About the Author
Dr. Britt Andreatta is an internationally recognized thought leader in leadership and learning. Britt is a seasoned professional with more than 25 years of experience consulting with businesses, universities, and nonprofit organizations. Corporate clients include Fortune 100 companies like Comcast and Apple, as well as companies such as Avvo, LinkedIn, Franklin Covey, Alter Eco Foods, DPR Construction, and 15Five. She has also worked with major educational institutions like the University of California, Dartmouth University, and the University of New Mexico, as well as nonprofit organizations like the YMCA and Norton Healthcare.
Britt has published several titles on learning and leadership, including her books Wired to Grow: Harness the Power of Brain Science to Master Any Skill and Wired to Resist: The Brain Science of Why Change Fails and a New Model for Driving Success. She has received over 4 million views worldwide of her courses on Lynda.com and LinkedIn Learning. Titles include Leading Change, Having Difficult Conversations, and Leading with Emotional Intelligence. An engaging and highly sought-after speaker, Britt delivered a TEDx talk called How Your Past Hijacks Your Future and she regularly speaks at corporate events and international conferences receiving rave reviews like best speaker of the conference.
Britt has served as professor and dean at the University of California, Antioch University, and several graduate schools. She regularly consults with executives and organizations on how to maximize their full potential.Britt has won several prestigious awards, including the 2016 Global Training Development Leadership Award from the World Training Development Congress. She won the gold medal for Chief Learning Officer magazines Trailblazer Award, and was also nominated for the CLO Strategy Award. She has served as the chief learning officer for Lynda.com and senior learning consultant for global leadership and talent development at LinkedIn. She continues to partner with Lynda.com and LinkedIn as an author and thought leader on learning and leadership.
Dr. Britt Andreatta is the CEO and president of Andreatta Consulting, providing solutions for todays workplace challenges. To learn more, visit her website and social media channels: www.BrittAndreatta.com, www.linkedin.com/in/brittandreatta/, https://twitter.com/BrittAndreatta
Handouts
Introduction
Welcome
– At the heart of every business success, or averted crisis, you will find a great leader. Research has shown time and again that the difference between an average organization and a successful one are the leadership skills of its people. I’m Dr. Britt Andreatta, and I’m pleased to welcome you to this course on leadership. Successful organizations are different from average or poor ones in three important ways. Number one, they have customers who are not only satisfied, but actively singing their praises. Number two, they have employees who are engagedand motivated to their highest potential and productivity.
And number three, they’re profitable, and can sustain that success well into the future. And good leaders are the ones who drive the success. Effective leadership absolutely makes a difference, and by developing your leadership skills, you’ll be able to make meaningful contributions, to not only your organization, but other aspects of your life as well. I’ve spent my professional career teaching and training on leadership and management. I’m eager to share with you what I’ve learned from these experiences, and bring you the latest information on leadership.
And I’ll be providing my best tips and strategies to help you develop and hone your leadership skills. Remember, leadership is a journey, and I’m excited to work with you as you become a more effective leader. Let’s get started.
Getting the most from this course
Obviously, leadership is a big topic and there was no way I could fit everything into one course, which is why this will be the first in a series I’m authoring. This course serves as the overview and we’ll explore what leadership is and the key skills and strategies effective leaders use to create successful organizations. Future courses in the series will delve more deeply into several of those key skills. I recommend that you watch this one through once to get an overview of the various tools and strategies. After watching it, choose one to two skills that you want to make your focus over the next few weeks. It’s difficult to change everything at once, so just pick what you want to do first, knowing that you’ll get to the others over time.
Also remember that the skills we need change as we move between roles in organizations. I recommend that you revisit this course periodically to review key concepts or focus on a new skill you wish to develop. Throughout this course, I’ve prepared extensive worksheets and handouts for you to use as you hone your leadership skills. These documents have been provided in the Exercise Files tab for all lynda.com subscribers. I’ve also provided a course outline for premium subscribers. I recommend that you download these worksheets.
That way you can easily access them when I reference them during the course.
Understanding Leadership
What is leadership?
