Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Are you asking yourself the right questions?

Education through Leadership Question-markAre you asking yourself the right questions? Inspiring minds want to know. The right question can be just the right prompt to inspire you to action, gain better perspective, or help you make the most of any situation. But it's up to you to make sure you ask yourself some of these questions.

Here is a set of 101 questions that can help shape your day, solve a problem, figure out next steps, or get “on the right path.”

  1. What’s the way forward?

  2. What do you want your life to be about?

  3. Who do you want to be and what experiences do you want to create?

  4. How does that serve you in terms of who you are and who you want to be?

  5. Are you giving your best where you have your best to give?

  6. What do you want to accomplish?

  7. What do you want to do more of each day? … What do you want to spend your time doing more of?

  8. What do you want to spend less time on?

  9. If this situation were to never change, what’s the one quality I need to truly enjoy it?

  10. If not now, when?

  11. If not you, who?

  12. What’s right with this picture? (if you always ask, “What’s wrong with this picture?”, this is a nice switch)

  13. How can you make the most of the situation? … If there are no good options, what’s the best play I can make for this scenario?

  14. Who else shares this problem? … Who would solve this problem well? (a great way to find models and learn from the best)

  15. What would <famous or interesting person XYZ> do?” … How would I respond if I were Bob Hope? … Leonardo da Vinci? … Guy Kawasaki? … Seth Godin? … etc. (this is a great way to come up with new ideas or plays for your situation)

  16. What are you pointing your camera at? (a simple way to direct your day on a scene by scene basis)

  17. What’s good enough for now?

  18. What can you be the best at in the world?

  19. What’s the most effective thing for me to focus on?

  20. Are you asking the right question? … Is that the right question?

  21. How is that relevant?

  22. What’s that based on?

  23. What’s the goal? … What are the goals?

  24. What would success look like?

  25. What do you need to be successful? … What do you need to be successful in this situation?

  26. Is it working? … Is it effective?

  27. What do you measure? … What are the metrics?

  28. What are the tests for success?

  29. How do you know it’s working?

  30. How do you know when you’re done?

  31. What did you expect?

  32. Are you creating the results you want?

  33. Does it matter?

  34. Will it matter in 100 years?

  35. Is it worth the effort?

  36. What actions have I taken? … What steps have I tried? ( a great sanity check when you’re testing your ability to take action)

  37. What’s next?

  38. What do you want to do?

  39. What’s best for you?

  40. What’s the best thing for now?

  41. What’s your next best thing to do?

  42. Is that a good idea?

  43. So what? Now what?

  44. What’s the problem?

  45. What’s the threat?

  46. What’s the concern?

  47. When do you want it by? … You want what by when?

  48. Who needs to do what when?

  49. Who needs to do what differently?

  50. Who should do what when?

  51. What would you have them do differently?

  52. What’s wearing you down?

  53. What’s lifting you up?

  54. Why do you get up in the morning and come to work?

  55. What do you want to experience? … What do you want to experience more of?

  56. What are you trading? … What are you trading up for?

  57. What did you learn that you can use next time?

  58. What would you do differently next time around?

  59. Where’s the growth?

  60. What would people pay you for?

  61. Do you want to run towards or away from the problem?

  62. How big is the pie, how big is your slice?

  63. Does it make business sense?

  64. Is it business critical?

  65. What’s our capacity?

  66. What’s our constraint?

  67. What are the KPIs (Key Performance Indicators)?

  68. What’s our core business?

  69. What does the market want?

  70. Is it push, pull or indifferent?

  71. What’s the trend?

  72. What to cut back on?

  73. What does the pro know that you don’t? (this is a good way to figure out if knowledge or insight can make a difference)

  74. Now what are you going to do about it?

  75. Can you teach it to someone else?

  76. How can I use this?

  77. What do you want to say?

  78. What’s the right thing to do?

  79. Is now the right time?

  80. Is this the right forum?

  81. How much time do you have?

  82. What are you making time for?

  83. How much time should you make for it?

  84. What can you do all day long?

  85. What are you spending the bulk of your time on?

  86. Does your schedule reflect your priorities?

  87. If you had all the time in the world, how would you spend your time?

  88. If you had all the money in the world, how would you spend it?

  89. Where are we on the map?

  90. What would make life more wonderful for you?

  91. How can you chunk it down?

  92. How fast can you do it?

  93. What’s the impact?

  94. What would you like to have happen? … What would you like instead?

  95. What’s the opposite of that?

  96. How might that be true?

  97. What are you seeing that I’m not?

  98. What did you see, what did you hear?

  99. What’s the writing on the wall?

  100. What’s their story?

  101. Who’s stopping you? … What’s stopping you? … What’s holding you back?


What questions drive you? … Share your favorite question in the comments.

