Natalie Schneider Leadership

Archive for December, 2011

We take it for granted that leaders have good communication skills, can motivate people and get results. This article explores seven advanced competencies that set truly great leaders apart.

1 – Courage

A true leader is prepared to go out on a limb to get results. Be prepared to face difficult or risky situations with resolution, self-possession and confidence. Motivate others to follow in such situations. Go for it.

2 – Vision

Have a clear purpose and be able to paint a picture of your vision to others. Mediaeval leaders used symbols on their shields and banners representing their cause, which acted as a rallying point for their followers. What is on your banner?

3 – Inspiring Followership

Why should I follow you? What makes it worth my while? Identify what motivates your followers and capitalise on it. Take notice of their level of willingness to follow you, and adjust your behaviour, communication and example-setting to build their willingness.

4 – Serving

“I lead by serving, I serve by leading”. Serving in a leadership context is a two way street. The leader serves a higher purpose, whether it is a corporation, a deity or an ideal. The leader also serves their people. When you give to those around you as much as you expect them to give to you, you will be rewarded by respect and trust from motivated and inspired followers.

5 – Advocacy.

Present compelling arguments in favour of your cause, idea or policy. Actively demonstrate support for the issue. Be ready to speak fluently and passionately about your cause. Great leaders are inspirational when talking about or debating their cause.

6 – Decision-Making

Sometimes it’s tough; sometimes it feels like any decision you make is full of pitfalls, but as a leader you have to make decisions. So make your decisions with conviction, display confidence in your decisions, take ownership of them and follow them through to implementation.

7 – Entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurs show agility, speed of response and independence of thinking, driven by the awareness of threat from competition or market conditions. An entrepreneurial leader harnesses this sense of urgency to get results. Leaders with this attribute dream big dreams and achieve big goals.

There is no shortage of leadership experts. Peruse a list of what various coaches, consultants and trainers offer and you’ll find many different subjects, but they all seem to have something like “and leadership” somewhere in the mix. Browse the shelves in your library or favorite bookstore for books on leadership and you’ll find no shortage of volumes on the subject. In fact, a search of the word “leadership” on Amazon.com returns 81,285 titles. So, there are plenty of answers available. But are you asking the right questions. Here are 6 questions you should ask about leadership development in your organization. With these questions, and maybe a couple of your own, you can narrow that search.

1. What do we really need? Are we looking for one-time training for a person who has a problem or do we need something a little more robust? If we need something for just one individual, why? Is it really just an issue with one person or does that issue indicate a more organization-wide problem? No single shot or short-term effort will produce lasting results. First time supervisors and managers need a different level of training than executives.

2. Are we, as an organization, taking leadership development seriously, or is it a hit and miss proposition? Should we have a leadership development program that is part of the organization’s culture?

3. How complex should our leadership development program be? Are we trying to create professors or practitioners?

4. Do we have a sufficient pool of more senior leaders who can be mentors? If not, what do we need to do to develop those senior leaders?

5. What is the best delivery method? Will an on-line type training program really meet our needs? Can we depend on people in the organization to actually accomplish training programs on-line? Would real-time, in-person training be more beneficial and provide a better return on our training investment?

6. If there is already a leadership program in place, is it effective? Does the program provide real training with follow-up and on-going support or does it seem like a bottomless pit into which we’re constantly throwing money to buy the latest thing?

When you have seriously considered these questions you’ll be in a much better position to critically evaluate the many options that are available. Note that these questions refer to a leadership development program. Developing leaders is an on-going effort, not a one-shot requirement to be accomplished with a single seminar or motivational book. Leadership development should be part of your organization’s culture. Is it?

Is there a difference between management and leadership? Differing opinions abound, though most experts do indeed distinguish between the two. This brief article examines the key characteristics associated with effective management and leadership behavior in the workplace and makes a case for the necessity of both skill sets, though in varying degrees at times, for organizational excellence.

Synonymous?

As mentioned above, some experts think of leadership and management as synonymous terms, using them interchangeably when discussing the subject. Others view these terms as very different indeed – almost as extreme opposites, with very little overlap. A third position is one that seems most sensible to us – that while differences between leadership and management exist, perhaps there are times when the two can and do overlap and that we often need both to achieve excellence.