Leadership is actually a process, not a position. You don’t have to hold a formal leadership role to be a leader. Good leadership is the use of key skills and practices correctly applied at the right time to help the organization reach its highest potential. The good news is that leadership skills can be learned and improved. Throughout this course, we’ll explore specific strategies for honing your leadership. There’s a range of key leadership skills and practices but they fall mainly into four clusters of competencies. Self-awareness, building relationships, business acumen and organizational strategy. The entire set of skills rests on the bedrock of your integrity. None of the rest mean anything, if you’re not a person who can be trusted to honor your values and behave ethically.
In leadership, reputation really is everything. The first cluster is self-awareness, which is knowing yourself, including your strengths and weaknesses, as well as how others perceive you. Consider self-awareness as the foundational skill upon which you’ll build the others. For example, how well do you control your emotions when in a stressful situation? What about recent performance reviews? How closely did your supervisor’s perception of your performance match your own? Next, there’s building relationships, which includes all aspects of working well with others, including peers, superiors, and employees. When you interact with others, how well do you read the situation? How quickly do you build meaningful rapport with others through interpersonal interactions? And how good are you at picking up on underlying emotions that may or may not match what people say and do? The third cluster is your business acumen and includes technical skills, decision making, managing work, and knowledge of your industry. The technical skills are specific to your position. For example, if you work in finance, you would need to know the auditing process. Or if you work in manufacturing, your ability to run machinery would be vital. And the fourth is organizational strategy, which is guiding your organization to the next level of development by analyzing your industry, setting strategic direction and innovating change.
How well are you able to identify and collaborate with influential people who are crucial to accomplishing your goals? How often do you scan national and international news to look for developing issues that may affect your organization in coming years? These leadership skills are relevant to every organization, and every leadership role, whether you’re new to leading, or the CEO of a multinational corporation. As you move into higher levels of responsibility, the competencies in each cluster become more sophisticated and nuanced. Using the handout in the exercise files, rate yourself on the leadership competencies affiliated with each area.
When are you leading?
Throughout your day, you’re probably going back and forth between managing and leading. Today, leadership and management are closely intertwined, because almost all people in leadership roles also manage people, and projects or functions. Let’s explore the important distinctions between them. The primary goal of leadership is to produce change and growth. As a leader you envision a better tomorrow, and design the change that will get the organization from here to there. The primary goal of management is to produce order and consistency. As a manager, you create a stable work environment that is clear and consistent, so employees can be as productive as possible.
Management was conceived during the industrial revolution. When factories necessitated organizing the work of large groups of people. Voila, the birth of the modern manager. Needless to say, there’s some natural tensions between being a manager and being a leader.Think about your day to day work over the past two weeks. And identify when you’re managing and when you’re leading. Here’s key distinctions to look for. The first distinction is about approach, managing is tactical and hands on, while leading is strategic and visionary. This is because the time frame is different.
Managing occurs in the here and now, you’re looking at the short term and mid range goals that ensure success of the organization today. Contrast that with leading, where the focus is on the future and setting strategy and change to create the organization of tomorrow. And the focus shifts too, from narrow and internal for managing, to broad and external for leading. Where the scope widens to include other functions, the market, industry, and national and global affairs. As an example lets look at Serena, who is the Vice President of Sales at KinetEco.
The balancing act
Obviously, management and leadership can be at odds with each other, as creating change and growth is not the same as creating stability and consistency. And yet, you have to juggle both skills with style and grace. The challenge that most of us face is that managing can take up so much time that your leading can fall by the wayside. Here are some of my favorite strategies for making this balancing act easier. First, be clear with yourself as to what you’re doing and why. Ask yourself, am I trying to generate change or create more stability? Knowing the distinction will eliminate the problem of applying the wrong skill to the situation.
Second, be clear with those that work with you, as well. It can be confusing to your staff if one minute you’re asking for something that is very immediate and tactical, and then in the next minute you’re doing something strategic and vision-building. For example, when you meet with your employees in one on one meetings, decide when and how often you need to be tactical, strategic, or visionary. Asking about their current projects and deadlines is tactical. Helping them develop their short and long term professional development plans is strategic.
