Posts Tagged ‘leadership development’

A Checklist for Changing Me to Change Them

Posted in Leadership, Mind Management, Personal Development on 06/09/2010 10:29 am by Kairology

Introduction by Ian Williams

I recently came across this very challenging checklist in an article, but could not find who wrote it. If anyone knows, please tell me! Whoever it was has really given us all some interesting things to think about. I have just purchased a new business in the hospitality industry, taking on a new team of about 15 people, plus my own three sons! In setting up a family business, including non-family employees, it will an interesting time for me to demonstrate as a leader what I expect of other leaders! See how you measure up on this lot!

Ian

A Checklist for Changing Me to Change Them

“The cruelest lies are often told in silence.” — Robert Lewis Stevenson, 19th century Scottish poet, novelist, and essayist

We can’t build a team or organization that’s different from us. We can’t make them into something we’re not. Failing to follow this principle is the single biggest reason that so many team and organization change and improvement efforts flounder or fail. The changes and improvements we try to make to others must ring true to the changes and improvements we’re also trying to make to ourselves. The following is a checklist:

Are You Trying to Make Your Organization or Team Into Something You’re Not?

To What Extent am I:

  • Attempting to change my organization or team without changing myself?
  • Prodding my organization to be more people (customer/partner) focused when I am a Technomanager (driven by management systems and technology)?
  • Driving for industry or market leadership when I am afflicted with the Pessimism Plague and/or Victimitis Virus?
  • Striving to stimulate and energize others when I am not passionate about my own role and life’s work?
  • Promoting organization or team vision, values, and mission when my own picture of my preferred future, principles, and purpose aren’t clear and/or well aligned with where I am trying to lead others.
  • Pushing for a customer-driven organization while controlling and dominating, rather than serving (servant-leadership)?
  • Aspiring to develop new markets and fill unmet needs while spending limited time with customers, partners, or those serving them?
  • Trying to build a learning organization when my own rate of personal growth and development is low?
  • Declaring the urgency of higher levels of innovation while I stick to familiar personal methods and traditional command and control management approaches?
  • Aiming for disciplined organization or team goal and priority setting when I am not well organized, a poor personal time manager, and fuzzy about my own goals and priorities?
  • Setting organization improvement plans without an improvement process of my own?
  • Promoting teamwork and a team-based organization without providing a personal model of team leadership and team effectiveness in action?
  • Supporting high levels of skill development for everyone else?
  • Forcing accountability, performance appraisal, and measurement on others while I defend, avoid, or half-heartedly gather personal feedback?
  • Proclaiming empowerment and involvement while controlling and limiting people with a centralized structure and systems that constrain rather than support?
  • Talking about the need for better communications without becoming a strong and compelling communicator?
  • Establishing formal reward and recognition programs when my personal habits of giving sincere recognition and showing genuine appreciation are weak?
  • Espousing support for change champions while suppressing “off the wall” behaviour and pushing people to follow my plans and stay within in my established system?
  • Advocating reviews and assessments while doing little personal reflection and contemplation?

What do my answers tell me about my leadership? Does this exercise help explain the positive, negative, or so-so results of the team and organization improvement efforts I lead? My reflections are important, but an even better source of feedback are the people on my team or those in my organization who know my leadership behaviour well enough to give me some feedback. Ironically (and tragically), managers who need it most — the weakest leaders — are the least likely to ask for this kind of feedback.

 

The 7 Lies of Limiting Leadership

Posted in Ian’s Articles, Leadership, Personal Development on 01/07/2010 03:40 pm by Kairology

This month, I’m looking at the common lies around leadership, and how they impact on people and business. Next month I’ll be publishing the related truths of good leadership.

The 7 Lies of Limiting Leadership by Ian A Williams

This article was published in NZ Business Magazine Jan/Feb 2010

Too many people fall short of their potential in the leadership game, and also fail to enable or enhance the leadership of others. Ian Williams provides an interesting insight into some of the barriers to great leadership. In this issue, Ian shares with us his belief about some of the common lies about leadership, and in the next issue we follow this up with his account of the seven truths.