Doing the right thing vs. doing things right

An old and well-known proverb states that leadership is, “doing the right thing,” while management is “doing things right.” While an obvious overgeneralization, this distinction presents a useful starting place for thoughtful consideration of the similarities and differences between effective management and leadership behavior. Review of the literature lead to development of the comparisons below which outline some of the major attempts to describe the two fields in the simplest of terms:

- The Leader focuses on Alignment; the Manager on Organization.
- The Leader focuses on Vision/Direction; the Manager on Process Control.
- The Leader focuses on the Big Picture; the Manager on the Details The Leader has a Strategic focus; the Manager a Tactical one.
- The Leader has his/her eye on the Horizon; the Manager has an eye on the Bottom Line The Leader is all about Change; the Manager is all about Stability
- The Leader Challenges the Status Quo; the Manager accepts the Status Quo
- The Leader is comfortable with Informality; the Manager operates with Formality
- The Leader is focused on Effectiveness; the Manager on Efficiency
- The Leader focuses on Styles and Approach; the Manager focuses on Skills
- The Leader Releases Potential; the Manager Uses Existing Abilities
- The Leader mainly uses the Power of Influence; the Manager mainly uses the Power of Authority
- The Leader Facilitate Decisions; the Manager Makes Decisions
- The Leader Investigates Reality; the Manager Accepts Reality
- The Leader asks “why” and “what”; the Manager asks “how” and “when”

Which is best?

By laying out the two functions side-by-side like this some clarity about the terms starts to emerge. Exclusion of any skill or ability can negatively impact success, and so the game becomes more about drawing on both skill sets over time, in differing proportion. Hence, we can see that both leadership and management are important. But can we now determine in what proportion, in most circumstances?

Moving up the organizational ladder

Another factor to consider is that of positional responsibility within the organization. Classic theory tells us that management (tactical skills) is more critical to success at lower and mid-levels of management while leadership (strategic abilities) is used more often at senior or upper management levels. While this simple differentiation presents another gross generalization, it can start us thinking about how individual roles might take on a given emphasis in one direction or another.

Mixing and matching

Another way to look at split and degree of emphasis is to put leadership and management into a classic, four-quadrant relationship grid, and looking at the resulting combinations of high and low skills. In this way one can examine the resulting interaction, or even “style” that occurs as a result of the expression of high and low levels of each variable as we shown below.

* Strong Leadership but Weak Management Visions detached from reality Alignment without organisation Multiple projects culture slowly emerges Strategies lack support and formal planning

* Strong Leadership and Strong Management Inspirational visions and strategies Widespread organisational alignment Integrated planning and control of resources Full employee empowerment and commitment

* Weak Leadership and Weak Management No vision or strategies Poor planning and resource allocation Out of control processes Employee disaffection and frustration

* Weak Leadership and Strong Management Processes grow more unwieldy and/or bureaucratic Over-specialisation/standardization More policies and procedures evolve Controls stifle creativity/innovation

Strong/ Strong is Optimal

It is now quite clear that, in most cases, both strong leadership and strong management are desirable, and that one is not necessarily more important than the other. Given this conclusion, the focus shifts to evaluation of the question of whether we have enough good management behavior, and enough good leadership behavior in order to thrive and move ahead.

How much is good enough?

Assuming that the organization is not occupying the bottom left corner of the previous relationship grid, if we need to add more leadership then the emphasis will be on greater use of the communication process (in both directions), pulling people together and creating more widespread team commitment (among other things). If, on the other hand, we need to add more management, then the emphasis will be on greater standardization or specialization, the establishment of more formal structures and greater control of systems (among other things.

Summing up Ultimately, organizational success rests on a healthy balance of leadership and management and we need to learn how to make sure we have enough of each and in the right proportion for the circumstances. To learn more about this topic, visit our Leadership and Management Forum [out] at the ReadytoManage Webstore. Individuals interested in learning more about their own Management and Leadership Skills may be interested in checking out the Leadership Effectiveness profile and the Management Effectiveness Profile, both of which can be found in the Leadership and Management Forum or in the webstore.