Traits of a Good Leader

Compiled by the Santa Clara University and the Tom Peters Group:

• Honest — Display sincerity, integrity, and candor in all your actions. Deceptive behavior will not inspire trust.
• Competent — Base your actions on reason and moral principles. Do not make decisions based on childlike emotional desires or feelings.
• Forward-looking — Set goals and have a vision of the future. The vision must be owned throughout the organization. Effective leaders envision what they want and how to get it. They habitually pick priorities stemming from their basic values.
• Inspiring — Display confidence in all that you do. By showing endurance in mental, physical, and spiritual stamina, you will inspire others to reach for new heights. Take charge when necessary.
• Intelligent — Read, study, and seek challenging assignments.
• Fair-minded — Show fair treatment to all people. Prejudice is the enemy of justice. Display empathy by being sensitive to the feelings, values, interests, and well-being of others.
• Broad-minded — Seek out diversity.
• Courageous — Have the perseverance to accomplish a goal, regardless of the seemingly insurmountable obstacles. Display a confident calmness when under stress.
• Straightforward — Use sound judgment to make a good decisions at the right time.
• Imaginative — Make timely and appropriate changes in your thinking, plans, and methods. Show creativity by thinking of new and better goals, ideas, and solutions to problems. Be innovative!

Situational Leadership

The Situational Leadership method from Kenneth Blanchard and Paul Hersey holds that managers must use different leadership styles depending on the situation. The model allows you to analyze the needs of the situation you’re in, and then use the most appropriate leadership style. Depending on employees’ competences in their task areas and commitment to their tasks, your leadership style should vary from one person to another. You may even lead the same person one way sometimes, and another way at other times.

Blanchard and Hersey characterized leadership style in terms of the amount of direction and of support that the leader gives to his or her followers, and so created a simple matrix (figure).

Leadership Behavior of the Leader

• S1 – Telling / Directing – High task focus, low relationship focus – leaders define the roles and tasks of the ‘follower’, and supervise them closely. Decisions are made by the leader and announced, so communication is largely one-way. For people who lack competence but are enthusiastic and committed. They need direction and supervision to get them started.
• S2 – Selling / Coaching – High task focus, high relationship focus – leaders still define roles and tasks, but seeks ideas and suggestions from the follower. Decisions remain the leader’s prerogative, but communication is much more two-way. For people who have some competence but lack commitment. They need direction and supervision because they are still relatively inexperienced. They also need support and praise to build their self-esteem, and involvement in decision-making to restore their commitment.
• S3 – Participating / Supporting – Low task focus, high relationship focus – leaders pass day-to-day decisions, such as task allocation and processes, to the follower. The leader facilitates and takes part in decisions, but control is with the follower. For people who have competence, but lack confidence or motivation. They do not need much direction because of their skills, but support is necessary to bolster their confidence and motivation.
• S4 – Delegating – Low task focus, low relationship focus – leaders are still involved in decisions and problem-solving, but control is with the follower. The follower decides when and how the leader will be involved. For people who have both competence and commitment. They are able and willing to work on a project by themselves with little supervision or support.

Effective leaders are versatile in being able to move around the matrix according to the situation, so there is no style that is always right. However, we tend to have a preferred style, and in applying Situational Leadership you need to know which one that is for you.

Likewise, the competence and commitment of the follower can also be distinguished in 4 quadrants.

Development Level of the Follower

• D4 – High Competence, High Commitment – Experienced at the job, and comfortable with their own ability to do it well. May even be more skilled than the leader.
• D3 – High Competence, Variable Commitment – Experienced and capable, but may lack the confidence to go it alone, or the motivation to do it well / quickly.
• D2 – Some Competence, Low Commitment – May have some relevant skills, but won’t be able to do the job without help. The task or the situation may be new to them.
• D1 – Low Competence, High Commitment – Generally lacking the specific skills required for the job in hand, but has the confidence and / or motivation to tackle it.

Similar to the leadership styles, the development levels are also situational. A person could be skilled, confident and motivated for one part of his his job, but could be less competent for another part of the job.

Blanchard and Hersey said that the Leadership Style (S1 – S4) of the leader must correspond to the Development level (D1 – D4) of the follower – and it’s the leader who adapts. By adopting the right style to suit the follower’s development level, work gets done, relationships are built up, and most importantly, the follower’s development level will rise to D4, to everyone’s benefit.

Steps in Situational Leadership. Process

1. Make an overview per employee of his/her tasks
2. Assess the employee on each task (D1…D4)
3. Decide on the leadership (management) style per task (S1…S4)
4. Discuss the situation with the employee
5. Make a joint plan
6. Follow-up, check and correct

Strengths of the Situational Leadership model. Benefits

• Easy to understand
• Easy to use

Limitations of the Situational Leadership model. Disadvantages

• Model fails to distinguish between leadership and management. What is called leadership style is really management style.
• Leadership is not primarily about making decisions anyway – it is about inspiring people to change direction.
• Leaders may indeed vary the way they inspire people to change. But this is when they have already decided on the need to change. Hence leadership style does not reduce to decision making style.
• Focuses too exclusively on what the person in charge does.
• Of course both leaders and managers have to behave differently in different situations. But that is just a trivial fact of life, rather than anything profound in terms of our basic understanding of what it means to lead or manage.

