Level-Up Leadership

Engaging Leaders for Success

Michael J. Provitera

• Publisher: Business Expert Press
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781951527150
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Leadership
• Index: Business

Level Up Leadership is the first book with applied leadership development in one comprehensive read.

Sharing knowledge gained by the author for over twenty years, this book will change your way of thinking about leadership in a profound and advantageous way. is the first book with applied leadership development in one comprehensive read, gained by the author over twenty-years. This book will change your way of thinking about leadership in a profound and advantageous way. How? The book is designed to train your mind to think and act as an authentic leader. Your professional demeanor will enhance as you master the six factors covered in this book.

There are a plethora of leadership competencies that can be mastered. However, this book focuses on six that every leader must master to be successful. In addition to the seven chapters, four complimentary case studies apply your knowledge and leadership competency. Engaging leaders for success begins with your own personal skill development. Aspiring leaders will learn to develop skills that followers are eager to learn. Do not waste another moment, buy this book and watch your skills increase exponentially.

The additional resource materials are expansive. Make this day be the day that you begin to earn the credential of executive leader. After reading this book, you will become a certified leader. Read it then contact me. I guarantee it!

CHAPTER 1

Professional Communication and Authentic Leadership

The greatest problem with communication is the assumption that it has taken place.

—George Bernard Shaw

Here are some of the characteristics of the worst leaders according to an Harvard Business Review article titled “Ten Fatal Flaws That Derail Leaders,” by Jacxfk Zenger and Joseph Folkman, CEO and president, of Zenger/Folkman, which is a leadership development consultancy. Zenger and Folkman found that the worst leaders:

Lack energy and enthusiasm. They see new initiatives as a burden, rarely volunteer, and fear being overwhelmed. One such leader was described as having the ability to “suck all the energy out of any room.”

Accept their own mediocre performance. They overstate the difficulty of reaching targets so that they look good when they achieve them. They live by the mantra “under-promise and over-deliver.”

Lack clear vision and direction. They believe their only job is to execute. Like a hiker who sticks close to the trail, they are fine until they come to a fork.

Have poor judgment. They make decisions that colleagues and subordinates consider to be not in the organization’s best interests.

Do not collaborate. They avoid peers, act independently, and view other leaders as competitors. As a result, the very people whose insights and support they need set them adrift.

Do not walk the talk. They set standards of behavior or expectations of performance and then violate them. They are perceived as lacking integrity.

Resist new ideas. They reject suggestions from subordinates and peers. Good ideas are not implemented, and the organization is stuck.

Do not learn from mistakes. They may make no more mistakes than their peers may, but they fail to use setbacks as opportunities for improvement, hiding their errors and brooding about them instead.

Lack interpersonal skills. They make sins of both commission (they are abrasive and bullying) and omission (they are aloof, unavailable, and reluctant to praise).

Fail to develop others. They focus on themselves to the exclusion of developing subordinates, causing individuals and teams to disengage.

Communicate a Winning Attitude

Ken Blanchard is one of the most well-known academics in the extant literature that has mastered the art of blending theoretical concepts and practical application. He was the first management scholar/practitioner to come up with a formula or recipe for management and leadership success.

For decades, he set up a prescriptive management platform that set the stage for practicing managers.

But that all changed when he introduced attitude into leadership development. He began a seminar by asking people to get up, wander around for about 30 seconds, and greet as many people as possible, but he asked people to greet each other in a very special way; he asked the participants to greet them as if they are unimportant and that they are looking for someone that is much more important to talk to! He would say, “So go ahead; greet them as if they are unimportant!”

Then suddenly, after about a minute or so, he would say, “Stop where you are but do not sit down!”

He would then ask them to greet each other for about 30 seconds, but this time, greet each other as if they are a long-lost friend that you are really glad to see!

What do you think the outcome was? Rhetorical question. Many people did not know how to treat people as unimportant but went along with it, while others treated people with massive compassion when asked to.

The backlash was swift and predictable. People realized that communication is all about attitude, and leaders with a good attitude can spread that feeling in contagion.