My passion for good leadership often leads me to observe and reflect on what happens in the workplace for individuals and teams. I listen out for comments and frustrations, and have concluded that there are some common misunderstandings about leadership issues, which I have summarised as the seven lies of leadership.

1. I’m not a leader

The person who thinks they are not a leader is in denial, and has missed the point about leadership. Everyone is leading someone - whether or not they know it, recognise it or want it. Even if we are on the same level, we lead our colleagues in some respects. We may lead projects, team tasks, or even a staff outing! We also lead our children and others among our families and friends. At the very least, we leave ourselves - or at least we should! Our only limit on personal leadership is what we put in place for ourselves, or how we allow others to limit us.

2. They (or I) have been trained

The magic land of training is where organisations send people for a few days, and expect them to come back as leaders. A whole host of courses and events, or any kind of qualification, doesn’t make a leader. Training and development will inspire people, inform them, give them practice, provide experiential learning, build confidence, build competence and skills - but all of this will not produce a leader. Too often I go into organisations, and they struggle to understand why their trained leaders are not leading effectively, despite the huge investment made. No human being can be fully trained in leadership, because it comes from within, and needs to be drawn out by line managers and others who are willing to coach people and give them the space to lead. As part of one-to-one coaching, they build experience and confidence and nurture the leader.

3. There’s a personality clash

This is one of the most wonderful leadership cop outs. While personalities do clash to some extent, and ‘problem people’ do exist, the challenge is to deal with it, rather than use it as an excuse for effective leadership. Leaders are accountable for their own relationships, and the relationships around them. They need to rise to that challenge and find strategies for having people work together. Too much time and money is wasted in avoidance, and in living with the consequences of poor relationships. Get people focused back on the goals, find specific reasons to their difficulties, and facilitate finding and implementing the solutions. If necessary get some help, but making work, rather than listen to excuses.

4. They won’t step up

This is often the concern of senior managers who feel that either their people will not step up to lead, or that they fail to step up to strategic leadership from operational. The key to this one is identifying the blocks. Is it a question of won’t or can’t? Are they willing? Are they capable? Are they confident? In my experience the ‘won’t’ part of this question is the lie. If the block is about skills, abilities, and/or confidence, it falls back on the senior leader to coach. Sometimes, it’s a case of making clear to people what you see as strategic versus operational. Ironically, the most common cause for people not stepping up is senior people holding them down. They too often hold on to strategic issues for themselves, tell people what the decision is, and then wonder why everyone is frustrated! If you want to grow strategic leaders, involve them in strategic leadership.

5. Not a people person

How does anyone walk the earth and deny being a people person.  People are everywhere, and we can’t avoid them. And if we want to get anywhere with anyone, getting along with people isn’t a luxury but a necessity. So unless you’re a hermit, or you’re in denial of your leadership role, you have to get on with people. You have to employ others who do this too. If someone is described as not a people person, they need to be given the feedback and required to do something about it, in order to lead themselves and other people. The key here is identifying the specific behaviour that causes the person to think this of themselves, or for it to be attributed to them. Then they need to do some self coaching will be coached. There are three aspects to balanced leadership: task, team and individual. If the leader is not a people person, they are missing two-thirds of their job; so in fact, they are not a leader but a person who just does jobs.

6. It’s not my style

We read about and experience all sorts of leadership styles. There is no right or wrong, they are just different. Any leadership style becomes inappropriate if it is used in the wrong way, in the wrong circumstances, or at the wrong time. That is of course the essence of situational leadership. An effective leader is able to use a range of styles appropriately. They fool themselves, and everyone else suffers, when they are attached to one favourite style, come what may. You will have met the constant bully, the habitual delegator, and the absentee. Adopting just one style is simply me centred, and the leader has to listen, learn and adjust if they are to motivate people and achieve tasks. They need to model a range of styles, so that others are learning from how they operate practically. After all, what is at stake if you have a leader who is not leading effectively?