Source Sourcesofinsight.com

Sunday, November 27, 2011

Attitudes Leaders Have Towards Social Media

Slowly but surely, business leaders are shifting their attitude toward social media — from seeing it as a threat to discovering its very real opportunities.

And their attitude matters, a lot. Social media is about people, not technology. Its business value does not come from social software or a snazzy website, even one with 800 million users. Its value stems from how business leaders, from senior executives to managers, use it to foster new collaborative behaviors that materially improve business performance.

Leadership attitudes, and the organizational culture they spawn, are critical to social media success. They are among a company's most fundamental social media assets — or liabilities. Here are the six basic categories that business leader attitudes toward social media fall into:Education Through Leadership Social Media

Folly
Leaders with this attitude consider social media a source of entertainment with little or no business value, and they typically ignore it. Where a folly attitude prevails, the approach to a social media strategy must emphasize direct business value tightly tied to well-known and recognized organizational goals or challenges — and it must avoid flabby value statements around improved collaboration and stronger relationships.

Fearful
Fearful leaders see social media as a threat to productivity, intellectual capital, privacy, management authority, regulatory compliance and a host of other things, and often discourage and even prohibit its use. This attitude can reduce the potential risk, but it also stifles any possible business value. To counteract fear, the strategic approach should focus on relatively low-risk initiatives, even if other, higher-risk opportunities might offer greater business value.

Flippant
These leaders may not ignore or fear social media, but they don't take it seriously, either. This typically leads to a technology-centric approach where the company simply provides access to social media and hopes that business value will spontaneously emerge. This rarely bears fruit. Important in countering this attitude is convincing leadership that purpose matters, and that they should progress beyond the technology and identify good purposes for social media — causes that are strong enough to catalyze and mobilize communities of people to act in a way that delivers value to the community and the organization.

Formulating
Formulating leaders recognize both the potential value of social media as well as the need to be more organized and strategic in its use. The right approach here should build on this positive foundation, emphasizing the broader strategic value of social media and mass collaboration, with a succinctly expressed set of business opportunities that (1) demonstrates social media's potential impact across many areas of the business, and (2) is strong enough to capture the attention of the most senior leaders.

Forging
In companies where leaders have a forging attitude, the whole organization is starting to develop competence in using social media to assemble, nurture and gain business value from communities. To keep progressing, leaders should recognize previous successes, capitalize on growing momentum, advocate continued evolution and increase investments. They should also promote additional grassroots social media efforts as critical in becoming a highly collaborative social organization.

Fusing
This is the most advanced attitude, and still rare. Fusing leaders treat community collaboration as an integral part of the organization's work, ingrained in how people think and behave. This is a description of a social organization, and in such organizations the need for an explicit vision and strategy subsides — all business strategy and execution already include community collaboration where it's appropriate.

How do most leaders shape up? Right now, our analysis indicates that leaders of most organizations have yet to progress to the Formulating stage, which accounts for the high social media failure rate. We know treating social media as strategic can lead to tangible business value and competitive advantage, so the goal is for business leaders to move quickly past the Folly, Fearful, and Flippant stages and get right to Formulating. Ignoring social media, or throwing it over the fence to Marketing or IT could create serious business risk.

Where does your organization stand?

Source Harvard Business Review

Saturday, November 19, 2011

The Makings of an Effective Leader!

Sandra Larson, previous executive director of MAP for Nonprofits, was once asked to write her thoughts on what makes an effective leader. Her thoughts are shared here to gel other leaders to articulate their own thoughts on what makes them a good leader. Education Through Leadership Traits-of-Effective-Leader

Passion


An effective leader is a person with a passion for a cause that is larger than they are. Someone with a dream and a vision that will better society, or at least, some portion of it. I think a very key question has to be answered: Can someone who is a charismatic leader, but only to do evil or to promote herself, be a leader -- especially if she has a large following?” I would say no, she is a manipulator.