And, of course, you can inspire them by sharing the exciting vision for the departments or the company’s growth over the next five years. You, obviously, wouldn’t do all three in every meeting, or even the same meeting. But you want to keep an eye on the balance of these conversations, as each is related to maximizing your employee’s productivity and potential.Third, be sure that you’re tending to both roles. If you’re like most people, myself included, a lot of time can be taken up with managing people. But the reality is that you need to balance both skills appropriately. Consider structuring your week to set clear time for each. For example, you may want to spend Mondays and Tuesdays focusing on managing, having your one-on-ones, reviewing the status of projects, working on performance reviews or coaching, and so on.
Finding your leadership level
Think about the organization you’re in right now. As you’re aware, the leadership and the responsibilities of the president are very different from the leadership of a front-line staff member. Large organizations often have five levels of leadership, each requiring a differentbalance of the four clusters of skills. Smaller organizations might have a blend of these levels. As we go through these levels, I want you to do two things. First, think about where you are now. Which of these levels describes your current role? And second, which level describes where you aspire to be? By doing this, you can identify your leadership development plan.
At Level 1, you’re an individual contributor who focuses on self-leadership. You’re responsible for producing the work for which you were hired and getting along with others. As an example, let’s follow Serena’s career at KinetEco. She began as an entry level employee at one of the national retail stores. As an individual contributor, Serena’s focus was inward. She developed her reputation for getting things done, being a good team member, and being a pleasure to work with. Because she also wanted to be promoted, she honed her business and industry knowledge and built key relationships within the organization. At Level 2, you’re either an expert or a manager. First, let’s look at the expert, where you become the best at what you do and work on more complex projects.
For example, Serena displayed a talent for showcasing merchandise and she was asked to design the store’s plan for new product rollouts. As an expert, you’d want to further develop your craft, innovating on current projects to demonstrate your readiness to tackle more challenging ones. Second is the manager, which involves leading others. Serena was in fact promoted to store manager. She continued to shine by achieving sales outcomes, developing her staff, navigating the structures of national headquarters and innovating ways to improve her store.
Changing scope and stakes
As you move up the five levels of leadership, three key things shift, scope, stakes, and proportion of management and leadership. First, the scope of the view changes. Individual contributors have the narrowest scope, focusing mainly on their specific tasks, and others with whom they interact. Whereas the leader of the organization has the broadest scope. Not only looking across the whole organization but outside to the industry, market, and other influencing factors such as the economy and global affairs. I don’t know about you but every time I’ve gotten promoted, I’ve become privy to whole new level of knowledge about the complexity of the organization.
And while I may have been previously confused or even critical of decisions, when I moved up I had a new perspective. And I found myself saying, oh, now I get it. This whole moment is the shift in scope and it’s what Transparency is all about. The more you can share the view from your level, the more you can harness the contributions of those below you in the organization. The second thing that shifts is the Stakes get higher. The decisions of individual contributorscan have some impact on the organization. But usually poor work, or poor decisions can be quickly and easily rectified. As you move up, the stakes increase.
The cost or consequences grow with greater fiscal impact, harm to employee engagement and customer satisfaction. And at the top the stakes may include others outside the organizations like board members. Shareholders and even our society as we know it. The third thing that shifts is the proportion of when you’re being tactical versus when you’re being strategic provisionary. You’re obviously doing both at every level, but the proportion changes. Higher levels of leadership demand more vision and strategy. There is also an expectation that your tactical skills have become so honed that they don’t take to much of your time or your energy or your focus.
Organizational dynamics
Let’s turn our attention to the context in which you’re leading and how it shapes some of your choices. One key component is the stage of development your organization is currently moving through. This is part of the life cycle of any organization and each stage is characterized by different goals and needs. See if you can identify the stage your organization is currently in. The first stage is inception. Where a new organization is created from an inspiring idea. This is where you do all the ground work before you can open. Next is the launching phase, where youopen for business. Implementing the dream takes a constant infusion of resources. The organization moves to the growth stage. And the focus is getting on established and profitable. The fourth stage is maturation, where the organization is established, but now seeks to grow in its market.
