Archive for the ‘leadership skills’ Category
Leadership Skills – Can You Learn Skills or Naturally Born With It
Is there such a thing as a natural born leader? That’s debatable. He/she is a “born leader”. Haven’t we all heard this statement made at various times? In the realm of royalty this appears to be the theory. In the realm of reality does this hold true or are leaders developed?
A new parent or grandparent gazing at their newborn family member is sure to see greatness. The truth be told there is no agenda or plan attached. We are born with character traits and potential into which skills, experience and environment play crucial elements. After all Mozart, Monet, Elvis, Picasso and Hemingway were not born musicians and artists but with the creative potential to develop into the exceptional artists they became.
Some people have the intelligence and personality to be a good or great leader but lack the ability and/or drive to capitalize on their aptitude. History shows us that even though some are born into leadership roles this does not always make for good leaders.
Leadership is a process of influencing others. Charisma is often described as the ability to charm of influence people and is key to leadership. It is a trait. With charisma you have the ability to attract attention and inspire confidence. You either have it or you don’t. It is not available at the convenience store. It must be combined with other traits and abilities to make a good leader.
Genetics plays a part .You may not be born to be a leader any more than to be a farmer, doctor or astronaut. Most people are not cut out to be leaders. They dislike speaking out, making changes, or conflict, all obstacles that leaders must meet.
Can leadership be taught?
West Point is a prime example of a leadership-training institute. West Point does not turn young men and women into leaders. West Point turns out leaders after providing them with the tools to develop the leader within. It doesn’t happen overnight, but it happens. Students who go to West Point see the potential officer inside themselves already. Those who go into training for high-end careers already have the traits of a leader: drive, ambition, a willingness to sacrifice for goals.
Universities teach leadership, private industry buys leadership programs, public schools teach and provide leadership opportunities to our youth. A lot of time, talent and money is spent on teaching leadership. Society has invested heavily in leadership training. It may not be possible to teach people to become great leaders but you can give them the tools to improve the leadership skills they possess. It is up to the individual to add the necessary ingredients such as determination, communication, influence and vision to lead effectively.
It well may be that a blending of hardwired character traits you are born with and develop along with skills and experience combine to create successful leaders.
However, leaders do come forth naturally. Watch the children on a playground. One will come forward with the idea of what game to play or activity to do and the others will follow. Life requires leadership, someone must make the decisions and others in turn will follow. If not we would all be standing one by one in solitude and our very existence would be lost.
Leadership Skills
Recent studies have shown that industrial supervisors are working at less than 60% of their potential. Basic management skills training is guaranteed to change all this and at such little cost.
Introduction
There is no doubt that the single most important aspect of a manager’s job is the management of people. Of course, a supervisor must manage resources other than people. However, none of the other resources compare in importance to PEOPLE. The challenge to manage people effective is unquestionably the greatest of all the challenges that face all managers.
The problem with people
It is estimated that there are over 6 billion human beings presently living on our planet and there are not two of us who are exactly alike. In other words every one us is unique. One of the greatest mysteries has been, and still is, to fully understand how we work. It has obsessed scientists and the great thinkers since the beginning of mankind. Our progress has been minimal and maybe we will never know.
A simplistic way for us to understand this complex issue is to consider a human like an onion with many layers. For example:
1. Hereditary traits
These are our genetic strings (DNA) that are passed down from generation to generation.
2. Personal values
These are created when we are children and are heavily influenced by our parents, etc.
3. Attitudes and beliefs
These are influenced by your personal values. It is what you think about things, situations and people. For example, you may enjoy romantic music but dislike noisy people.
4. Feelings
Feelings follow attitudes and beliefs. For example, you feel good when you hear romantic music.
5. Behavior
This is directly related to your feelings. For example, romantic music makes you smile, and people shouting makes you react angrily.
One of the important challenges for the great thinkers has been to determine to what extent can the features of each layer be changed or manipulated. This single study area has proved to be minefield of differing views that has resulted in enough books to fill many warehouses.
For our purposes, we will assume that once someone has reached working age then he has unchangeable values, attitudes and feelings. In consequence, the only layer that we can work with as a manager is the final layer – our BEHAVIOR.
However, it is important to understand how behavior has been influenced by the other inner layers.
Now that scientists have defined human DNA it is possible that future mankind can develop the perfect manager and then clone millions. However, in the meantime you will need this training manual!
The final factor in our simple equation is EMOTION, which has a profound effect on our behavior. It stimulates our love and caring behavior but also invokes violence and cruelty.
Statistic analysis
A lot of work was done in the 1960′s to evaluate what really motivated workers. The responses of thousands of workers were tabulated and ranked in order of motivational influence. Not only did these studies solidly support the basic theory but an unexpected phenomenon appeared.
Although the relative rankings were consistent, there was always large gap between the top six factors and all the others.
These statistics are quite remarkable and have never been seriously contested. However, it is very important to realize that the above list is not based on importance because the low scorers are high potential de-motivators if not at acceptable levels.
Another important factor is that many of the early studies and the resulting statistics concentrated on what made people feel good and maintained morale. This has now become more objective with more emphasis on what motivates people to be more productive.
What is leadership?
It is a natural requirement of human beings, like most other animal groups, to have leaders. There are many excellent wildlife films that show the dramatic and tragic process of leadership challenges in the animal kingdom.
In caveman days we probably did much the same. Although the group was not directly involved in these struggles they obviously supported the outcome. When mankind developed from being hunters to being predominantly farmers the leader role became more sophisticated and different qualities were required.
The Holy Grail of management
Throughout the history of management science there has been an unrelenting quest to find the holy grail of management success – a one best leadership style. As a result several main theories have emerged: trait theory, behavior theory, X-Y-Z theory and contingency theory.
The toolbox style
I like to imagine all the theories like a toolbox where some jobs need a delicate instrument but others a heavy hammer. The choice is dictated by the job you have to do and your knowledge and skill. The tools that you have and choose and the way that you use them will determine the success of the work, and management is exactly the same. Let’s look at the toolbox that you could have available if you choose to put them together and learn to use them.