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Unleashing Your Remarkable Potential
Issue 1.16 - November 17th, 2004 - ISSN: 1551-6571
Are You Playing or Practicing Leadership?
Anne was a new supervisor, and like many new supervisors she took the new role as a manager and leader seriously. She took advantage of training that was offered to her. She learned how to do performance reviews effectively, listened to other leaders to learn from them. She read several books recommended to her by others.
More importantly she tried hard to apply what she was learning. Anne was practicing leadership.
When we are diligent in practicing anything we are consciously practicing our skills. We are trying things again and again to get better. We are focused on fundamentals. Something happens to many of us though when we begin to get comfortable with our new skills – whether they are leadership skills or sewing skills or tennis skills. We stop practicing and start playing.
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What is the difference?
When we can consistently get the tennis serve in, we tend to want to play matches more than to continue to practice that serve. Once we have the sewing basics down (or so it seems) we want to make something. In both cases our focus moves to something other than getting better – because that is what “practice” is for.
Are you playing or practicing leadership?
This question applies to brand new supervisors and experienced leaders. If you want to improve your skills as a leader you have to practice, not just play. Here are five things you can do to continue to practice your leadership skills.
Be a continuous learner. We practice to get better. Anne as an eager (and maybe scared) new leader was like a sponge. She soaked up everything she could learn about leadership. Practice requires new information and knowledge, be it in the form of advice from a person, a book, or observation. Remain open to new ideas and then consciously integrate them into your leadership activities.
Get feedback. If you are practicing a sport, you expect a coach to give you feedback on your progress. Your practicing of leadership should be no different. Many organizations have a 360 process that allows leaders to get feedback from those they lead. This feedback can be valuable, but you can get feedback without this formal process. Ask people how you are doing. Ask them specific questions about specific situations. At first they may not provide you much information, but if you consistently ask and obviously value the input (by doing something with it over time); you will get more insights from people. Get feedback from other leaders as well. Build a network of people you can get ideas and feedback from.
Reflect. You can read, ask and do all sorts of things to collect ideas and approaches. All of it is valuable. But none of that can be applied effectively without you taking time to reflect on it and determine what will work for you and why. The best practice includes a chance to personally reflect on your work. As a speaker and trainer, I take time after every workshop, seminar or speech to reflect on what I did, why I did it, what I would do again, what I should adjust, etc. The same process is necessary for us as leaders. Be mindful of your results. Review them in your mind. Make decisions for “next time.” Without a commitment to reflection you will always compromise the benefits you can gain from practice.
Try new things. The learning, feedback and reflection will be of no tangible use unless you do something with it. A practice mindset allows you to try a different approach. If you are playing tennis you might be afraid to try the new technique for fear it might backfire. But the new technique becomes less risky when you have practiced it over and over. Find your lower risk opportunities to try new things. And try things that aren’t risky often. By being willing to try the new approach you will make real progress. After all, if you never try anything new, how will you get better at anything, including leadership?
Use your skills in other situations. Practice in most contexts is a lower risk situation. One of the best ways to practice leadership is to find other areas of life in which to lead. Volunteer to lead a project in your community. Organize a neighborhood event. Lead a group at your church. Apply all of the things you are trying to learn at work in these situations. Use these as opportunities not only to do something valuable, but as your own personal leadership learning laboratory.
Taking these steps will help you to remain a leadership learner. They will keep you fresh and on your game. They will keep you practicing, and not just playing leadership.
Yours in Learning.,
Kevin
Kevin Recommends
The Extraordinary Leader: Turning Good Managers into Great Leaders
by John H. Zenger and Joseph Folkman
I want to thank a Client for turning me on to this book (thanks Max!). I think his goal was to see if I could interweave some of the messages from it into some training we were building for his organization. He was right. That was easy to do. Why? Because this is one of the best books on developing leaders that I have ever read.
The book doesn’t focus its principles on anecdotes or personal experiences, but rather draws on data from over 200,000 individuals who rated over 25,000 individual leaders. From that data the authors describe and examine what it takes to be a top 10% leader in the eyes of those who are being led.
The book describes and examines the data then connects it to real life. If you want to develop leaders, this book will give you concrete and proven ideas to consider. While very research based, it is far from dry or boring. In fact it blends the research with practical information extremely well.
Whether you are looking to become a more effective leader yourself, want to develop the leaders in your organization or are trying to build a picture of what effective leadership should be in your organization, I highly recommend this book.
You can learn more and place your order HERE.
Why Leaders Fail And What to do if You’re The One Failing
By Karl Ahlrichs
I admit it, I’m spoiled. My first boss was great, my second was better, and the trend continues with my current one.