Assumptions of Situational Leadership. Conditions

• Leaders should adapt their style to follower ‘maturity’, based on how ready and willing the follower is to perform required tasks (that is, their competence and motivation).
• There are four leadership styles that match the four combinations of high/low readiness and willingness.
• The four styles suggest that leaders should put greater or less focus on the task in question and/or the relationship between the leader and the follower.
• Presumes that leadership is about how the boss makes decisions.

Responsibility for Choices

Personal Leadership: If It's to Be, It's Up to Me

We may not choose to be victimized, but we choose whether or not to be a victim. Leaders take responsibility for their actions in response to circumstances for which he or she is not responsible

. Choice, more than chance, determines our circum

stance. I choose whether to see the world through optimistic or pessimistic glasses. Either choice becomes my re

ality.

Leading Others: From Victim to Victor

When faced with difficult changes or problems, we have three choices. We can be a Survivor and just hang in there waiting to see what happens. Or we can choose to be a Victim, using the situation as one more example of how crap like this is always happening to us. The third choice – the leadership choice – is to be a Navigator. Leaders take initiative and navigate their team through doing what needs to be done rather then waiting for "them" to do something.

The Leadership Focus and Context

Personal Leadership: The Core of My Being

We find what we focus upon. The centre of my being starts with where I look, what I believe, and why I exist. Three core questions set the focal points and the context or main filters of my life. They also establish my magnetic field and attract the positive or negative people, circumstances, and events that I am experiencing in my life. Changing what's being attracted to me starts with changing my personal magnetic field.

Leading Others: Points of Origin

Highly focused leaders paint clear pictures of what success looks like for a project, the team, or the organization as a whole. Strong leaders "emotionalize" that picture and bring it alive for people. Powerful leaders impart a sense of trust and credibility by leading true to a core set of values or guiding principles. People respond to this leadership because they can clearly see the principles from which it flows.

Video

Leadership Excellence Workshop

Defining Leadership Objectively

The direct approach is oriented toward a specific leadership behavior which is clearly and objectively defined. The elements of leadership behavior are isolated as specific learnings which are systematically programmed into a long-term developmental process.

The direct approach ensures that appropriate and sufficient time is given the development of leadership skills, to bring about the desired change in behavior and to achieve leadership competence.

The SECOND concept is that, rather than being some nebulous characteristic which one has to be born with, leadership can be defined as a set of competencies which can be learned. Some eighty aspects of knowledge, skills, and attitudes have been taken into account in our research which have been clustered into competencies. To sum it up. an understanding of the concepts described here has helped us to bring into focus that the acquisition of leadership competencies should occur by plan and design, rather than by accident. Although leaders may emerge - as they do today - as by-products of group processes, this is neither an economical nor an effective way of developing leadership. Based on the concepts described above, in our experimental program:

Specific competencies of leadership--relevant to Scouting--have been identified...

Situational leadership workshop, with Videocon leadership team, Maharastra Pune.

Leadership

Click the link for video.

Training Profile: Ecstasy Consultants

Profile: Ecstasy Consultants

Ecstasy is Group of Consultants and Trainers, offering its services to several corporate on OD and HR. Applying training processes like competency mapping, TNA, CVS, Training calendar, Content development, certification and validation of training faculty and content, rolling out training programs, training effectiveness.

Ecstasy has hands on experience in instruction design, training delivery, Leadership Development, Talent Development, Knowledge Management, Employee Engagement., Organization Development etc.

Ecstasy has highly experienced and qualified trainers on its board. The talent pool comes from large & medium organizations including Fortune 500 companies.

Training Experience to following industries:

· Tele communications · FMCG · Retail · Chemicals · BPO · University/Institutions

· Engineering · Project Management · Hospitality · Pharma · Automobile · Premier B-Schools

Ecstasy has trained and coached thousands of people from all hierarchies, such as CEOs, Directors, VP, G.M. and Top, middle & junior managers and front line employees.

Ecstasy has devised new concept on Competency Assessment Centre and score card for each employee.

Ecstasy also has pool of visiting faculties to for business schools and technical institutions and is associated with following institutions:

Ø Entrepreneurship Development Institute of India, Gandhinagar.

