Every leader needs personal power to operate in an organizational and corporate environment. Personal power is what a leader uses to get the job done and achieve results. Personal power is necessary and must be carefully balanced for optimum leadership effect.
There are five types of personal power for leaders. They include threat, reward, organizational or legitimate, expert and relational or relevant power. The effective leader must combine the use of all five and avoid the overuse in any particular power area.
This all leads to a very important concept and manageable competency. Leadership effectiveness is comprised of 25 percent job and technical knowledge, 25 percent integrity and ethical values and 50 percent relationships. The first two areas, job knowledge and ethical values represent core leadership credibility while the relationship piece is how a leader accomplishes his or her objectives.
This leadership effectiveness equation must be managed daily to insure that one area does not over-shadow any other. If technical and job knowledge is more in play than relationships, team performance, tone and loyalty will suffer. If integrity and ethics are at a higher than needed level, crusading and lack of approachability will occur. When relationships are weighted more than 50 percent, the team may not trust the leader. Balance in this effectiveness equation must be kept constant (LE = .25 JK + .25 I/E = .50 RE).
Monday, May 31, 2010
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Monday Mentor-Week 21-Saving People from Themselves
For those of us that are parents, we realize all the oxygen we used to tell the kids to not touch the stove when lit was absolutely wasted. We showed them. We told them it would burn. We said it was dangerous.
They touched it anyways.
It hurt. They learned their lesson.
And with that transaction, leaders should see a valuable lesson in how team members learn and grow. You will never be able to save your team members from themselves and you will never be able to warn them of all potential outcomes until they try something and fail themselves.
Like our children, the most valuable lessons for team members in their growth and development is often failure. Success teaches some lessons but the ones that stick with us the most are the points of our failure. As leaders, we need to allow our team members to fail for their ultimate growth and development.
Now a special note to those who may think this is reckless. When the risks associated with failure include physical harm, loss of organizational integrity or credibility, significant financial harm or even the loss of a great customer, the leader must mitigate this risk and prevent horrible things from occurring. By contrast, if the risks associated with failure are minor, even when you know the team member is going to fail, you must let them. They will never learn and grow if you do not let them fail.
Another area of allowing failure is in pure job performance. You cannot compromise your expectations of performance and behavior. If you compromise once, you will need to be prepared to compromise often. If the team member is not meeting expectations, they are not meeting expectations and need to receive your best efforts from a coaching perspective. If they are still not performing, the failure is theirs and not yours.
Not every team member is in the right job at the right organization. Effective leadership is not about saving everyone but about making sure the right people are in the right roles. It is not a failure on your part when you have to let a team member go after the right amount of coaching and teaching. If they have to go, they have to go. Both the team member and the organization need this transaction.
They touched it anyways.
It hurt. They learned their lesson.
And with that transaction, leaders should see a valuable lesson in how team members learn and grow. You will never be able to save your team members from themselves and you will never be able to warn them of all potential outcomes until they try something and fail themselves.
Like our children, the most valuable lessons for team members in their growth and development is often failure. Success teaches some lessons but the ones that stick with us the most are the points of our failure. As leaders, we need to allow our team members to fail for their ultimate growth and development.
Now a special note to those who may think this is reckless. When the risks associated with failure include physical harm, loss of organizational integrity or credibility, significant financial harm or even the loss of a great customer, the leader must mitigate this risk and prevent horrible things from occurring. By contrast, if the risks associated with failure are minor, even when you know the team member is going to fail, you must let them. They will never learn and grow if you do not let them fail.
Another area of allowing failure is in pure job performance. You cannot compromise your expectations of performance and behavior. If you compromise once, you will need to be prepared to compromise often. If the team member is not meeting expectations, they are not meeting expectations and need to receive your best efforts from a coaching perspective. If they are still not performing, the failure is theirs and not yours.