Also, without passion, a leader will not make the necessary courageous and difficult decisions and carry them into action. This is not to imply that all decisions are of this nature. But you can be sure, some of them will be. The leader without a passion for a cause will duck.

Holder of Values


Leadership implies values. A leader must have values that are life-giving to society. It is the only kind of leadership we need. This then also implies values that are embedded in respect for others. So often we think of people skills or caring about people as being “warm and fuzzy.” I think a leader can be of varying ‘warmth and fuzziness,” but a leader has to respect others. You can’t lead without it. Otherwise we are back to manipulation. Respect means also that one can deal with diversity -- a critical need for a leader in today’s world -- probably always has been, although diversity may have been more subtle in the homogenous societies of the past.

Vision


This is a bit different than passion, but in other ways it isn’t separable. If one doesn’t care about a subject, an issue, a system, then one won’t spend the time thinking about how it could or should be different. Yet, one could have strong feelings about something and not good ideas, particularly if she didn’t spend a good deal of time studying the topic. Thus a leader has to have some ideas about change, about how the future could be different. Vision then is based on two components that leaders also need: creativity and intellectual drive.

Creativity


One has to try to think out of the box to have good visions and to come up with effective strategies that will help advance the vision. I’d also add here the need for a sense of humor. It’s a creative skill that is in great need by leaders. We should read the funnies more!

Intellectual Drive and Knowledge


I believe a leader has to be a student. In general it is hard for a leader to be around enough other leaders to pick this up just through discussion, so I think a leader has to be a reader and a learner. Furthermore, I can’t see someone leading in a field they know nothing about.

Confidence and Humility Combined


While one can have a great vision and good ideas for change, and even passion for it, if one isn’t confident, then action will not occur. Without action, there is no change. Yet, paradoxically, a leader needs to have humility. No matter how creative and bright one is, often the best ideas and thinking are going to come from someone else. A leader needs to be able to identify that, have good people around who have these ideas. This takes humility, or at least lack of egocentricity. The leader is focused on the ends and doesn’t have to see herself always as the conduit or creator of the strategy to get to that end.

Communicator


None of the above assets will work for a leader if she can’t speak or write in a way to convince others that they should follow along, join the team, get on board. All the above gets to the old adage that a leader knows how to do the right thing and a manager knows how to do things right. But a leader has to be a manager, too. I don’t think these skills and abilities can be separated out very easily. Both need to be in the mix.

Thus a leader has to be some of the following, too:

Planner/Organizer


Someone who can see what needs to be done and help the team plan and organize the getting it done. Management is getting things done through people. While a writer or other visionary person may be very influential, even seminal for the cause of change, this is not quite my definition of a leader. A leader means to me, someone who is taking action, trying to get others to do something they want to see done.

Interpersonal Skills


Leaders must have the ability to act in an interpersonally competent manner, yet they also need to learn the techniques of good listening, honest and open communication, delegating, conflict resolution skills, etc., to actually get work done and keep the whole movement/organization/project together.

Other Business Skills


While in some arenas you may be able to get by with only some of these skills or none of them (if you can hire good enough people to do it for you), generally speaking you must have at least some skills in financial management, human resources, information management, sales, marketing, etc.

If I were to sum it all up, I’d say a good leader has to have a purpose that is larger than they are and the balanced personality and skills to put that purpose into action.

Copyright Sandra Larson, Minneapolis, MN.

Thursday, November 17, 2011

Leadership Myths

Ten or twenty years ago, debunking leadership myths was easy. In every other corner office you could find an overconfident boss barking orders to masses of Education through Leadership-mythsunderperforming employees. However, over the last decade there has been a shift in the prevailing management winds.

Most of the changes have been good—though none revolutionary. People are getting more respect. Collaboration, engagement, and performance are all on the rise. More and more companies are doing well by doing good. None of it is “new,” successful leaders have been doing this stuff for years. It’s just becoming more acceptable.

However, there are some questionable tenants in this growing “new” leadership doctrine that haven’t been fully thought out. They sound good and leaders are assimilating them as founding principles, but after further inspection, you’ll see many of their premises are flawed.

I offer the following examples and ask for your feedback:

Myth #1: There’s no place for harsh or domineering leadership styles. In this new era of individual respect, the idea of a leader issuing unilateral orders without asking for opinions from others seems utterly barbaric. As a result, the autocratic leadership style is snubbed and reserved for dictators and half-wits. In fact there a number of situations where a strong autocratic leadership style is called for—so we should learn how to use it, not ignore it. What would you think of an EMT that arrived at the scene of an accident and promptly gathered everyone around to hear their opinions on what to do first—CPR, call for more help, or tend to other wounds?