Julian Treasure, in a Youtube.com video titled “How to Speak So That People Want to Listen,” creates a presence on stage that is worth viewing. He actually cares about leadership communication so much that he asks the following questions:

Have you ever talked but felt like nobody is listening? Here is Julian Treasure to help you fix that. As the sound expert demonstrates some useful vocal exercises and shares tips on how to speak with empathy, he offers his vision for a sonorous world of listening and understanding.

Today, leadership can be taught free. Universities are vying for seat capacity and students cannot get enough of it. The knowledge today is so abundant that the 4-year degree has replaced the high school diploma. High school students are not wondering if they should go to college; it is now where? However, the outcome has been bleak. In my earlier writing as a motivational expert, I found that 50 percent of college students do graduate and find work in their field, while 25 percent do not, and the other 25 percent are working jobs that may not be aligned with their major just to pay the bills. The interesting point here that is seldom made is that it does not matter what college you go to either—students at high-end Ivy League universities are vying for jobs among the masses looking. The key for the college graduate or anyone leading his or her life is to make connections, keep connections, use connections, and never turn down an opportunity to make your next connection.

Richard Boyatzis, a distinguished university professor and a professor in the Departments of Organizational Behavior in Psychology and Cognitive Science at a leading university, offers a course free on a leading free-course platform. He begins one of his lectures by having participants write down the good, bad, and ugly of past leaders. Then jumps to what it takes to be a great leader. One thing that stood out for me was Boyatzis’ idea that “Command and Control” does not work anymore. Instead, he suggests that leaders now “Ask and Inspire.” Easy to suggest but hard to do. Nevertheless, worth the effort. By asking followers to do things that they want to do, leaders will elicit a real response to becoming better and more effective at what they do. Inspiring is something we think about as we look in the mirror and decide whether we have leadership skills or not. If we feel we do, we feel inspired; if we feel we do not, we have to go out and seek out people to inspire us to be all that we can be. Commanding may work in the short run for a while but will lose steam fast, and in the end, controlling only leads to resentment. Some followers may leave with a feeling that they were glad they were controlled because they ended up successful, but most will feel oppressed and micro-managed.

An important assumption of leadership is that we map our story. Storytellers at the Academy of Management asked a group to map their story. The stories heard were so illuminating that people bonded and got to know each other very well. Some asked critical questions about the stories, but most were enamored and impressed while others surprised and intrigued.

Asking the participants in my training sessions to write their story in a few sentences has led to most pertinent and amazing discussions while training executives. One leader was pulled over by a police officer because his plate had a “Z” that looked like the number seven because the bottom of the Z was not fully showing. Everything else on the plate matched the police log so the man was pulled over, arrested, and taken into custody. Once the officer found out that the plate was misleading, he reflected on the person arrested. The man was so nice and reassuring that this was a complete mistake and went along with the police officer in a polite manner. The arresting officer noticed a great personality and leadership potential and offered him a job. He is now a senior executive in law enforcement at a level that would ask and inspire many. Storytelling draws our inner thoughts and helps us personalize ourselves, leading to a topic worth noting titled “Authentic Leadership.”

Authentic leadership is leading adaptively from your core, choosing who you’re most inspired to be to serve the greatest good in this moment.

—Henna Inam

In his article, Martin Gruber, a professor at New York University, Manhattan, New York, USA, stated that

In order to lead better, leaders and academics have turned to the idea of authentic leadership. A leadership model, which believes that genuine leadership that bases its decisions on values, can guide people towards the greater good.

Martin @ New York University posted an article titled “Authentic Leadership Guide: Definintions, Qualitities, Pros & Cons, Examples” on August 18, 2016 on Clerverism.com

Presenting an authentic leadership guide, one thing that executives will find special is this brilliant section of the article, captured as an excerpt (refer to full article for a complete guide to authentic leadership):

A year after Authentic Leadership was published, the conversation got busier and the Gallup Leadership Institute of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln held its inaugural summit on Authentic Leadership Development. In 2007, George’s True North went further to explain who’s an authentic leader and what leaders can do to be more authentic, creating a concept that could be further refined, but also tested.