7. Know it all, done it all

We’ve all met the magic leaders who have made it! We had better sit and listen to them, and sit back while they either do it themselves or give the orders! Who are they fooling with this lie? Individuals and teams are always different. Situations, resources, tasks and circumstances are always different. No season is the same; there is no constancy but there is always change. We all bring our experience and knowledge, we bring the benefit of wisdom, but we still need a refreshing quantity and quality of ideas, and the excitement of discovering something new together. It’s this sense of contribution to creativity and synergy that keeps people engaged. No one has the monopoly on knowledge, wisdom, ideas and solutions. The know-it-all leader is living a lie and fools no one but themselves. Don’t stand for their robbery.

I hope that some of these resonate with your own experience, and that you have found some ways to overcome the lies, and to stand up for the truths. Let’s stop kidding ourselves with all the hype about leadership, and get some of the simple things sorted out for ourselves and those we influence!

 

Team Leadership - Lead Your Team, Don’t Manage It

Posted in Leadership, Management, Strategies, Team on 11/18/2009 03:09 pm by Kairology

Introduction by Ian Williams

Here’s a good article that has some good, simple hints and tips in leading teams. What often causes leadership to fail is allowing teamwork to go stale. It needs constant rejuvenation to keep motivation alive, and new thinking and ideas flowing.

Ian

Team Leadership -  Lead Your Team, Don’t Manage It by Andrew Gowans

Team management in the context of setting tasks, prioritizing, monitoring progress, agreeing and setting performance measures is all relatively straightforward.

If you don’t agree - get help now!

Let’s talk about your true value added, let’s talk about Leadership, Development, Empowerment and Having Fun

Being responsible for a team, large or small, is a serious business. Getting the best out of people takes creativity, guidance and perseverance.  If our team members lose focus, fail to achieve the group’s goals and objectives, we should be held accountable.  What am I saying?  You knew that when you took on the job.  Didn’t you?

Only you know your team (Or at least you should).

This article cannot comment on a special team situation you may have.  However, what it can do is focus on maximizing the benefit you get every time you get together with your team(s).

Examples of Spending Time Together:

Departmental Meetings

Task Force Special Project Team Training Session Workshops Team Briefing Product Review Customer Visits Focused Improvement Group

I’m sure you can add more.  However, you’ve guessed it - any setting where there is a sense of purpose, common goals, and a desire to achieve success by being part of your particular team.

Any of the above examples can be highly motivating, rewarding, and productive.  They can also be time consuming and costly.  Have you ever measured how much time you spend in a ‘team setting’?  Have you ever calculated the cost to the business?

Wasting time and resources is definitely one of my pet hates. And, yet, I’m probably as guilty as the next person  - losing focus, digressing, being reactive instead of proactive - even simply just having a bad day.

However, let’s keep things in perspective.

As a team, be single minded in achieving the common goals through that shared sense of Purpose and Direction, through that shared Vision BUT don’t get boring in the process.

For me, a key attribute of good leadership is having team members who

Enjoy being part of your team Have a strong desire to contribute Believe their contribution is valued Want to develop the team not just themselves Are recognized outside the team for their achievement Have fun

All of that isn’t as daunting as it may seem.

So, again, in the context of leadership and maximizing the value and benefit to be gained from a team setting, what are some of the positive things we can do as team leaders?

Suggestions

Publish agendas or session flows in advance with enough time for team members (including yourself) to prepare for that team session.  Why not invite inclusions to the agenda.

If the session is going to be a long one, break it up into manageable sections, take breaks.  Be creative, have some fun, do some exercises.  I personally would not go more than 50 minutes, an hour, before taking a break.

Introduce quick 15-20 minute training sessions any meaningful and contextual topic or theme. e.g. Giving and Receiving Feedback, Brainstorming, Setting S.M.A.R.T. Objectives. Empower team members by a) Have each team member prepare and deliver the training session and b) Have another team member facilitate the training session.

Deliberately have a non-context topic or theme on the agenda but, again, one that will add value and benefit participants - e.g. invite a technical expert or different functional / departmental head to give a 15-20 minute presentation on what and why they do what they do (This can be as good as having an actual break).