Myth #2: Experience is the best teacher for a leader. It’s etched in every big company’s fast-mover career timeline—get the right jobs to get the right experience. You do that and you’ll be better qualified for leadership positions at the top. I have nothing against experience. In fact, it’s an absolutely essential part of learning—but it’s not always the best teacher. Yesterday’s experience may be totally irrelevant to tomorrow’s challenges. If you’re not careful it could pigeonhole your view of the world and lock you into an antiquated perspective. For experience to make you better, you must reflect on it.

Myth #3: You have to be an optimist to be a great leader. There’s no room for pessimism among great leaders—they’re always hopeful, always positive, and always believing that good will triumph in the end. Yeah, well, you could say the same about the couch potato who sits at home all day watching motivational speakers on YouTube. The fact is, you need some pessimism as a leader. You need to be able to envision the worst possible scenario—and really believe it could happen—if you’re ever going to successfully defend against it. And honestly, without pessimism, there would be no real change. All change starts with a discontentment.

What do you think are the big myths in leadership today?

Source Geoffrey Webb

Monday, November 14, 2011

Solving the Leadership Puzzle

Many of the challenges we face as a leader seem tough, unusual, and perhaps unsolvable.  Many puzzle enthusiasts, working on puzzles as diverse as Sudoku,  Education Through Leadership Puzzlecrosswords, video games (and more) thrill for puzzles with those same descriptors.

Perhaps our leadership lesson from them starts from recognizing their attitude and it’s important to ultimate success.  Rather than procrastinating or ignoring a tough problem, puzzlers get started.

Once they get started they likely use a three step formula (consciously or not) to help them get going.

1.  Look for patterns.

2.  Find the way in.

3.  Build on your success.

These three points were in the May 2009 issue of  Wired Magazine (the issue isn’t online at this writing).  The points are attributed to Dvora K. Klaviatura, head of the Belarus Enigmatology Institute, and you can see how they make sense to a puzzle.

When considering a challenge or problem you as facing as a leader, make these steps part of your next leadership activities:

1.  Recognize that problems and challenges come with the territory. Rather than lamenting or procrastinating, take the puzzlers approach and dive in.  Not only do you stand to solve the problem, but you will also learn something and gain confidence and excitement from success!

2.  Look for patterns. Ask yourself questions like:  What about this situation looks or seems like past challenges or problems?   What else does this situation remind me of?

3.  Find the way in. Look for an entry point – something to try, someone to talk to, a way to begin a conversation, a question to ask.  Finding the way in, helps you take action and get started.

4. Build on your success. Once you have gotten started, be persistent.  Use what you have learned up until this point to help you be more successful.  Apply what has proven successful so far as you move forward (without becoming blinded by success – remember the challenge you face may be pretty complex!)

Consider these steps as you solve a leadership puzzle – and recognize these as building blocks to your effective leadership skills

Source Kevin Eikenberry

Thursday, November 10, 2011

A Great Leader Guides!

A leader is a person who guides others toward a common goal, showing the way by example, and creating an environment in which other team members feel actively Education Through Leadership Leader and Followersinvolved in the entire process. A leader is not the boss of the team but, instead, the person that is committed to carrying out the mission of the Venture. Below are some qualities a strong leader may possess.

Qualities of a Leader


Good Listener:


Your teammates may have a great way to improve your idea. By keeping your mind open to other ideas, you can come up with new ways to accomplish your goals. It is your job to make sure that everyone in the group is being heard. Listen to their ideas and accept their constructive criticisms.

Focused:


Constantly remind yourself and the group of your Venture’s goals and mission. If you stay on track and keep others on track, the team will stay motivated and be more productive. As leader of the group, it is important that you schedule time to meet with your Venture Team to establish and check-in about the goals you hope to achieve.

Organized:


A leader can set the tone for the team. A leader who is organized helps motivate team members to be organized as well.

Available:


As a leader, you’re responsible for a lot and you’re probably going to be very busy at times. However, you still need to find time to talk with your team. A good way to do this is to set frequent group meetings, so that no question or concern goes too long without attention.