The book restated the idea that leadership is not something you are born with, but that authentic leadership, especially, requires constant development and growth. George developed an idea of leadership as a journey, with three distinct phases:

Phase 1: In the first part of your journey, you prepare yourself for the leadership.

Phase 2: In the second phase, you start leading by taking on new challenges until you reach the “peak” of leadership.

Phase 3: In the final part of the leadership journey, you start seeking opportunities to spread your leadership wisdom to others and give back to the community, even though the learning process continues.

Authentic leadership is an entire graduate course at New York University. None of us were born yesterday and we all have a life story: some should be held close to the chest, while others should be told. The journey to authentic leadership begins with understanding the story of your life. Your life story provides the context for your experiences, and through it, you can find the inspiration to make an impact in the world.

Level-up leadership is about communicating professionally as a leader. No one person can master communication alone. There has to be an audience. Followership is the key to great leadership, because without followers, there is no one to lead. A strong emphasis is on building a customer service presence, and one of the best to turn to is Ken Blanchard. Ken came up with “situational service,” a component that models his leadership training. Once you master situational service as a leader, you can help your followers follow suit.

Upside-down leadership was once uncovered in a Business Horizon article with a similar title that places the customer on top. The City of North Miami surprised me when they established this idea before I introduced it to them. Placing the customer on top not only helps the organization focus on the heart and soul of the organization but causes a commonly known leadership model titled “servant leadership” to surface. This model has helped executives turn the cards from receiver to server—and serving not only the customer but also staff and for stakeholders to become the norm. The best example is Johnson and Johnson Corporation when they took Tylenol off every shelf after a few people found the product to be faulty. Placing precedence in this order: customers, employees, communities, and then stockholders. Who is really at the top of this totem pole? Look at what they present on their website:

Robert Wood Johnson, chairman from 1932 to 1963 and a member of the Company’s founding family, drafted our credo himself in 1943, just before Johnson & Johnson became a publicly traded company. This was long before anyone ever heard the term “corporate social responsibility.” Our credo is more than just a moral compass. We believe it is a recipe for business success. The fact that Johnson & Johnson is one of only a handful of companies that have flourished through more than a century of change is proof of that.

Boyatzis has this leadership factor right—he argues that each of us has a model of leadership inside us, and we have to look for the opportunity to seek people who bring out the best in us, light us up, and help to inspire us to bring our all. You have the opportunity to make the necessary changes in your life that will provide you with a road map, a guide, a yellow-brick-road. Find it!

Be who [you are] meant to be and you will set the world on fire.

—Catherine of Siena

Authentic leadership is really what all leaders should aspire to be. Ann Fudge, chairman and CEO of Young and Rubicam, once said that we all have a spark of leadership in us. The challenge is to understand ourselves well enough to discover where we can use our leadership gifts to serve others.

Leaders need to know both internal and external customers. Paul Hersey, a behaviorist, once said that all leaders need to perform in a functional way, but it is the interaction with followers and customers that wins their long-term loyalty. Dissatisfied customers tell at least twice as many friends about bad experiences than they tell about good ones. The same thing goes with leadership. Do your followers like being around you, or do they avoid you until it is necessary for them to engage with you? Paul Hersey created a cornerstone of leadership by building on Blake and Mouton’s “organizational grid.” From there, he developed situational leadership, a model that has stood the test of time. He had an ingenious way of taking something that works in one area and applying it to other areas—for example, situational service. He did this by providing information and...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Abstract
• Contents
• Foreword
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Chapter 1 Professional Communication and Authentic Leadership
• Chapter 2 Decision Making
• Chapter 3 Motivating People
• Chapter 4 Managing People
• Chapter 5 Core Leadership Principles
• Chapter 6 Leadership and Change
• Final Thoughts…
• Complimentary Case Studies
• Selected Bibliography for Future Reading
• About the Author
• Index