Deepening the Leadership Journey
Nine Elements of Leadership Mastery
Al Bolea, Leanne Atwater
- 156 pages
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
Deepening the Leadership Journey
Nine Elements of Leadership Mastery
Al Bolea, Leanne Atwater
About This Book
Deepening The Leadership Journey is a compendium of topical (and in some cases imponderable) situations for which leadership is either applicable or in need.
This new book uses the nine elements in application to five challenges facing the current generation of leaders: making good decisions in an increasingly complex world; motivating and retaining a qualified workforce; equality and a truly diverse and inclusive workplace; cultivating a positive organizational culture; and thriving in a digital world.
Intended for personal leadership development and practicing managers as well as courses on leadership, this approachable guide deepens the reader's leadership journey based on Al Bolea's "J-Curve" model of leadership and the nine essential elements of leadership mastery introduced in Becoming A Leader.
Frequently asked questions
Information
1
BACK TO THE FUTURE
REFRESHING THE NINE ELEMENTS OF LEADERSHIP MASTERY
Five Elements of Organizational Leadership Competency
1. Set Direction
Key Competencies
- Interrogate Reality
- Intuition
- Environmental Relationships
- Proactively Manage Risks
- Manage Spin
Common Issues and Suggested Improvement Actions
- Your behavior does not inspire others to trust you. Trust is related directly to integrity, but there is also something about authenticity. To borrow from the Yiddish, a leader needs to practice being a âmenschâ or as it is also referred to, âwholehearted.â Always show up as the person you are, rather than the one you think everyone would like, and be willing to listen, learn, and evolve. We suggest four actions: (1) become keenly self-aware by observing how you feel in different situations, (2) find genuine connections by seeking to truly understand the people around you, (3) donât try to be perfect or act perfectly â embrace your imperfection and allow yourself to be vulnerable, and (4) get out of your head, into conversations, and allow yourself to be totally present â master the art of presence. Shutting down the self-narrative (those thoughts and sensations going on all of the time in our heads that interfere with being totally present in the situation) is perhaps the most effective way to ensure authenticity.
- Your personal presence is weak. It is likely that you do not talk enough relative to what people think you have to offer. This means that you might be spending too much time in your head or with self-doubts. You must push yourself to talk to people more often. A good way into this is to ask questions. And, donât compare yourself to others who you think have more to offer than you â use yourself as your benchmark (e.g., Iâm doing more than I did last month). It is going to take practice. To change, you must experience the behavior that you want in order for it to become automatic, i.e., you must push yourself to have conversations with people more often.
- Your personal influence is weak. Increasing your influence in an organization is all about relationships. Specifically, increase your relationships outside of your specific area of responsibility. The solution is easy â have more conversations with people outside of your function or area. Make sure these are exchanges of views rather than a one-way âversation.â3 This could start with casual conversations that eventually evolve into you being drawn into more corporate-wide issues. A good practice is to target having one conversation each day about anything with a person you donât work with. Do this for two weeks and assess your progress.
- Thereâs a concern about arrogance. Humility is a hard nut to crack, especially in a culture that encourages competition and individuality. The best course of action is to be more considerate in conversations. Tactically, you would do this with the following seven steps: (1) from time to time admit that youâre not the best at everything â or anything, (2) acknowledge your own faults, (3) express gratefulness for what you have, (4) donât be afraid to make mistakes, (5) admit your mistakes, (6) avoid bragging, and (7) share the credit generously.
- You are poor at handling situations when people disagree with you, particularly in meetings. Preempt disagreements by asking people how they feel about the goals and objectives you have identified. Be open for challenge and thank people for their feedback. But, never walk away from a disagreement â keep the conversation alive until a common ground is found. If a dispute emerges, use a confrontation technique that we learned from Susan Scottâs Fierce Conversations3 (We call it a Veritas Conversation): (1) confront the person involved by naming the issue that best describes whatâs causing you grief, (2) give an example that illustrates the issue, (3) describe how you feel about the situation, (4) clarify whatâs at stake if itâs not resolved, (5) acknowledge your contribution to the problem and apologize if appropriate, (6) express your desire to resolve it, and (7) ask the person to respond â be silent and listen. It is described in more detail in Element 2 of Becoming a Leader.
- You are suppressing your intuition in decision-making. To shift the balance of intuition, you first need to give yourself permission to listen to it. Sounds easy, but it is not in most business situations. Technical solutions tend to dominate decision-making, which means that data and objectivity are the main inputs. The issue is that some challenges require adaptive rather than technical solutions. Without intuition, you will miss the need for adaptive changes.
- Your values are not clear and consistent. To get some traction with the core values issue, we suggest that you complete what we call the âWhat Do I Stand Forâ exercise. You do this by first asking yourself what you seriously value. Phrase the question like this, âWhat do I consider good, important, useful, desirable, or constructive?â List out words that describe each of these distinctions. Then, reach out to people who know you well and ask, âWhat do I stand for?â The last step is to look for a match between what you value and what others think you stand for. If there isnât a match then you need to start over again with the first question, because you have just received some evidence that what you think you value is not consistent with your behavior. The exercise will help you identify what you truly value and push you to find the courage to confront situations that conflict with these values.
- You spend too much time focused on the past. During every conversation that you have, find a moment to insert something that is future oriented. People who are past driven in conversations tend to spend too much time finding problems rather than discovering new possibilities. An easy way into this is to start talking about risks â it immediately takes you into consideration of things that could happen in the future. Another idea is to intentionally try to co-create with another person a new insight or something that could emerge in the future â do this at least once each day.
- You do not impart passion and motivation to others about the future. Crank up your passion at work. Start by faking it, i.e., act âas ifâ you are passionate. Nurturing passion in the workplace is about creating and articulating a compelling future for the organization. But it also has a lot to do with âscratching the itchâ of what motivates people as individuals. For each of the people with whom you have significant work relationships (including your boss), see if you can assess their relative need for the following key motivators: status, certainty, autonomy, relatedness, and fairness. (For an assessment of these motivators, complete a SCARF assessment at https://neuroleadership.com/research/tools/nli-scarf-assessment/.) Consider what you can do to meet the dominant need that you perceive for each of them.
2. Build a Team of People
Table of contents
- Cover Page
- Half Title Page
- Series Page
- Title Page
- Copyright Page
- Dedication Page
- Contents Page
- Series Foreword Page
- About the Authors Page
- Prelude Page
- Acknowledgments Page
- Chapter 1 Back to the Future
- Chapter 2 The Holy Grail
- Chapter 3 Making Quality Decisions
- Chapter 4 Itâs All about the Glow
- Chapter 5 Breaking the 4th Wall
- Chapter 6 That Culture Thing
- Chapter 7 Becoming Digitally Mature
- Concluding Thoughts
- Index