Include others:


A leader should not do all the work. Doing everything yourself is a poor use of time and prevents your Venture from growing. Instead, a leader should work with his/her teammates and learn how to delegate responsibility while being mindful of everyone’s interests, goals, and strengths.

Decisive:


Although an important part of being a leader involves listening to the people around you, remember that you are not always going to be able to reach a compromise. When this happens, don’t be afraid to make the final decision, even if some team members disagree with you.

Confident:


This could be the most important characteristic of a leader. If you don’t believe in yourself and the success of your Venture, no one else will. Show others that you are dedicated, intelligent, and proud of what you are doing.

Sunday, November 6, 2011

How to Lead!

Contrary to popular belief leaders are not only born, but they are also made. However, made leaders have to work a little harder than born leaders to make sure they are Education Through Leadership How to Leadsuccessful and effective. The following steps will assist you in becoming a better leader, whether you are already one or desire to be one.

Make decisions. As a leader, making decisions will be one of your first objectives. You have to be able to make smart decisions without hesitation or regard for yourself

Learn how to take smart risks. These are all part of the game, regardless of the business of industry. You have to be ready and confident enough to take smart risks. People are told all their lives not to risk anything. These individuals were never and will never be leaders. To be successful in a business, leaders have to be able to take calculated risks.

Know how to motivate others around you. Know the members of your team. Understand what makes them tick. By motivating your co-workers and team members, your company/business will be more successful than ever.

Communicate well. Communication can either build a business stronger or tear it down to the foundation. Be honest in your communication with everyone you come in contact with. Honesty will strengthen the respect people have for you, as well as solidifying business relationships.

Guide others to success. As a leader, you cannot be solely concerned with your own success. You have to be concerned with the success of others in your organization as well. Without this guidance, the business will not thrive forever.

Set personal and team goals. You and your co-workers will not be working toward anything if you do not set goals. You should have personal goals but you should also get goals for the entire team as well. Set all goals lofty, but attainable.

Take criticism well. Remember you will never be able to make everybody happy. Because of this, you need to look at all criticism as constructive criticism. In other words, take all criticism and see what you can make positive out of it.

Stand strong in your beliefs regardless of who is standing with you or against you. You may not always be a popular person because of this but you will be a very successful and respected leader.

Be fair. To your customers, co-workers, and anybody else you come in contact with. As long as you remain fair to them, they will honor you with the same thing.

Source eHow.com

Friday, November 4, 2011

A Leader Who Shows Promise!

Ten Ways to Identify a Promising Person

The most gifted athletes rarely make good coaches. The best violinist will not necessarily make the best conductor. Nor will the best teacher necessarily make the best head Education Through Leadership Promiseof the department.

So it's critical to distinguish between the skill of performance and the skill of leading the performance, two entirely different skills.

It's also important to determine whether a person is capable of learning leadership. The natural leader will stand out. The trick is identifying those who are capable of learning leadership over time.

Here are several traits to help identify whether someone is capable of learning to lead.

  • Leadership in the past. The best predictor of the future is the past. When I was in business, I took note of any worker who told me he was superintendent of a school or a deacon in his church or a Boy Scout leader. If he showed leadership outside of the job, I wanted to find out if he had some leadership potential on the job.

  • The capacity to create or catch vision. When I talk to people about the future, I want their eyes to light up. I want them to ask the right questions about what I'm talking about.

  • The founder of Jefferson Standard built a successful insurance company from scratch. He assembled some of the greatest insurance people by simply asking, "Why don't you come and help me build something great?"

  • A person who doesn't feel the thrill of challenge is not a potential leader.

  • A constructive spirit of discontent. Some people would call this criticism, but there's a big difference in being constructively discontent and being critical. If somebody says, "There's got to be a better way to do this," I see if there's leadership potential by asking, "Have you ever thought about what that better way might be?" If he says no, he is being critical, not constructive. But if he says yes, he's challenged by a constructive spirit of discontent. That's the unscratchable itch. It is always in the leader.

  • People locked in the status quo are not leaders. I ask of a potential leader, Does this person believe there is always a better way to do something?

  • Practical ideas. Highly original people are often not good leaders because they are unable to judge their output; they need somebody else to say, "This will work" or "This won't."

  • Brainstorming is not a particularly helpful practice in leadership, because ideas need to stay practical. Not everybody with practical ideas is a leader, of course, but leaders seem to be able to identify which ideas are practical and which aren't.