Before the formal session starts, get each team member to ‘dump’ - get rid of all the stuff in their head that’s going to prevent them from focusing on the task(s) in hand. Caution team members need to feel safe and comfortable to do this.  It also needs to be carefully led so it does not get out of control.  Most importantly, it needs to comply with the team’s agreed ground rules that were set at the formation of the team.

Continually develop individuals - give others the opportunity to prepare and publish the agenda for the next team session, empower them to lead and facilitate the session and to write the follow-up review afterwards (apart from anything else, it gives you a rest! ).  Further development can be achieved by inviting other team members to provide constructive feedback - with the knowledge that they too will be given the same developmental opportunity and will also be receiving ‘constructive’ feedback.

Have fun and celebrate successes.  Take time out, have a bbq, have a picnic, supply the supper when the team session’s a late one.

Lead by example at all times. Show the team that your business, their business is a serious one with specific goals and expected results BUT the best way to achieve success is through ongoing individual and team development, empowering others to succeed and having fun along the way.

*****

Andrew has over 20 years experience providing personal and business coaching specialising in strategic planning, continuous improvement, personal development and lifelong learning.

Providing a focused problem solving approach through our personal and business coaching (especially to small businesses). Our primary theme and overriding goal is to provide you with the right choices that fit your needs, solve your problems.

Want to discuss any of these articles further - no problem.

The quickest way to contact Andrew is to visit his internet marketing website, http://www.youraffiliatecoach.com and click on the “Your Request Form” button on the navbar.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?Team-Leadership—-Lead-Your-Team,-Dont-Manage-It&id=223864

 

Proof Positive

Posted in Leadership, Management on 06/30/2009 11:24 am by Kairology

Introduction by Ian Williams

This CIPD article is well worth a read. Once again it reinforces that developing and supporting leaders is crucial for survival and growth in a difficult business climate. We all consider the ‘employee engagement’ issues, but the another concept I was reminded of here is ‘discretionary effort’ – the extra mile we need to get from people every day when we’re up against the big challenges.

Another important aspect of survival is going beyond survival mode into visionary work, in order to inspire and motivate everyone towards future thinking – beyond present worries and distractions. We’re encouraged here to check out the difference between straplines and core values – are they consistent?

Great stuff for inspiration here!

Ian

Proof positive by Rob Goffee and Gareth Jones

Good leadership can help to ensure that the recession doesn’t turn organisations into miserable, creativity-sapping places to be.

As we struggle through the most serious economic crisis since 1929, it’s clear that we do not yet know what the business landscape will look like when we do finally emerge from the recession. What we do know, however, is that leadership is more important than ever and organisations that are well led have much more chance of surviving these turbulent times. This is not the occasion to take your eye off critical processes of leadership development – and smart organisations know this.

Perhaps the most significant contribution of good leadership is the provision of meaning and purpose. As the great – and sadly departed – American writer Studs Terkel famously observed: “Work is about daily meaning as well as daily bread; for recognition as well as cash; in short, for a sort of life rather than a Monday-through-Friday sort of dying. We have a right to ask of work that it include meaning, recognition, astonishment and life.”

If we are not careful in this downturn, poorly led organisations will become miserable places to be. Creativity and innovation are inextricably linked to energy, edge and fun, but the processes of organisational attrition are in danger of crushing the creative spirit that is essential to drive us out of the current malaise. In the knowledge economy, critical to the future of Western Europe, the challenge is not to follow tradition and attempt to “get more” from your clever employees.

Open any conventional management textbook on organisational behaviour and you will see an obsession with extracting more value from recalcitrant workers through the latest fashionable techniques of “motivation”, “engagement”, pursuit of “discretionary effort” and so on. Our view is almost the opposite - the task is to make organisations more attractive to your already valuable, clever people. So often while researching our new book, Clever – Leading Your Smartest, Most Creative People, we have observed talented individuals being turned off by bureaucratic process, by internal politics and - above all – by inadequate leadership.