Not every team member is in the right job at the right organization. Effective leadership is not about saving everyone but about making sure the right people are in the right roles. It is not a failure on your part when you have to let a team member go after the right amount of coaching and teaching. If they have to go, they have to go. Both the team member and the organization need this transaction.
Saturday, May 15, 2010
Monday Mentor Week 20-Common Ethical Challenges
Ethical challenges for leaders come in all sizes and shapes. The most common challenge relates to the appearance of favoritism and the impact of that in the working environment.
Real favoritism is a devastating phenomenon. Favoritism is the open disparate treatment of subordinate team members in favor of another or other team members. Favoritism can suck the life out of a working unit. It will kill morale. It will segment team members against each other.
As damaging as real favoritism is the appearance of favoritism. This most often occurs when a leader attempts to maintain a friendship with one or more of their subordinate team members. It begins as a peer level friendship and then one friend is promoted and they attempt to maintain the friendship.
This never works. It may look like it is working but it never works. People will say things such as “we know the roles at work” or “she respects that I am the boss at work and we never cross over into our personal relationship.” Those statements are self-serving and naïve. No matter how you try, a friendship with a subordinate will cause grief and create an ethical dilemma.
The first thing you must consider is what the other team members see and feel. Regardless of your protests, they will always see an insider and someone who has your ear. Every decision you make will be questioned related to the maintained friendship. Divisions and segments will develop that may not be able to be repaired.
To be effective and to eliminate this ethical challenge, the effective leader rises and separates from friendships at subordinate levels. They leave all questions about equitable and fair treatment behind by closing off the friend level relationships they had at a peer level.
Real favoritism is a devastating phenomenon. Favoritism is the open disparate treatment of subordinate team members in favor of another or other team members. Favoritism can suck the life out of a working unit. It will kill morale. It will segment team members against each other.
As damaging as real favoritism is the appearance of favoritism. This most often occurs when a leader attempts to maintain a friendship with one or more of their subordinate team members. It begins as a peer level friendship and then one friend is promoted and they attempt to maintain the friendship.
This never works. It may look like it is working but it never works. People will say things such as “we know the roles at work” or “she respects that I am the boss at work and we never cross over into our personal relationship.” Those statements are self-serving and naïve. No matter how you try, a friendship with a subordinate will cause grief and create an ethical dilemma.
The first thing you must consider is what the other team members see and feel. Regardless of your protests, they will always see an insider and someone who has your ear. Every decision you make will be questioned related to the maintained friendship. Divisions and segments will develop that may not be able to be repaired.
To be effective and to eliminate this ethical challenge, the effective leader rises and separates from friendships at subordinate levels. They leave all questions about equitable and fair treatment behind by closing off the friend level relationships they had at a peer level.
Monday, May 10, 2010
Monday Mentor-Week 19-The Mechanics of Tone Setting
Good tone setting requires a couple of basic behaviors and skills that are applied on a consistent basis. Some leaders utilize these skills on almost a naturalized level, while others must embrace the skills on a more mechanical level.
The first step of good tone setting is the initial greeting of team members. For most environments that is the “good morning” at the start of the work day. To pull this off correctly, the greeting must sound sincere, upbeat and not, on any level, forced. The great tone setters will also include some relational dialog about family, interests or just the drive to work.
One epiphany moment exists in the initial greeting of team members. Leaders have a significant choice at the start of each day. On one side they have their office or cubicle where all of their work lives. New email, yellow sticky notes, files and stuff. On the other side is the team. You know, the people who do the work so you can be the leader.
When a leader chooses to take a few minutes and go to the office prior to greeting team members, they are telling the team that, at best, they are secondary in importance. Don’t be naïve. Your team notices that choice.
Another great tone setting skill is to demonstrate interest in team members. One of the many tests that we often administer in leadership training is to quiz the depth of knowledge about team members. Most leaders can recite the family composition of team members. Some leaders can talk about the interests, passion points and motivations of team members and a few can provide insight into location of origin, pets or other details.
