(As published in CEO Online April 2005)
Gone are the days where your title ensured you started from a base of respect. Leaders today are under scrutiny being assessed moment by moment as to whether they deserve respect. Trust has been eroded. Being street smart is crucial. People know they have to look out for themselves and they do. A barren landscape exists which is an opportunity that could go either way depending on how leaders step up to the challenge.
People are hungry for a life of purpose, meaning and significance. Younger people are self-reliant and resourceful they are looking for leaders who inspire, are real and enabling. To be an effective leader in today’s climate you need to be insightful, resourceful, wise and resilient.
TEN TOP TIPS FOR LEADERS
- Know yourself - This is the toughest of them all and without this you are flying blind. The greatest source of influence for a leader is who they are. If you can not see yourself as an objective observer you can not make adjustments to be effective with others.
- Know the purpose of your leadership - If you dont know why you are doing what you are doing you are going to have difficulty convincing others to join you. The greater the good you seek to achieve the more people you will engage. Big dreams matter.
- Know your domain holistically - The more comprehsively we understand our situation and the forces at play the more enabled we are to be successful. These days we can not know all of this ourselves we are reliant on others to help us have the while picture.
- Create clarity & focus - If people are not clear they can not act effectively. If people don’t have focus they make it up. Most leaders believe they do this well and yet the evidence is to the contrary
- Ensure capability - If you ask a willing person to do something they are not skilled to do you set them up for failure and you for friustration. We need to be realistic, teach people what they need or adjust our expectations.
- Be fully present - With life changing at the speed of light it is easy to be costantly focussed on the future instead of the present.and yet people act in the present. If you are not with them, they wont be with you.
- Ensure alignment - Everyone has their own personal needs, these needs drive their behaviour . If you want people aligned with your objectives you better make sure you understand their needs and how to align them with yours.
- Establish and maintain the standards - Achievement depends on standards. People use standards as a point of reference. If they don’t exist they make them up to their own preference. Leaders set standards that lift performance and enable people to be or do more. The meeting of standards is what makes us felel good about ourselves.
- Build bridges - Often people don’t believe they can do things they need to do. Leaders build bridges that enable them to achieve what they didn’t believe they could. They build bridges between people who can’t see each others value. They build bridges between the past and the future.
- Face reality & deal with what you find - The other really tough one. One the greatest psychological defense mechanism humans have is denial. It is designed to protect us from things we can’t bear to face. Leaders must face whatever needs to be faced. The second piece to this is not to judge what you find, simply deal with it constructively.
A leader who primarily identifies worthwhile goals and focuses on creating environments, which make achieving those goals possible, produces impressive results. This continued evolution also requires consistent investment in discovering any barriers to success and ensuring their removal.
The 2004 Hewitt Best Employers Survey found consistently identified key factors that differentiate Best Employers from Other Organisations. One of those being that high quality leadership in Best Employers produces leaders who actually believe, and are passionate about, their rhetoric of employees being their most important asset. They possess sharp focus and clarity and communicate simply, regularly and effectively with employees.
This survey also concluded that - Best Employers understood that a key ingredient in the execution of their business strategy was the passion and commitment of their people. Highly effective leaders in these organisations worked to build a differentiated culture that harnessed the power and passion of employees to deliver outstanding and long lasting results for the organisation. They provided focus and clarity through effective communication and offered employees challenges and growth through their day–to–day work and future opportunities. This employee experience was built on the foundation of a different worldview held by organisational leaders. For those companies awarded in 2004, their employees experience rated on average over 70% in praise of their leaders across ten specific questions.
These figures show quality leadership is increasingly the primary motivator for Australian employees.
What are you doing in your organisation to ensure that your employees have the passion and desire to help you dominate your industry?
We all already know what makes a good leader and how to be one. What is more interesting is what stops us from being something we already know how to be? Effective leadership demands reflection and discovery. If leaders do not invest in this how can they lead effectively?
After over 20 years of consulting to business leaders on leadership effectiveness I developed a series of questions that all leaders need to be able to answer in my Ten Top Tips for Leaders cd and workbook
As one leader said; “These are tough and penetrating questions. I took on the challenge of answering them. It has taken me on a journey to improve my leadership. It came at an opportune time as I am leading a major change initiative, which requires me to be at my best. Thank you. If you have got anything else like that please let me know”
The biggest challenge leaders face going forward is how to attract and retain talent. In an age where intellectual property is the key to success if we don’t inspire, engage and enable people to want to deliver their best we have lost our competitive edge. The younger generations will not settle for environments that don’t meet their needs, they will move on.
Education brings knowledge, knowledge enables choice, and choice brings freedom. When people have the freedom of choice they will choose what works for them.
It changes the emphasis for leaders to create environments where people will choose to be, because it works for them. This doesn’t mean unstructured undisciplined environments. It means places full of purpose, meaning and significance. Where people are valued for their ability, challenges are set and people are enabled to rise to the challenge. Places where purpose, meaning and significance are valued, recognised and promoted.