So what are the essential ingredients of successful leadership in these troubled times? And what are the implications for HR professionals?

The conventional wisdom has it that in uncertain times the role of the leader is to provide certainty but our observations of leaders suggest that the most effective offer not the illusion of certainty but the promise of constant change and adaptability. Leaders cannot see the future but they can and must communicate a compelling picture of what the future might look like. It is an over-used concept but vision remains important. The leader must communicate what the organisation stands for, what its purpose is and which values give it coherence. It is when organisations are in difficulties that their true commitment to core values can be most severely tested. In a world awash with information overload, the leader’s visionary voice must be distinctive in order to excite others to exceptional performance.

Barack Obama exhibited exactly that quality of exceptional communication skills in convincing the American electorate that, despite the turmoil, change was possible. He repeatedly resisted the temptation to engage in dirty politics – first with Hillary Clinton and subsequently with John McCain. As organisations contract and inevitably become more political there is a lesson here for business leaders. They must on the one hand understand the political manoeuvring and on the other they must remain - and be seen to remain - above it. It is clear that in his first 100 days as US president, Obama acknowledged problems rather than attempted to deny them.

One preliminary conclusion from these observations is that in turbulent times steadfastness is a leadership virtue. Not in the sense of having a fixed view of what will happen next, but by being true to a set of core values. A naïve reading of this point would suggest that all the leader has to do is to be their authentic self. But that’s not enough. Change will require that they play different roles in different contexts. Effective leadership involves a complex balancing act between using your authentic differences and adapting your behaviours to context. Being authentic is not about being the same all the time. The most effective leaders are authentic chameleons. The chameleon always adapts to context but remains a chameleon.

Effective leadership in these difficult times requires managing a series of inspirational tensions. Three are especially significant in a downturn.

First, since leadership is always contextual - leading in a pharmaceutical company is different from leading in a shipyard – the ability to read and adapt to context is vital. Effective leaders have a real sense of “what’s going on” – they keep one ear firmly to the ground. Remember the old fad of “managing by walking around”- it contained one great truth. You need to be in a position to collect soft data, to know what’s going on before the management information system tells you.

In the current economic climate business leaders are being tested not only by their ability to know what is going on – but also by their capacity to articulate meaning; to make sense of the situation. Andrew Higginson, chairman of Tesco Personal Finance, believes that the unpopularity of the retail banks represents a significant opportunity for the retailer to further apply its popular brand to the financial services business. And the flamboyant boss of Ryanair, Michael O’Leary, welcomes the recession. In his view it will kill off poor operators and show what a great business Ryanair really is.

Both of these examples demonstrate that the challenge for leaders is to both read context and rewrite it. In difficult times the danger is that our business leaders become entirely trapped by circumstance. The leadership skill is to not merely react but to proactively and constructively reshape.

Second, it’s obvious that right now strong task focus may be a prerequisite of survival. Leaders will be energetically focused on hard-nosed, tough prioritisation – including cutbacks and cost control – but this should not be at the expense of team or organisational cohesion. If people must leave, they must leave with dignity. Recessions are not an excuse to be nasty. Nor a time to throw away the cultural characteristics which hold organisations together and make some of them special. BMW, for instance, along with many other automobile manufacturers, faces very difficult times. But the task of the leadership is not to lose the passion for great motor cars that characterises the organisation. They must go on believing in and articulating “the ultimate driving experience” – not a strapline but a core value.

Third, it is inevitable that sensing situations and building team cohesion will require social closeness; a degree of intimacy and identification between leaders and followers. A sense that “we are all in this together”. The criticism attracted by some senior business leaders stems from the view that they continue to pay themselves bonuses while others suffer. But “strong identification with the troops” should not limit the ability of leaders to step back and see the bigger picture – indeed, paradoxically, this is a key situation-sensing skill. They will need to make tough decisions and social closeness cannot get in the way.