A leader’s ability to show interest is a powerful tool. When you are able to follow-up on a sick spouse, inquire about the results of a soccer tournament or check on vacation plans, team members feel connected, respected and valued. Those are the team members that will work harder, faster and stay with you longer.
Another weapon in successful tone setting is the ability to laugh and lighten the mood. We always do serious work but often take ourselves too seriously. When the leader laughs, especially when times are challenging and tough, the team will respond in a very positive manner. Tense people do not work well and are not very productive and that message of tense is set by the leader.
The first step of good tone setting is the initial greeting of team members. For most environments that is the “good morning” at the start of the work day. To pull this off correctly, the greeting must sound sincere, upbeat and not, on any level, forced. The great tone setters will also include some relational dialog about family, interests or just the drive to work.
One epiphany moment exists in the initial greeting of team members. Leaders have a significant choice at the start of each day. On one side they have their office or cubicle where all of their work lives. New email, yellow sticky notes, files and stuff. On the other side is the team. You know, the people who do the work so you can be the leader.
When a leader chooses to take a few minutes and go to the office prior to greeting team members, they are telling the team that, at best, they are secondary in importance. Don’t be naïve. Your team notices that choice.
Another great tone setting skill is to demonstrate interest in team members. One of the many tests that we often administer in leadership training is to quiz the depth of knowledge about team members. Most leaders can recite the family composition of team members. Some leaders can talk about the interests, passion points and motivations of team members and a few can provide insight into location of origin, pets or other details.
A leader’s ability to show interest is a powerful tool. When you are able to follow-up on a sick spouse, inquire about the results of a soccer tournament or check on vacation plans, team members feel connected, respected and valued. Those are the team members that will work harder, faster and stay with you longer.
Another weapon in successful tone setting is the ability to laugh and lighten the mood. We always do serious work but often take ourselves too seriously. When the leader laughs, especially when times are challenging and tough, the team will respond in a very positive manner. Tense people do not work well and are not very productive and that message of tense is set by the leader.
Monday, May 3, 2010
Monday Mentor-Week 18-Work Ethic and Results Orientation
The final personal leadership self management competency set relates to work ethic and a little reminder about breeding sheep. Effective leadership requires a work ethic that is strong and committed. Committed to the betterment of the organization and the results required to be successful. Not committed to personal comfort and self-gain.
Work ethic is sometimes described as an intangible that is learned early in life or somehow genetically encoded in people. Work ethic is also derided by prior generations as being non-existent or diminishing in subsequent generations of team members. As a matter of historical record, this comparing work ethic unfavorably from generation to generation has been occurring for ages. The fact is that work ethic and commitment are learned skills and competencies like all others. When reward and feedback is provided for work ethic behaviors, work ethic improves. When no feedback or reward is provided for work ethic, it will be non-existent.
The effective leader must demonstrate a balanced approach to work ethic. You must not become a workaholic or work more hours just to work more hours. Your role is to work the amount needed to get the job done and be effective. You must also me a model of efficient behavior to get the most done with the most effective use of time.
Two very different challenges exist in leadership work ethic. The first is the challenge to personal comfort and self-interest. An effective leader must subordinate their own interests and comfort for the greater good of organizational successes. This will mean sometimes skipping a lunch, not leaving right at five or even cancelling a vacation. The effective leader is prepared to do this, not because of what it shows and demonstrates but because it is occasionally necessary. The effective leader also demonstrates this commitment silently and without grandstanding about it.
With companies and organizations going through difficult times, many leaders have learned negative lessons about commitment and work ethic. Some people translate layoffs, downsizings and reductions in compensation as the signal to disregard work ethic and commitment. This could not be further from the truth. Even if your company does not recognize or reward work ethic, you must set aside your self-interest and selfish motivations for greater organizational objectives.