The next stage is peak performance, where it turns its energy internally to maximize its own development. The goal here is to improve all its functions like talents, systems, and products, in order to be ready for future growth and opportunities. The last stage can either be termination,which happens to organizations that don’t have a way of reinventing themselves. Or the last stage can be rejuvenation, where the organization is nimble and adaptive enough to change as needed to sustain growth. This takes us back to the launching phase. Where new elements such as products or divisions, are launched to drive the next round of the organizations development.
Apple is a great example, it first invented itself with the Macintosh computer. And then it struggled for a bit and came close to termination. Of course, it is now famous for it’s verysuccessful development and we can see the rejuvenation stages were marked by the release of the iPod, then iPhone, and iPad. No matter where your organization is, you should be focused on helping your organization improve it’s performance and move on to the next stage. That’s what makes the concept of leadership so interesting.
Developing Your Leadership Skills
Mapping leadership competencies
As we already discovered, leadership skills fall into four main clusters that together rest on the bedrock of integrity. As you rise in your leadership level, you need to develop each cluster more thoroughly, as the scope and stakes change. While a low to medium level of skill in building relationships might suffice for an individual contributor, level three leaders and above rely on high level of competence to be successful. Let’s delve a little deeper into the competencies that sit within each cluster. See the handout in the exercise files for the complete list. I’ve mapped the clusters to common lists of professional competencies that many organizations use, like Lomenger and DDI. These competencies are often used as the base for their performance assessment and training systems.
First and foremost, remember that your integrity is your most precious asset. You want to tend to your reputation carefully, because you’re through to move into higher levels of leadership, you must become known as a person who’s trustworthy and has integrity. Be sure your words and actions align with your values so that you act ethically. Next, self-awareness is your awareness and management of your inner world. It includes the competences of knowledge of self, accurate self-assessment, self-confidence, emotional self-control, achievement drive, Adaptability, and learning orientation.
Next is building relationships, which is the ability to build positive and effective relationships with direct reports, peers, customers, higher management, and all stakeholders both within and outside the organization. The competencies here are reading people, empathy and compassion, communication skills, developing others, maximizing team performance, managing conflict,appreciating difference, building influence, and service orientation.
Leading with vision and values
How much do you think people trust you? By far and away above any other skill you can cultivate, your most precious asset is actually your integrity. This is why values based leadership is so important. Having integrity means acting and speaking in consistent accordance with your values. There’s no one right set of values, but you do have to be clear about what your set of values are. To be a good leader, you must be grounded in who you are and what matters to you. When you truly know yourself and what you stand for, it’s much easier to make decisions and take action. The right choice in any situation becomes more obvious, when you have a north star to guide you. Having a clear set of values will help you navigate the complex and ever changing world.
Not the least of which is your professional environment. There have been several international studies that have measured what people look for in their leaders. And a consistent finding is that people like working for leaders who do two things. One, they lead from their values, and two, they share an inspiring vision for the future. These two things are clearly connected. If you’re grounded in your values, you can build a culture of trust and transparency. And simultaneously, your values will compel you toward a future that is meaningful. You just have to articulate your values and your vision for others to see. This is also true for an organization.
Having a clearly articulated set of values and a vision for the future both contribute to a healthy and positive culture. But it can’t just be lip service. Do you know what happens when the seniormanagement’s behavior is inconsistent with the core values? It creates mistrust, cynicism and low performance among the employees. And the reverse is also true. When leaders walk their talk, employees see them as credible and trustworthy. Which drives higher levels of morale,engagement, and productivity. So the first step to leading the vision of values is to get clear about what your core values are.
Cultivating emotional intelligence
Emotional intelligence is the mother skill of effective leadership and should be your first priority. Emotional intelligence is essentially how smart you are about reading and working with emotions, both your own and those of others. The key to developing emotional intelligence is understanding that humans are complex beings driven by a variety of physical and emotional factors. Period. Organizations always succeed or fail based on how well they address the human factor. There are two primary components to emotional intelligence. The first component is self-awareness. This means being aware of when you’re having a physical or emotional reaction to something, exercising emotional self control and finding health ways to navigate challenging situations.