  • A willingness to take responsibility. One night at the end of the second shift, I walked out of the plant and passed the porter. As head of operations, I had started my day at the beginning of the first shift. The porter said, "Mr. Smith, I sure wish I had your pay, but I don't want your worry." He equated responsibility and worry. He wanted to be able to drop his responsibility when he walked out the door and not carry it home. That's understandable, but it's not a trait in potential leaders. I thought about the porter's comment driving home. If the vice-president and the porter were paid the same money, I'd still want to be vice-president. Carrying responsibility doesn't intimidate me, because the joy of accomplishment-the vicarious feeling of contributing to other people-is what leadership is all about.

  • A completion factor. I might test somebody's commitment by putting him or her on a task force. I'd find a problem that needs solving and assemble a group of people whose normal responsibilities don't include tackling that problem. The person who grabs hold of the problem and won't let go, like a dog with a bone, has leadership potential. This quality is critical in leaders, for there will be times when nothing but one's iron will says, "Keep going." Dale Carnegie used to say, "I know men in the ranks who will not stay in the ranks. Why? Because they have the ability to get things done." In the military, it is called "completed staff work." With potential leaders, when the work comes in, it's complete. The half-cooked meal isn't good enough.

  • Mental toughness. No one can lead without being criticized or without facing discouragement. A potential leader needs a mental toughness. I don't want a mean leader; I want a tough-minded leader who sees things as they are and will pay the price. Leadership creates a certain separation from one's peers. The separation comes from carrying responsibility that only you can carry. Years ago, I spoke to a group of presidents in Columbus, Ohio, about loneliness in leadership. One participant, president of an architectural firm, came up afterward and said, "You've solved my problem." "What's your problem?" I asked. "My organization's always confused," he said, "and I didn't know why. It's because I don't like to be lonely; I've got to talk about my ideas to the rest of the company. But they never know which ones will work, so everybody who likes my idea jumps to work on it. Those who don't, work against it. Employees are going backward and forward-when the idea may not even come about at all." Fearing loneliness, this president was not able to keep his ideas to himself until they were better formulated. A leader must be able to keep his or her own counsel until the proper time.

  • Peer respect. Peer respect doesn't reveal ability, but it can show character and personality. Trammell Crow, one of the world's most successful real estate brokers, said that he looks for people whose associates want them to succeed. He said, "It's tough enough to succeed when everybody wants you to succeed. People who don't want you to succeed are like weights in your running shoes." Maxey Jarmen used to say, "It isn't important that people like you. It's important that they respect you. They may like you but not follow you. If they respect you, they'll follow you, even if perhaps they don't like you."

  • Family respect. I also look at the family of a potential leader: Do they respect him or her? Fifteen years ago, my daughter said, "Dad, one thing I appreciate is that after you speak and I walk up, you are always attentive to me. You seem proud of me." That meant a lot to me. If respect isn't there, that's also visible. The family's feelings toward someone reveal much about his or her potential to lead.

  • A quality that makes people listen to them. Potential leaders have a "holding court" quality about them. When they speak, people listen. Other people may talk a great deal, but nobody listens to them. They're making a speech; they're not giving leadership. I take notice of people to whom others listen.


It's not enough for people to have leadership potential; they must have character and the right setting in which to grow. Before I give someone significant leadership responsibilities, I find it helpful to ask myself several questions:

  • What will this person do to be liked? It's nice to be liked, but as a leader it cannot be the controlling factor. The cause must be the prime motivator.

  • Does this person have a destructive weakness? There are only two things I need to know about myself: my constructive strength and any destructive weakness. A destructive weakness may not show up on a test; it's a character flaw. A destructive weakness may, for example, be an obsession. An obsession controls us; we don't control it. It only grows worse over time.

  • Can I provide this person the environment to succeed? It is so important, particularly in the early days of someone's leadership, that he or she be put into a congenial environment. I wouldn't want, for example, to put someone who requires mentoring with a leader who pays no attention to people. An environment that threatens our sense of security or well-being splits our concentration from the cause. Young leaders need an environment in which they can concentrate on leading.


(Fred Smith, LEADERSHIP JOURNAL; Fall 1996, Vol. XVII, No. 4, Page 30)

Thursday, November 3, 2011

Define Your Leadership Style



Leadership has a formal aspect (as in most political or business leadership) or an informal one (as in most friendships). Speaking of “leadership” (the abstract term) rather Education Through Leadership Reachthan of “leading” (the action) usually it implies that the entities doing the leading have some “leadership skills” or competencies.