The common thread of my bosses – besides a desire for accuracy on expense reports – has been a style of leadership that perseveres through time.
It is a rare person who can sustain leadership for decades, and those that make it work are worthy of some scrutiny. I look at my past bosses that, decades later, are still credible, and I find solid reasons that they stayed on top of their game. There are lessons here for all of us.
For starters, leadership begins with a clear, objective self-identity – knowing who you are and what your values are. But, as my work in training, testing and assessment has made me painfully aware, many high achievers develop distorted self-images. They either start thinking too much of themselves or they simply don’t know their core values. As a result, they often lose their ability to lead and can over time be seen as weak, phony or untrustworthy. They might have had an accurate sense of self at one time, but have fallen prey to some predictable foes.
I think there are three reasons for this.
Failed leaders resist soul-searching precisely when they need it the most. As you age, your identity crystallizes and change is perceived as intolerable. This unwillingness to change can sneak up on leaders, layer by layer. Walking in hardening concrete slows the quick step of adaptability. Many leaders start believing their own press releases and listening to the pack of “Yes” men and women that forms in the wake of success. “Group think” sets in, often leading to a string of bad decisions. Leadership roles are now demanding that leaders learn and change constantly.
What works? Strong internal “Peer” mentorship, an external leadership program, a personal executive coach, or all of the above. What fails? Ignoring the symptoms.
At some point, strengths become liabilities. A “nice guy” that becomes CEO often becomes overly dependent on their main strength. When they slow in their effectiveness (for whatever reason) the CEO just keeps trying harder with their key strength – niceness, in this case - and is seen as too nice to be CEO. You can repeat this model with any executive style.
Most of us become successful by developing a personal style based on a set of strengths and weaknesses. We showcase the strengths and ignore or delegate the weaknesses. Inevitably we stop developing the weaknesses, depend too much on the strengths, and the strengths, themselves, become weaknesses.
What works? Set up a 360-degree feedback system for the leadership team, with high quality feedback channels that carry good information. Then, listen to the feedback, reflect, and act. On a 4 to 6-month basis, do what the shampoo bottle says and “Wash, Rinse, Repeat.”
Failed leaders tend to define themselves by their work, rather than who they are. With success, people are tempted to mainly think of themselves in their role at work. What emerges? They become one-dimensional thinkers. They get out of balance. They lose sight of their core values, don’t work on their weaknesses, they don’t tolerate criticism, and can eventually lose their values and ethics.
What works? Work/life balance. It is not a fad, and is even more important now with the scrutiny of the Gen X/Gen Y generations, who give more credibility to leaders with interests outside of their work persona.
Reading my first draft of this article, Mellissa Boggs, VP of Human Resources Services here at PSM agreed with the main points, adding that “if you subscribe to Collins’ theory in “Good to Great”, a “level 5” leader has an accurate view of themselves, where other leadership levels do not. I think it is the poor or insecure leader who will not soul search or ask for help or input. I think it is the great leaders who will talk to whomever necessary to understand what is going on as they intuitively know something is wrong and needs resolution.”
The lesson is that the new model of leadership is not a “leads from the top down” approach. Leaders and heroes must exist at all levels. The old axiom of “It’s lonely at the Top” fails now. Leaders must network with other leaders, so they can create more leaders. Remember the old “The leader has all the answers” model? Now, we expect learning, coaching, and experimenting in leaders at all levels.
How do we fix these issues? I have found two ways. First, if you have a core of good leaders in your organization, a good mentoring program can be very effective. While not perfect, a “mentor mentality” built into your culture offers many benefits. You can then make metrics a part of the fix, using 360-degree feedback to measure and adjust the process.
Second, external leadership/followership programs can work well. At PSM, we continue to wrestle with the best format for executive development, and we are moving away from the old model of sending someone to a distant city for an intensive week of “boot camp”. Participants generally return with a thick binder and a tan. The new behaviors last two weeks, at best.
We feel the best format for today is a long-term interaction, with half a day of learning, coaching and experimenting spaced by a week or two of practice. With this model, we see skills being built, tested and reinforced. We often see participants emerge as adaptive leaders, with a new model of thinking.
What are the lessons? Never rest on your laurels as a leader. Always examine new technologies, thought patterns, and find ideas that you can apply to your world. Set aside your ego, and revisit the core values that supply your ethical foundation.
Stay adaptable. Become humble. Keep learning. As a leader, that will make all of the difference.
Karl J. Ahlrichs, SPHR is a Human Resources Consultant with Professional Staff Management, a Human Resources solutions company headquartered in Indiana. You can reach Karl at 317-250-9081 or kahlrichs@psmin.com.
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