You have within you the skills to become an accomplished leader. It is not true that leaders are just born and not made. Take a moment to think about who in your life has influenced you greatly? Who do you admire? Who would you follow? That person is a leader. ?My guess is that they had to work hard all their life to earn that position.
The difference between managers and leaders is that managers have employees; leaders have followers. Managers often get given the role; leaders have to earn it. Moreover, there is no fixed formula for great leadership, but there are many paths to excellence.
Over the course of 2012 I want to share with you how you can become a highly respected, successful and accomplished leader. My thoughts are based on 26 years of experience, but these insights will not just come from me. I will be pooling many great minds and asking many renowned authors and authorities on leadership to share their thoughts with you to. Together we want to build a community of great leaders who live fulfilling and enjoyable lives, learn how to build winning teams of people and build within their organisations a sustainable high value, high performance culture.? This programme of learning will be entirely free. Why? Because so many companies have stopped investing in the development of their people, I thought I would give them and you a helping hand. So if you would like to join us, all you need to do is subscribe and get as many people in your team to join in too.
The plan:
Every week, for the next 20 weeks I will post:
- Tried and tested methods of leadership philosophy
- Fresh insights into how you can lead your teams differently and make a difference
- We will hear what some of the world?s greatest leaders have to say. Sometimes indirectly, others directly.
- I will provide you with practical, highly effective leadership tools to do your job better and begin a journey of lifelong learning and self-improvement.
- For all intents and purposes I will be your on-line coach.
To be sure not to miss all 20 articles in the series, you can do these four things:
- Subscribe and bookmark this site
- Make a diary note to spend up to an hour a week here over the next 12 weeks
- Like us on Facebook and Twitter to receive notifications of when the material is released.
- Tell me what you think by leaving a comment ? what else would you like to see in this series?
Are you ready to start your journey. Well here we go?
Leadership qualities
Before you can start acting like a leader, you need to understand what leadership traits you need to develop, in order to become like a great leader. I will repeat this because its important. You can develop the skills you need to become a successful leader, no matter what field you are in.
In the table below I have listed two groups of leadership traits and I want you to give each one a score between 1 and 20. But you can only use each number once. I.E. no trait must have the same number (basically you are placing them in an order of what you feel your strongest verses your weakest traits are. I am happy for you to cut and paste the table onto a word document ? you might want to keep a track of your scores over time.
Although I have separated the boxes with the left hand box representing more junior leadership qualities and the right hand box representative of a strong and accomplished leader it is important that you score both boxes. This is called self-assessment. It only works if you are truly honest with yourself. Especially the more senior you are in the organisation ? as Fred Goodwin, ex Chief Executive of RBS will testify. ?The higher you get, the further you have to fall?. Understanding your current skill set, by being honest with yourself, will enable you to gain a real insight into your own personal strengths and weaknesses. Before you go ahead and self-assess, I would like to share with you a really powerful poem written in 1934 by Dale Wimbrow:
The Guy In The Glass
When you get what you want in your struggle for pelf,
And the world makes you King for a day,
Then go to the mirror and look at yourself,
And see what that guy has to say.
For it isn?t your Father or Mother or Wife,
Who judgement upon you must pass.
The feller whose verdict counts most in your life
Is the guy staring back from the glass.
He?s the feller to please, never mind all the rest,
For he?s with you clear up to the end,
And you?ve passed your most dangerous, difficult test
If the guy in the glass is your friend.
You may be like Jack Horner and ?chisel? a plum,
And think you?re a wonderful guy,
But the man in the glass says you?re only a bum
If you can?t look him straight in the eye.
You can fool the whole world down the pathway of years,
And get pats on the back as you pass,
But your final reward will be heartaches and tears
If you?ve cheated the guy in the glass.
?Dale Wimbrow, 1934.
Ok lets score:
| Junior Leader Traits | Score | Senior Leader traits | Score |
| Self-awareness? | Energy | ||
| Enthusiasm? | Passion | ||
| Goal orientated? | Tough minded | ||
| Good listener? | Confidence and self-belief | ||
| Creative? | Competitive | ||
| Attention to detail? | Visionary | ||
| Influence | ? | Inspirational | |
| People developer | ? | Strategic thinker | |
| Collaborative | ? | Emotionally and culturally intelligent. | |
| Solution orientated | ? | Change catalyst |
?
