, mission, vision, perceptions, priorities, and goals, of the specific organization, etc! Since, there is, no such thing, as a born – leader, it is important, and relevant, to select individuals, who, clearly, are ready, willing, and able, to proceed, and take, meaningful, relevant, imaginative steps, for the best interests of his groups, and stakeholders!

3. Issues: How can anyone serve, unless/ until, he clearly, understands, and recognizes, the essential issues, facing his group, and which need, attention? How do these things, impact, the organization’s best interests? Why are these the top priorities, and how does one, decide?

4. Instincts: Great leaders need to develop, and maintain, as well as, consistently use, the most relevant instincts, in order to differentiate, between, real needs/ priorities, and lesser matters! It takes skill, and understanding, to have and maintain those, which might best serve, the relevant, sustainable needs, of the particular organizations!

5. Ideas/ ideals/ ideology: It takes the right combination, and alignment of, the ideas, ideals, and ideology, for someone to be ready, willing, and able, to be a real, true, quality leader! This must be actual, rather than, empty rhetoric, etc!

Will you pay attention, to these 5 I’s, of true leadership? Are you, up to the tasks, and necessities?

Richard has owned businesses, been a COO, CEO, Director of Development, consultant, professionally run events, consulted to thousands of leaders, and conducted personal development seminars, for 4 decades. Rich has written three books and thousands of articles. His company, PLAN2LEAD, LLC has an informative website http://plan2lead.net and Plan2lead can also be followed on Facebook http://facebook.com/Plan2lead

Article Source: https://EzineArticles.com/expert/Richard_Brody/492539

 

Leadership

Leadership Frameworks That Cause Evolution

Designing for development is a critical leadership skill. If we design our social and physical environments properly, we can evolve as humans and societies, keeping important leadership frameworks in mind. Here’s a fun way to do that.

Leadership principle: The environment causes evolution, so design it carefully
Animals show us how we can evolve by adapting to our environment. Polar bears have white hollow fur in a double layer to protect against cold and camouflage them in the snow. Meerkats have dark fur around their eyes to reduce glare from the sun to see long distances. Tigers have stripes to help them camouflage in the jungle.

Some clever animals design their environment to support them. In Canada, I have pulled many a canoe over a beaver dam. Beavers make dams by chopping down (rather, chewing down) trees to stem the flow of the creek or river, and thus to catch fish.

Humans are the biggest deliberate creators of their own environment. We have commanded much of the planet’s resources to suit our own needs. Not always with a great result, mind you.

We need to evolve as a species to solve the problems we’ve created. Paradoxically, we can design our environments to stimulate our development. Here’s how.

Our environment needs new leadership skills and abilities if we are to contend with the complexity and volatility we’ve created. To help us evolve quickly, we can design environments that stimulate our thinking and our leadership ability.

Leadership principle: Engineer your success

1. Physical Space

When it comes to environmental design, this is the most obvious one. Everything in our physical world has a message. Marie Kondo told us to assess everything through the, “Does it spark joy?” lens. I would add, “Does it cause me to think and feel differently?” “Does it challenge my default?”

Some examples are: my list of 1 year, 10 year, and 100 year goals. These keep me focused on what’s most important. Art that is challenging or unusual does something similar. Photos of the planet from space also remind me to think globally.

2. Social Space

Who we hang around is critical to our emotional well-being. Our most intimate relationships should be put through the “do I feel happy and loved around them?” lens. We can also choose people who challenge what is possible. I recently caught up with colleagues in Melbourne, Colin Ellis and Jaquie Scammel. Both these people are dedicated professionals with big visions and absolute conviction in service to their clients. Their energy was infectious and uplifting! When stretching our own possibilities, we can be elevated by other people’s success.

Choose people who challenge you to stretch.

3. Thinking Space

This space has two concepts to it: space to think, and what fills your thinking space.

Space to think: our brain needs time to process all the stimulation it receives in our fast, blinking, instant world. We need to add natural landscapes and no screen time to our daily experience. We need to let our brain rest and give it time to process all the gigabytes of data. It needs to make connections and consolidate memories. Giving the brain a rest from consuming things is crucial here.

What fills our thinking space: read widely, especially from people who disagree with you. It’s one of the best ways to develop perspective.

Reduce the rubbish. There’s plenty on offer in social media and news feeds to stimulate our dopamine-addicted brain. Steer clear of that, or at least put some strong boundaries around it.

When we upgrade our environments, we can’t help but think and feel differently. This is how we cause our deliberate evolution. So let’s get intentional; be, think, and do bigger and better by designing environments that demand it of us.

https://www.zoerouth.com/news/leadership-frameworks-evolution

Article Source: https://EzineArticles.com/expert/Zoe_Routh/59420