Gifted Leaders

How Does Your Leadership Need to Change?

“Instant, mindless cutting of R&D or training or salesforce travel in the face of a downturn is often counterproductive - or, rather, downright stupid. Tough times are in fact golden opportunities to get the drop, and the long term drop at that, on those who respond to bad news by panicky across-the-board slash and burn tactics and moves that de-motivate and alienate the workforce at exactly the wrong moment.” - Tom Peters

The truth is that, in challenging times, we often revert to a more command-and-control-like style of leadership. In the long-run, this style has a destructive impact. It leads to worker disengagement and creates teams and organizations that are incapable of effectively adapting to change, solving problems, and overcoming challenges.

According to author Margaret Wheatley, the higher the risk or the greater the challenge, the more necessary it is to engage everyone’s commitment and intelligence. When leaders hold onto power and refuse to distribute decision-making, they create slow, unwieldy, Byzantine systems that only increase risk and irresponsibility. We never effectively control people or situations by these means, we only succeed in preventing intelligent, fast responses.

So ... How does your leadership need to change?

Leadership is Responsibility. Pure and Simple.

“Leadership is not about money, fame and power; leadership is responsibility.” - Peter Drucker

Oh, if we all could really grasp this powerful truth and put it into practice!  What a different place the world could and would be.

Bill George expands on Drucker’s thinking and proposes four key tasks for 21^st century leaders in the October 2008 edition of Leadership Excellence:

1. Align. Align people around a common mission and values.
2. Empower. There’s that word again! Empower others to step up and lead, as opposed to exercising power over others to get them to follow you. By empowering people, you motivate them to contribute, leading to both individual and organizational success.
3. Service. Authentic leaders serve their employees and customers and become “servant leaders.”
4. Collaboration. Today’s problems are too complex for any single leader or organization to solve. They must be addresses through collaboration - bringing people together who have the combined capabilities to resolve the problems.

What will you take responsibility for?

Liberating the Gifted Leader within You

“To become a successful leader, you must be able to effectively self evaluate ... to be able to step out of yourself on occasion and view your own behavior with objectivity. This enables you to make powerful and personal choices about how you relate to the people to whom you provide leadership.” - From the Los Angeles Business Journal (2000)

You’re a leader.  And the single most important factor in whether or not you’re an effective leader is your day-to-day ability to communicate with people. Nothing else has more impact on productivity, quality, morale and retention.

To be successful, you must develop specific partnering skills - the ability to facilitate conversations for mutual understanding and an aptitude for building relationships and community. Gone are the days of the command-and-control manager. No one wants to work for someone who simply gives orders daily and conducts evaluations annually.

Today’s workers want leaders who will coach them by listening actively, asking important questions, and providing the direction and support they need to reach their personal development goals, not just the company’s goals. The most effective leaders empower their colleagues to achieve greater levels of performance.

So you’ve got to develop the mindset and skills needed to lead in today’s challenging business climate. How in the world do you do that in addition to everything else you're responsible for? 

Get a coach! After all, one of the most effective ways for you to learn how to be coach-like with your people is to be actively coached yourself.

Coaching is no longer seen as a "fix it tool" for leaders with problems. It’s a way for successful leaders to be even better.  It’s a way for you to reach your full potential - to liberate the Gifted Leader within you!

The University of British Columbia's Organizational Development and Learning Department noted that, “Coaching is currently the most effective tool for professional development and is now used by people of all levels of an organization to attain their goals.”

Coaching is quite possibly "the missing link" in our traditional approach to learning.  Combined with training and the day-to-day lessons of life, it can be the catalyst that leads to transformation!

Download the free e-Book, Liberating the Gifted Leader within You

Empower (No, Really)

“Empowerment is loosely talked about and discussed as if it really happens in most organizations. It doesn't. I will admit that it's complicated. There are some risks that cannot and should not be taken. But ultimately any organization that is committed to growing leaders and remaining healthy must truly empower their staff.” - Dan Reiland

Writing in The Pastor’s Coach e-Newsletter, Reiland elaborates:

Empowerment isn't a birthright, or something to be taken lightly. At its core it's about trust and the giving of meaningful responsibility. Empowerment isn't a license for someone to do what they want. Empowerment is about releasing someone to do what is needed. Empowerment isn't about following one's own agenda; it's about doing the right thing for the organization. But in that right thing, there must be true freedom, not micro-management. It's tough, I know. None of us get it right all the time. But get in the game and give it your best shot. Give staff the room they need to lead.

How empowering are you as a leader?  What could happen if everyone on your team or in your business were truly empowered?

Take Off the Mask, Stop Trying to Be All Things to All People

“Trying to do everything can lead to burnout. Trying to live up to some ideal often traps leaders behind a mask of competence, afraid to admit to confusion or to not knowing the answers. But if they don’t get input, they can go off course. It can also be harmful because if everybody thinks the leader has all the answers, people don’t think for themselves and learn to lead.” - Deborah Ancona

The myth of the complete leader goads some managers into a futile effort to be all things to all people. The result can be damaging to the person and the organization, says Deborah Ancona, professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management. In a recent Harvard Business Review article, In Praise of the Incomplete Leader, Ancona and her coauthors state that “It’s time to end the myth of the complete leader; the flawless person at the top who’s got it all figured out.”

No leader is perfect. The best ones don’t try to be - they concentrate on honing their strengths and find others who can make up for their limitations.  For more, read The Complete Leader is a Myth in Computerworld, Feb. 5, 2007.

No leader can do it all!  How can you make peace with your shortcomings and build balance in your organization?