(This list is not exhaustive, but it?s a great start)
Interesting? I would encourage you to share this table to your team and get them to score you anonymously ? you may get a whole new perspective.
Now, I am going to introduce you to two tried and tested leadership development models which will help you to re-evaluate by taking a good long hard look in the mirror.
The first is called a SWOT analysis. You may have heard of it being used by companies to develop their business strategy, but it can be equally powerful as a tool for individuals to identify their Strengths; Weaknesses; Opportunities and Threats (S.W.O.T.).
Originated by Albert Humphrey in the 1960?s SWOT remains a powerful and relevant tool for you to use in today?s increasingly competitive world to give you an edge over your competition.? It helps you to define your current situation (your strengths and weaknesses) and plan for self-improvement to give you a better future (your opportunities and potential threats). I recommend you spend at least half an hour alone writing out (in bullet points) everything you can possibly think of that might fit into any one of the four boxes below. I have given you some pointers to get you started. A good SWOT will have at least 10 areas identified in each box ? so dig deep?
 | |
| Strengths | Weaknesses |
| What are your dominant personality traits and emotions that help you to get on in life?What do you do well?What resources do you have at your disposal?What do other people see as your strengths? | What are your limiting paradigms/beliefs?What areas of your life do you struggle with most?Where do you have fewer resources than others?What are others likely to see as a weakness in you? |
| ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? | |
| Opportunities | Threats |
| What opportunities are open to you?What trends could you take advantage of?How can you turn your strengths into opportunities? | What threats could harm you?Where does your competition have the edge?What threats do your weaknesses expose you to? |
| ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? | |
?
The SWOT analysis then becomes an excellent planning and goal setting tool (more to come on goal setting in article no. 3) in order to keep you one step ahead of the competition.
Here?s a great thought provoking Japanese proverb: ?When you are thirsty, it?s too late to start digging a well.?
Useful? See what the guys at MindTools? have to say about SWOT. Have a look at their video and check again ? have you covered everything in your own personal SWOT analysis?
OK, so what next I hear you say? I want you to focus on your strengths and opportunities. Far too many companies nowadays keep getting people to draw up Personal Development Plans based on addressing their weaknesses. I don?t agree with this strategy. Nor does ?Susan Tardanico from Forbes Magazine who reports:
?Business culture has long focused on weakness prevention, with managers and leaders spending untold time and energy trying to address deficits in themselves and their employees. It becomes a quest to fill the gaps where one doesn?t have natural capability. Taken to the extreme, it attempts to make people someone they?re not.
While we?re busy trying to fix ourselves and others, we often minimize or completely overlook our most powerful asset?our strengths. Strengths are a person?s innate talents, things they do well naturally. Every person has them, and when identified, nurtured and channeled appropriately, they can have a dramatic effect on job satisfaction and bottom-line performance.
Indeed, research suggests that the most successful people start with a dominant talent and then add skills, knowledge and practice into the mix. In other words, we stand a greater chance of success if we build on our authentic selves?who we already are?beginning with our innate strengths. Perhaps even more significantly for employers, a powerful connection exists between employees? levels of engagement and the extent to which they maximize their strengths on the job.?
So, develop a plan which focuses on honing your strengths and realising your opportunities. For now I want you to let the weaknesses take care of themselves. By the end of this 20 week programme, I will be asking you to re-write your SWOT ? you will be amazed at how far you have come and how many weaknesses simply won?t exist or matter anymore.
Now think about combining what you have learnt about yourself so far with the next model.
The Johari Window:
The Johari Window was originally developed by two American psychologists called Joseph Luft and Harry Ingham. They named the model by combining their first names, Joe and Harry. (Johari). The Johari Window model is used by leaders seeking to become more self-aware. It represents information ? feelings, experience, views, attitudes, skills, motivation, etc ? within or about a person in relation to their group/team, from four perspectives.
The diagram shows how others can see into our ?window?. It is their perception of who you are.? The public arena changes the more you communicate about yourself, e.g. ?what I know about me and what you know about me = larger window?.
????????????????????????????????????????????? Johari Window
| ? | Known by Self | Unknown by self |
| ? ?Known by others | Open/ free area ? ? ? | ? Blind area |
| ? ?Unknown by others | ? Hidden area ? ? ? | ? Unknown area |
A great deal of information has been published about the Johari Window on the Businessballs website. Click here for more information.
| Open/Free Area?? ? ? | Blind Area ? ? ? | |
| Hidden Area ? ? ? | Unknown Area | |
?