The second challenge to work ethic is an over exaggeration of needed time on the job and becoming a workaholic. No one likes to work for a workaholic because they will never demonstrate the hours or commitment that he or she does. Followers will come to resent it and far too often workaholic leaders compare the time they put in to those of their team members.
Leaders must work and work hard but not fall victim to the mandatory seventy hour rule. Work when you have to. Be efficient in your use of time. Go home and have some balance in your life.
Results orientation is a simple competency for effective leaders. It is the drive and focus towards meaningful results for the organization. From a self-management perspective, it requires the discipline to recognize the behaviors and activities that are not productive and the resolve to redirect team members towards the achievement of results.
The orientation to results also require effective leaders to not overly rely on procedures, processes and policies but focus rather on the bottom line achievement. Within the boundaries of legal, ethical and safe, it is not the “how” that matters, it is the “what.” Result orientation also allows greater levels of participation and innovation from team members and avoids the dreaded “micro manager” label often assigned to leaders who are overly concerned with the discipline of process and not results.
Result orientation and sheep breeding are very closely related. In order to have a nimble, thinking, responsive team, you cannot breed sheep. Similarly, to achieve results and have effective result orientation, you cannot breed sheep. Effective leaders will challenge themselves to not manage the process but lead their team to the desired results.
Work ethic is sometimes described as an intangible that is learned early in life or somehow genetically encoded in people. Work ethic is also derided by prior generations as being non-existent or diminishing in subsequent generations of team members. As a matter of historical record, this comparing work ethic unfavorably from generation to generation has been occurring for ages. The fact is that work ethic and commitment are learned skills and competencies like all others. When reward and feedback is provided for work ethic behaviors, work ethic improves. When no feedback or reward is provided for work ethic, it will be non-existent.
The effective leader must demonstrate a balanced approach to work ethic. You must not become a workaholic or work more hours just to work more hours. Your role is to work the amount needed to get the job done and be effective. You must also me a model of efficient behavior to get the most done with the most effective use of time.
Two very different challenges exist in leadership work ethic. The first is the challenge to personal comfort and self-interest. An effective leader must subordinate their own interests and comfort for the greater good of organizational successes. This will mean sometimes skipping a lunch, not leaving right at five or even cancelling a vacation. The effective leader is prepared to do this, not because of what it shows and demonstrates but because it is occasionally necessary. The effective leader also demonstrates this commitment silently and without grandstanding about it.
With companies and organizations going through difficult times, many leaders have learned negative lessons about commitment and work ethic. Some people translate layoffs, downsizings and reductions in compensation as the signal to disregard work ethic and commitment. This could not be further from the truth. Even if your company does not recognize or reward work ethic, you must set aside your self-interest and selfish motivations for greater organizational objectives.
The second challenge to work ethic is an over exaggeration of needed time on the job and becoming a workaholic. No one likes to work for a workaholic because they will never demonstrate the hours or commitment that he or she does. Followers will come to resent it and far too often workaholic leaders compare the time they put in to those of their team members.
Leaders must work and work hard but not fall victim to the mandatory seventy hour rule. Work when you have to. Be efficient in your use of time. Go home and have some balance in your life.
Results orientation is a simple competency for effective leaders. It is the drive and focus towards meaningful results for the organization. From a self-management perspective, it requires the discipline to recognize the behaviors and activities that are not productive and the resolve to redirect team members towards the achievement of results.
The orientation to results also require effective leaders to not overly rely on procedures, processes and policies but focus rather on the bottom line achievement. Within the boundaries of legal, ethical and safe, it is not the “how” that matters, it is the “what.” Result orientation also allows greater levels of participation and innovation from team members and avoids the dreaded “micro manager” label often assigned to leaders who are overly concerned with the discipline of process and not results.
Result orientation and sheep breeding are very closely related. In order to have a nimble, thinking, responsive team, you cannot breed sheep. Similarly, to achieve results and have effective result orientation, you cannot breed sheep. Effective leaders will challenge themselves to not manage the process but lead their team to the desired results.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