Let’s see what self-awareness looks like with Serena, who’s about to be surprised by an announcement that will dramatically affect her team. >> The sales team has seen tremendous growth, the the promoting of feature of the R3000. Our customers are responding positively.Investment in implementing and training the new sales process, has been a lot of work. But we’re really reaping the benefits, and I believe our sales team is going to exceed fourth quarter projections. >> Thank you, Serena. That brings me to some news I need to share with the entire team. The executive team has decided to shift company focus, and to start promoting our new t line of products.
Production on the t100 is ahead of schedule. We’re going to move the release data up by six weeks. And what this means is that we’re going to begin a phases out of production on all the R model products and that we’re going to need to start promoting the new product lineup. >> Wow, this is a dramatic change. My team is going to need at least two months to make the shift. We need to push this back. >> That’s not going to happen, okay? You just need to make it work. >> Anything else? >> No. I just need the process this.
Motivating and engaging others
Effective leaders motivate and engage all of the people who are connected to the organization. This not only includes the employees at every level, from front line to the executives, but also the customers and other stakeholders like investors and board members. Let’s first look at motivation. Research in psychology and human potential show us that humans are motivated by three driving forces. In ranking order, these are first, the need for physical survival and safety.This includes the most basic necessities, from air, food, and water, to our more modern versions of being able to buy a home, afford healthcare, and have job security. When this level is tended to, we can focus more energy on the next level, which is, the need to belong.
This includes the social needs of having friends, family and loved ones, and being able to spend quality time with them. In addition, this level includes our sense of achievement and competence in professional settings. When this level is tended to, we can focus on the highest level, which is the need to achieve our full potential. Humans are drawn to becoming the best they can be. This not only includes personal excellence but also expressing and appreciating creativity, as well as making a difference in the lives of others. In fact, research has shown that when the other levels are met, humans are most motivated by having autonomy, developingmastery, and contributing to a meaningful purpose.
Organizations are also most successful when their people can be focused on the top level, achieving their full potential. This not only unleashes the highest levels of their skills and intelligence, but also supports an ever growing and improving workforce, because we’re innately drawn towards self-improvement. Now let’s look at engagement. Engagement is the level of positive attachment employees feel toward their job and organization, which serves as aprofound motivator for productivity and growth. Interestingly, research has shown that the ten causes of employee disengagement are: Feeling invisible. Our efforts are not measured orrecognized. The work you do seems irrelevant.
Developing your team
One of the ways to motivate and engage your people is to focus on their professional development. This is much more than the annual performance review. This is an ongoing process that supports the growth and development of your people in all the competencies.Affiliated with self awareness, building relationships, business acumen and organizational strategy. To effectively cultivate another person’s potential, you must get to know him or her on a deeper and more holistic level. Particularly you must discover six core components of each person. In the exercise files, I’ve shared some questions to guide this exploration. Number one, what are your employees strengths and weaknesses in the four areas? Knowing this will help you identify specific opportunities to harness their strengths and develop weaknesses.
Let’s say your employee has a weakness with financial planning. Knowing that this could harm his potential for future promotions, you could arrange for him to take some classes. As well as be mentored by someone with more skill in financial planning. Number two, what are the factors that motivate and engage your employees. Knowing these factors will help you makeaccurate choices when offering opportunities and challenges. Number three, what is their learning style? You’ll need to tap into their preferred learning style to help them grow, so bothof you should know how best the person learns.
For example, some people learn best by thinking things through alone and other learn best by talking things through with others. Some people thrive through reading, others want online learning, and others enjoy experiential learning. Number four, how well do they manage theirtriggers? The reality is that every person’s trigger eventually show up in the workplace. So it’s helpful to have an open and honest discussion about it. They need to manage their triggers tolevel that their reaciton doesn’t negatively impact the workplace. Let’s say that one of your people becomes very defensive when receiving any form of critique. This harms many of her relationships, so one thing you could do would be to arrange for her to work with a career coach.