The essence of the Johari model is that the size of each area changes to reflect what you know about yourself and what other know and are saying about you. This is very important for leaders as the more you know about your own strengths and limitations, the more you are able to play to your strengths. You may decide to address your limitations or build a team of people around you who have the expertise you may lack. The late Steve Jobs was a master at recognising peoples talents and bringing them into his team to plug gaps in his or the teams knowledge. The late great Andrew Carnegie who despite being regarded as the second most richest man in history (1835-1919), had words to this effect on his tombstone ?Here lies a man who knew how to get around him, people who were cleverer than he?.
Leaders who consciously display a larger open/free area have strong self belief and make it their purpose in life to communicate with the people around them, sharing both their personal vision and aspirations and those of the business. They can relate to their team, engage in banter, socialising (to a degree) and open discussion. Their door is always open, but their mind is also open to new ideas. They are considered approachable and they know what motivates their team. Such leaders practice self-reflection and have their own agenda of continuous personal improvement through self discovery. As such they demand high standards of their people, but they set and live by those standards themselves. Consequently they can be challenging and difficult to work for, but inspirational at the same time. You will find the more you can share with your team and lead by example, the more they will learn about your values and what makes you tick; the larger the top left window. Often this larger window leads to a greater degree of respect for the leader as the risks of the other windows recede ? backbiting and undermining in the blind area; assumptions and avoidance in the hidden area; lack of trust and respect in the unknown area.
Leaders can also increase the size of the open/free area through a process of disclosure and 360 degree feedback from the people they interact with. Getting people to share (anonymously) what they really think about your style and what you could do to improve and get the best out of your team can be enormously enlightening.
Here?s a useful exercise. If you were to describe yourself to your team/boss and could only do it in the form of a picture, what would you draw?
What does your window look like?
What picture do you want people to see when they look inside?
| ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? |
The exercises I have shared with you are designed to open up neurological pathways in your brain and tap into your emotional intelligence (much more to come on EI in article 19). Ultimately the most accomplished leaders, who create resonance within their organisation, have been shown to have very high levels of emotional intelligence. ?Developing strong emotional intelligence begins with developing self-awareness. Daniel Goleman writes in The New Leaders (a MUST have in your portfolio):
?Self-awareness means having a deep understanding of one?s emotions, as well as one?s strengths and limitations and one?s values and motives. People with strong self-awareness are realistic ? neither overly self-critical nor naively hopeful. Rather, they are honest with themselves about themselves. And they are honest about themselves with others, even to the point of being able to laugh at their own foibles.
Self-aware leaders also understand their values, goals and dreams. They know where they?re headed and why. They?re attuned to what ?feels right? to them. .. Because the decision of self-aware people mesh with their values, they more often find their work energising?
Perhaps the most telling (although least visible) sign of self-awareness is a propensity for self-reflection and thoughtfulness. Self-aware people typically find time to reflect quietly, often by themselves, which allows them to think things over rather than react impulsively.
Summary
I hope you have found this first article of great help at the start of your journey. As Lao-tzu (tao te Ching 6th Century BC) once said ?He who knows others is learned. He who knows himself is wise?
I encourage you to spend the next 7 days really analysing yourself.
What do you want out of life? How ambitious are you? What motivates you? What is your dominant strength and primary motivator? What do you want to be remembered most for? Is your Johari an open or closed window?
If you can answer all these burning questions, you will be well on the road to becoming an authentic leader. Next week we will look at one of the core leadership traits ? that of Enthusiasm. Here?s what Henry Ford had to say about that:
?Enthusiasm is the yeast that makes your hopes rise to the stars. Enthusiasm is the sparkle in your eye; it is the swing in your gait; the grip of your hand; the irresistible surge of your will and your energy to execute your ideas. Enthusiasts are fighters. They have fortitude. They have staying qualities. Enthusiasm is at the bottom of all progress ? with it there is accomplishment, without it there are only alibis.?
If you enjoyed this article don?t forget to follow these four steps:
- Subscribe and bookmark this site
- Make a diary note to spend up to an hour a week here over the next 12 weeks
- Like us on Facebook and Twitter to receive notifications of when the material is released.
- Tell me what you think by leaving a comment ? what else would you like to see in this series?
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muammar gaddafi muammar gaddafi lord monckton lord monckton andy kaufman october 21 2011 ohio
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