Leadership is never easy – nor recipe driven. But right now we need it more than ever. As we have argued, it necessarily involves several tensions. Don’t claim to know the future – but articulate a vision. Understand the politics – but remain above them. Respond fast to situational demands – but act to reshape them. Focus relentlessly on task – but build team cohesion. Identify with your followers – but be prepared to be distant. Be your authentic self – but recognise that you have different, and difficult, roles to play.

So what does this all add up to for HR? First, and most immediately, the current turbulence must be seen as an opportunity to provide “crucibles of experience” (to quote US leadership guru Warren Bennis) for existing and potential leaders. Second, we should avoid the trap of assuming that in uncertain times, the only motive is the search for security. There is a mountain of evidence that for some members of your team this is a wonderful opportunity for risk-taking autonomy and personal development. Third, in these difficult times of headcount reduction and cost control, don’t become the Department of Misery. It is vital to keep your eye on the longer-term strategic people issues of your organisation.

Lastly, the biggest long-term challenge for UK plc is likely to be a talent drain as our best and brightest reassess their options in a low growth, high debt economy. Collectively, the UK HR community faces a creative challenge to make sure this doesn’t happen.

HR top tips

  • Concentrate on making your organisation attractive to value-creating people
  • Prepare people for change
  • Don’t be the nasty department
  • Hold things together by focusing on the values
  • Guard against negative politics

About the authors

Rob Goffee is professor of organisational behaviour at London Business School. Gareth Jones is a fellow of the Centre for Management Development at London Business School and a visiting professor at IE Business School in Madrid. They are the co-authors of Clever – Leading Your Smartest, Most Creative People (Harvard Business School Press, forthcoming) and Why Should Anyone be Led by You? (HBSP, 2006).

Publication date: 18 June 2009

Source: People Management magazine (UK)

 

Personality, style and your relationships with others

Posted in Ian’s Articles, Leadership, Personality & Style on 03/21/2009 03:18 pm by Kairology

This month I have selected three articles which have a theme around personal style in relation to others. If as leaders we want to get the best from people, we have to value them. That means ensuring they feel included, that their confidence and skills are being built, and that we lead others as we would like to be led ourselves. Leadership comes from position, knowledge and character, and we should be prepared as leaders to demonstrate all three. That includes being attractive and likeable – I know firsthand that people leave leaders, not organisations. Don’t be shy of wanting to be liked! Why else would people want to be around you?

Keep watching Kairology.com for a range of articles on these personal values and leadership styles.

 

Leadership in Times of Change - How Can a Manager Protect the Team?

Posted in Leadership, Management, Team on 03/15/2009 03:47 pm by Kairology

By Ken Long

You are in a leadership position in your workplace and a combination of internal and extra pressures demands that your organization changes to remain relevant in your marketplace. What roles do you see for yourself as a manager in leading and managing the required change? If you decide that you need training and education to help your people through the transition time, what should you look for in an effective change management program?

This article will shed light on both of these important issues for you and help guide your initial steps in the process. 

It’s extremely important for managers to support both the change management process in the final form of the change as decided by the organization and its leadership. Hopefully your process for change management will include a lot of input from first-line leaders and your workers because they are in a position to know most about the likely impact of the change. They will also be in a position to find innovative ways to implement the change for best results. That said, your role as a manager is extremely important.

Your role in supporting change should include:

Helping your people to understand and interpret change and the impact on team members.

Encourage them to view change and the anxiety it can cause team members as natural and inevitable.

Be a source of strength and encouragement to assist team members as they adjust to change.

Make sure that your process will involve team members in the process of change.

Be sensitive to your people’s needs in order to help team members make the change.

Make sure that you follow up on the initial meeting to make sure adjustment to the change is going as planned.

Your active participation in the change management process especially as applied to these six areas will ensure that you get the best possible results going forward. Your team relies upon you to ensure that our process as well as our results are a high-quality experience.

Ken Long, Chief of Research, Tortoise Capital Management : www.tortoisecapital.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Ken_Long http://EzineArticles.com/?Leadership-in-Times-of-Change—How-Can-a-Manager-Protect-the-Team?&id=1434452