Increasing team performance
In today’s organizations, more and more work is being done in teams. A team is different from a group of individuals who may form a department or cross functional group. Specifically, to be a team, the group must have the following four qualities. Number 1, a common purpose. This would be the clear goal they are to achieve. Number 2, their efforts must be inter-dependent.Otherwise, it’s just coordinate efforts of individual contributors, and that’s not a team. Number 3, they must share accountability. Everyone is held responsible for the group’s success or failure. And number 4, the members must believe that the outcome will be better together than working alone. When done right, the benefits of teams are compelling. Research shows, that when teams work effectively, they can solve more complex problems, make better decisions, be more productive and creative, and build more skills, than when individuals work alone.
But creating a team, is not just putting folks together to work on a project. To reap the benefits of teams, the group must be set up for success and facilitate it to achieve maximum performance. This is where you come in. There are several strategies effective leaders use to increase team performance. Managing a high-performing team takes effort so plan to spend time and energy on implementing these tactics. This will also help you address the mostcommon reasons teams fail, which are: Unclear purpose or goals.
Lack of a clear plan or commitment to the plan. Inability to deal with conflict. Lack of shared accountability for results. Insufficient resources. And a lack of trust. The first thing you want to do is set your team up for success by helping them create team guidelines or a playbook, if you will, for the team’s efforts. I’ve included a handout in the exercise files for you to utilize. The first meeting you have with the team will be the longest, as you co-create the document. You’ll facilitate this discussion and together the team should understand and agree on the goal that the team is to accomplish by when. You’ll want to be sure that everyone is clear about the purpose, scope, and quality and other important aspects of the goal. If your team is comprised of members from different functions or who have not worked together in the past have them discuss their work preferences. Things like their work styles, expectations, challenges, and pet peeves are a good place to start.
Facilitating change
No matter what industry you’re in, you’re dealing with change. If for no other reason than the fact that technology is changing so fast. Some industries are built on change, and are in fact about getting others to change. Like fashion for example. They sell change for every season. Change happens all the time, but the impact of change can be either positive or negative. Did you know that 70% of change initiatives fail? Think about that. This statistic represents a huge loss of time, energy, and money. and this failure is due mainly to poor leadership, because the change process was not correctly facilitated, dooming the initiative and possibly the organization. This is because people focus mainly on the change, and they forget to address the transition.
Let’s take a common example. Serena is promoted to a new position, regional director. Change is the structural shift that occurs, like the new job description, placement on the org chart, and the moving of her belongings to a new office. It’s factual and unemotional. Transition on the other hand, is the psychological process that involves the human thoughts and feelings that accompany any change. In this case, Serena may be thrilled for this opportunity, but feels some sadness at leaving her team. Other people may also have reactions such as happiness for Serena or even worry about what this change might mean for them. And this is what facilitating change is all about, Tending to the psychological process of transition.
Research has shown again and again, that humans have a fairly predictable pattern when it comes to change. In fact, it’s called the change curve and it looks like a roller coaster. While there might be excitement, there’s an initial and sometimes dramatic drop in productivity and morale. Effective leaders can impact the change curve, by making the hills less dramatic and shortening the length of time the process takes. All of this can result in huge savings in all key measures of performance and productivity. The three key strategies I want to give you today are these. Number one, empower people in the change process. This means that instead of pushing people to change which triggers resistance, you genuinely involve them in designing and implementing the change. Bring the people who will experience the change into the decision making process early, and have them co-create the change.
Developing political acumen
Another key leadership skill is developing political acumen. This is not about being political or being a master manipulator. Acumen means accuracy and keenness of judgement or insight, so political acumen is the ability to accurately perceive and judge the formal and informal influences that shape decision making. It’s about correctly reading your contexts and being able to make sound decisions based on what is really going on. Every organization has a level of subtext, the undercurrent of things that are happening behind or underneath the daily machinations of the organization. Transparent organizations have a higher match between what is said and what is done, while others are a complex web of invisible factors.