Types of leadership styles

The bureaucratic leader (Weber, 1905) is very structured and follows the procedures as they have been established. This type of leadership has no space to explore new ways to solve problems and is usually slow paced to ensure adherence to the ladders stated by the company. Leaders ensure that all the steps have been followed prior to sending it to the next level of authority. Universities, hospitals, banks and government usually require this type of leader in their organizations to ensure quality, increase security and decrease corruption. Leaders that try to speed up the process will experience frustration and anxiety.

The charismatic leader (Weber, 1905) leads by infusing energy and eagerness into their team members. This type of leader has to be committed to the organization for the long run. If the success of the division or project is attributed to the leader and not the team, charismatic leaders may become a risk for the company by deciding to resign for advanced opportunities. It takes the company time and hard work to gain the employees’ confidence back with other type of leadership after they have committed themselves to the magnetism of a charismatic leader.

The autocratic leader (Lewin, Lippitt, & White, 1939) is given the power to make decisions alone, having total authority. This leadership style is good for employees that need close supervision to perform certain tasks. Creative employees and team players resent this type of leadership, since they are unable to enhance processes or decision making, resulting in job dissatisfaction.

The democratic leader (Lewin, Lippitt, & White, 1939)listens to the team’s ideas and studies them, but will make the final decision. Team players contribute to the final decision thus increasing employee satisfaction and ownership, feeling their input was considered when the final decision was taken. When changes arises, this type of leadership helps the team assimilate the changes better and more rapidly than other styles, knowing they were consulted and contributed to the decision making process, minimizing resistance and intolerance. A shortcoming of this leadership style is that it has difficulty when decisions are needed in a short period of time or at the moment.

The laissez-faire (”let do”) leader (Lewin, Lippitt, & White, 1939) gives no continuous feedback or supervision because the employees are highly experienced and need little supervision to obtain the expected outcome. On the other hand, this type of style is also associated with leaders that don’t lead at all, failing in supervising team members, resulting in lack of control and higher costs, bad service or failure to meet deadlines.

The people-oriented leader (Fiedler, 1967) is the one that, in order to comply with effectiveness and efficiency, supports, trains and develops his personnel, increasing job satisfaction and genuine interest to do a good job.

The task-oriented leader (Fiedler, 1967) focus on the job, and concentrate on the specific tasks assigned to each employee to reach goal accomplishment. This leadership style suffers the same motivation issues as autocratic leadership, showing no involvement in the teams needs. It requires close supervision and control to achieve expected results. Another name for this is deal maker (Rowley & Roevens, 1999)[4] and is linked to a first phase in managing Change, enhance, according to the Organize with Chaos approach.

The servant leader (Greenleaf, 1977) facilitates goal accomplishment by giving its team members what they need in order to be productive. This leader is an instrument employees use to reach the goal rather than an commanding voice that moves to change. This leadership style, in a manner similar to democratic leadership, tends to achieve the results in a slower time frame than other styles, although employee engagement is higher.

The transaction leader (Burns, 1978)  is given power to perform certain tasks and reward or punish for the team’s performance. It gives the opportunity to the manager to lead the group and the group agrees to follow his lead to accomplish a predetermined goal in exchange for something else. Power is given to the leader to evaluate, correct and train subordinates when productivity is not up to the desired level and reward effectiveness when expected outcome is reached.

The transformation leader (Burns, 1978) motivates its team to be effective and efficient. Communication is the base for goal achievement focusing the group in the final desired outcome or goal attainment. This leader is highly visible and uses chain of command to get the job done. Transformational leaders focus on the big picture, needing to be surrounded by people who take care of the details. The leader is always looking for ideas that move the organization to reach the company’s vision.

The environment leader ( Carmazzi, 2005) is the one who nurtures group or organisational environment to affect the emotional and psychological perception of an individual’s place in that group or organisation. An understanding and application of group psychology and dynamics is essential for this style to be effective. The leader uses organisational culture to inspire individuals and develop leaders at all levels. This leadership style relies on creating an education matrix where groups interactively learn the fundamental psychology of group dynamics and culture from each other. The leader uses this psychology, and complementary language, to influence direction through the members of the inspired group to do what is required for the benefit of all.

From en.wikipedia.org