Ø Nirma University

Ø DDU, Nadiad

Ø LD Engineering College

Ø IIPM, Ahmedabad

Ø AMA, Ahmedabad

Training expertise in:

· Sales · Customer care & Customer Service · Situational Leadership · Leadership Skills · Team Building · Communication · Attitude Awareness · Interpersonal Relationship · Stress Management · Anger Management · Motivation · Time Management · Managerial Effectiveness · People Management

· Performance Management · Negotiation Skills · Assessment & Development centre · Competency Mapping · Train The Trainer (TTT) · Grooming skills · Business etiquettes · Interview skills · Goal Setting · Lean Manufacturing · Six Sigma · Kaizen · 5 S · 7 Habits of highly effective people

Ecstasy is comfortable in imparting training, organizing workshops using various training methodologies like PPT, Case studies, Role plays, Management games, Experiential Learning, Participant’s presentations etc.

NEERAJ BHARDWAJ

Consultant, Trainer & Coach

+91 9725479188

Email: neerajnis@gmail.com

Employee engagement a top business priority

Learning and development can help foster higher levels of employee engagement and improved business performance, but it's essential that the executive suite knows this.

 

Most learning and development professionals are likely already aware that a significant number of their employees are underperforming because of poor engagement. Heightened workloads, decreased confidence in corporate direction and growing mistrust of leadership have raised employee negativity while threatening productivity. Desiring better opportunities, many top performers have updated their resumes and begun looking for new jobs. In fact, in recent research studies undertaken by consultancy Right Management, more than half of employees reported they were approached to discuss a job opportunity with another employer in the past six months. Consider the findings of the Right Management research team:

 

a) Seventy-nine percent report workloads have increased due to layoffs.

b) About 2 out of 3 employees failed to take their allotted vacation last year.

c) As many as 4 in 5 workers say they want to leave their job this year.

d) Nineteen percent of employees rarely trust their manager to make good decisions.

e) Seventy-five percent usually work more than 40 hours per week.

f) Less than half usually take a lunch break.

 

The response to all of this? Employers need to make employee engagement a top business priority.

 

Opportunities for learning and development can help foster higher levels of employee engagement and improved business performance, but it's essential that an organization's executive suite realize this and allocate resources accordingly. Here are five tips to help make engagement a core business priority:

 

1. Keep it simple.

Don't overly complicate engagement with HR and training jargon. Be specific, relevant and pragmatic - not conceptual. Don't talk process, but rather focus on business results. Use a business-based dialogue to tie the people-related results to the financials. For instance, know the top companies or competitors the firm benchmarks its performance against. What is their cost of unwanted turnover, and how does it compare to yours? What makes the difference between your company and theirs? How does learning and development stem the tide and influence higher levels of engagement?

 

2. Make your case.

Demonstrate the importance of engagement with business-related, practical examples. Understand the hot-button issues for each member of the executive team. For instance, talk about a high-performing business unit and how it accelerated the time to market for a new product. Then, outline how it did this by linking the leadership behaviors that enabled improved people processes, such as demonstrating employees are valued and given a meaningful role in creating solutions. Higher engagement levels most likely contributed to the success achieved. In this way, you are linking engagement to meaningful data. Have a collection on hand of useful statistics and facts that relate engagement to business efficiency and improved organizational performance.

 

3. Build alliances.

Build a stronger business relationship with the CFO and put effort into measuring the impact of training on engagement and performance at your firm. Get comfortable with the language of business and understand the financials that are most meaningful to your organization. This most likely includes: What are your organization's top profit drivers? What are the expectations of shareholders? And how will a talent initiative impact the bottom line and show tangible returns? For instance, why does the company need to have a retention strategy? Is it a competitive necessity? Are there profit implications? What are the cost factors?

 

4. Hold leaders accountable.

Leaders at all levels need to be held accountable for engagement, and this includes the C-suite. Tie key leadership behaviors that foster higher engagement to performance expectations. This way, leader behavior and the measurement of leaders' alignment with engagement becomes a mechanism for accountability. Key leadership behaviors that have the most influence on employee engagement include demonstrating employees are valued and inspiring confidence in their ability to drive organizational success and effectively implement the organization's strategy.

 

5. Gain CEO ownership.

Help your CEO to "own" engagement and be an active participant. For instance, take the pulse on engagement every 12 to 18 months. Review the factors that are foundational to engagement and help the CEO drive these throughout the organization with action, communication and initiatives.

 

Without high levels of employee engagement driven by learning and development, organization performance, productivity and profitability are jeopardized. CLOs are in a prime position to elevate engagement to other C-level executives and make it a top business priority. Who can afford not to pay attention?

 

 

[About the Author: Michael Haid is senior vice president of global solutions at Right Management.]

Regards!

Neeraj Bhardwaj          +919725479188         +919924711714

http://neeraj-sales.blogspot.com/  ‡‡ http://melnaks.blogspot.com/   ‡‡http://neerajnis.blogspot.com/  ‡‡ http://www.linkedin.com/in/neerajnis   ‡‡ http://www.scribd.com/NEERAJB