Deepening the Leadership Journey

Nine Elements of Leadership Mastery

Al Bolea, Leanne Atwater

• Éditeur: Routledge
• Année: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000512809
• Édition: 1
• Sujet: Negocios y empresa
• Sous-sujet: Liderazgo

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.

1

BACK TO THE FUTURE

DOI: 10.4324/9781003036791-1

“What comes next?” is a song from the Broadway musical Hamilton performed by Jonathon Groff who portrays King George III.¹ The lyricist is Lin-Manuel Miranda. The song occurs in Act 1 after the Continental army defeats the British forces at Yorktown. It is meant to convey King George’s belief that the revolutionaries will not be able to lead now that they are on their own – that they do not understand how difficult life is when they have to make all of the decisions and be accountable.

The performance is a farce that successfully entertains the audience through a highly exaggerated and extravagant scene. That said, there are words of wisdom about leadership nestled in Lin-Manuel’s lyrics. For example, it really is hard to be a leader – it is hard to get there, and it is even harder to stay there. Leaders often feel that they are on their own and struggle with the burden of making quality decisions. The pathway is punctuated with vagaries, uncertainties, and hidden information within which successes and failures occur. When the latter is dominant, it is not uncommon to feel abandoned by those who were previously sponsors. In these situations, it can be difficult to find anyone to turn to for help. In the case of CEOs, for example, we often see them run past their sell-by date, lacking internal and external support, and with no other option than to exit the organization. The same occurs with others at lower levels in an organization, albeit with less publicity, and often not by their choice.

Bottom line from Lin-Manuel’s King George: leadership is hard to achieve and sustain, but it is even harder to regain – and it takes some life experiences to understand that. This conclusion is reminiscent of the J-Curve (and the Dunning-Kruger Effect²) that we introduced in our first book, Applied Leadership Development, and expanded in its revision, Becoming a Leader. As illustrated in Figure 1.1, there is a tendency for people to overestimate their leadership abilities. We have observed in our practices that this confidence declines as a person learns more about leadership, and ultimately reverses towards improvement once they accumulate sufficient skills.

Figure 1.1 J-Curve and Dunning-Kruger Effect

REFRESHING THE NINE ELEMENTS OF LEADERSHIP MASTERY

With that in mind, we felt that it is important to refresh the Nine Elements of Leadership Mastery (NELM) that we developed in our books. In addition, with combined experience of over 40 years between us of teaching and coaching leadership, we wanted to share some common issues clients have confronted and actions they have taken to improve their leadership.

NELM is a unique integration of 21 organizational and 22 personal leadership competencies that enhance the achievement and durability of a person’s leadership. Each Element and its key competencies is summarized below along with highlights of improvement actions that we have coached clients to undertake over the years to address feedback received from bosses, peers, and direct reports. These summaries and actions can be explored more in depth by referring to Becoming a Leader.

There are 65 improvement actions detailed below which, as a collective, impart the shared energy of many who are in pursuit of great leadership. As you read the actions it is helpful to reflect on your own experiences.

Five Elements of Organizational Leadership Competency

1. Set Direction

We often hear someone say, or think to ourselves, “God, please show me the way.” Typically, this occurs when we struggle with a tough decision. Some people encounter leaders in their life who help them make these decisions; others turn to divine inspiration. Setting direction for people and organizations is the highest priority for leaders because it meets a basic human need to have purpose and to be on a journey. The critical points in setting direction include: the act of asking questions of ourselves and others to open the door for an evolving reality; respecting one’s intuition because it tends to be correct more often than chance would predict; and assimilating one’s own observations with those of others in order to have a clear picture of the organization’s internal and external environments. A direction becomes deliverable when risks are identified and managed, and objectives are realistic relative to the organization’s capacity. A leader’s messages bring a direction to life and animate it so people can see it, hear it, and feel it.

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 “mensch” or as it is also referred to, “wholehearted.” 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) don’t try to be perfect or act perfectly – 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 – 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, don’t compare yourself to others who you think have more to offer than you – use yourself as your benchmark (e.g., I’m 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 – have more conversations with people outside of your function or area. Make sure these are exchanges of views rather than a one-way “versation.”³ 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 don’t work with. Do this for two weeks and assess your progress.
• There’s 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 you’re not the best at everything – or anything, (2) acknowledge your own faults, (3) express gratefulness for what you have, (4) don’t 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 – keep the conversation alive until a common ground is found. If a dispute emerges, use a confrontation technique that we learned from Susan Scott’s Fierce Conversations³ (We call it a Veritas Conversation): (1) confront the person involved by naming the issue that best describes what’s causing you grief, (2) give an example that illustrates the issue, (3) describe how you feel about the situation, (4) clarify what’s at stake if it’s 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 – 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 “What Do I Stand For” exercise. You do this by first asking yourself what you seriously value. Phrase the question like this, “What do I consider good, important, useful, desirable, or constructive?” List out words that describe each of these distinctions. Then, reach out to people who know you well and ask, “What do I stand for?” The last step is to look for a match between what you value and what others think you stand for. If there isn’t 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 – 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 – 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 “as if” 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 “scratching the itch” 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

Leaders are critical for maximizing the human capital of the organization. One of their primary tasks is to build and nurture teams. They recognize the importance of diversity in thoughts and perspectives, and they realize that the only way to understand others is to first understand oneself. (See Box 1.1 Self-Understanding and Self-Knowledge). Leaders nurture high-performing teams into existence through conversations that enable psychological safety, a condition in which team members feel included, safe to contribute, and safe to challenge the status quo without fear of being embarrassed, marginalized, or punished in some way.⁴ They never ignore a conflict. Leaders realize that not confronting an issue will cause it...

Table des matières

• 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 It’s All about the Glow
• Chapter 5 Breaking the 4th Wall
• Chapter 6 That Culture Thing
• Chapter 7 Becoming Digitally Mature
• Concluding Thoughts
• Index