No matter your context, your effectiveness as a leader will be enhanced by developing your political acumen. You can do this by looking at the two P’s. Power and priorities. First, you want to identify who has power in the organization. Power comes in many forms. As I go through them, think about who in your organization holds the following kinds of power. There can be overlaps between them. The first three have to do with the kind of position you hold. Number one is legitimate power, which is based on a person holding a formal position. Others comply because they accept the legitimacy of the position of the power holder.
Examples include elected officials, CEO’s, university presidents, etc. Number two is reward power, which based on a person’s ability to offer rewards. Others comply because they want the rewards the power holder can offer. These are obviously things like promotions and raises but could also include more subtle things like faster service, better seating assignments, or even extra servings. Number three is coercive power, which is based on a person’s ability to punish. Others comply because they fear punishment. Again, this could be things like demotions and pay cuts but could also include things like speeding tickets and public humiliation or shame. The last two have to do with the individual person in particular. Number four is referent power.
Scanning your environment and industry
As we have discussed, the quality of your decisions and the effectiveness of your leadership depends on how well you read your context. This includes knowing what is happening in your organization and industry. No matter what level of leader you are, using the following tips will help you stay informed of the current happenings within your organization. Number one, frequently review all of the organization’s publicity materials like the website and press releases. Organizations are complex and communication doesn’t always flow efficiently. You’ll be surprised how much you learn about your organization by seeing what it says about itself to the public. Number two, also review the internal communication often housed in the employee portal.
You can gain a lot of information by seeing what positions are hiring, changes on organizational charts, and formation of new policies and procedures. Number three, listen in meetings for comments about pressures, challenges, and opportunities that shape the actions of the organization. Number four, engaging discussions with higher management, peers, and employees about current and future developments. Remember your goal is to gain a broad andan accurate picture of your organization. So take a step back to see what the information might mean, by looking at the broader scope and the longer term.
You’ll identify issues that may be driving subtle changes in the organization. Since leadership is inherently future focused you must always keep an eye to where things are headed. And scan for potential roadblocks and opportunities on the path ahead. Let’s see how Serena stays ahead of the curve as her organization and industry change. As you recall she’s the Vice President of sales for Kinetico, a level four leader. Serena stays up on her industry by joining all of the major organizations affiliated with her field. She knows that the magazines, conferences, and industry blogs will keep her up to date on current trends, thought leaders and influential forces. She also periodically reviews the academic journals affiliated with business, psychology, global studies and communication. She knows that research findings can be a good source of new information that might guide future trends in sales.
Building key relationships
As we’ve seen throughout this course, a large part of any leader’s success is a function of the relationships they build with employees, peers, and upper management, as well as customers, board members, investors, and leaders in the industry. The relationships you need to build arerelated to your leadership level, but I always think it’s a good idea to build the relationships of one level above you. This will allow you to expand your professional network, which not only serves your current level but prepares you for the next one. Ultimately, the goal is to be arelationship builder who can synthesize connections and maximize collaborative environments. You want to build relationships with other influential people. Some of the strategies you learn for developing your political acumen and understanding your industry should help you generate a list for people. Don’t expect to reach out to them all at once, but you should have an active and ongoing plan for identifying and building key relationships. The order and pace at which you tackle your list will largely be determined by your context and your preferences.
Recent research in neurobiology and psychology have shown that our relationships with others largely reflects how we approach them. Humans have something called mirror neurons, and outside of our conscious control, we tend to read and mirror the emotions of others. This means that how you approach others will largely shape how they respond to you. If you are open, positive and warm, they will likely meet you there. Let’s look at some key strategies forbuilding authentic relationships. First, remember that building relationships takes time. You should establish rapport over several interactions, not just rushing in when you need something.
Demonstrate that you’re open and trustworthy, as you do so trust can grow, allowing the relationship to deepen. Second, all people want to be seen and heard. So enter each interaction with genuine care and interest for the other person. Demonstrate your interest with openposture and eye contact, knowing that if you’re rushed or distracted it will short change your opportunity to connect. Over time, you’ll want to learn more about the whole person, their professional interests certainly, but also their values, goals, and passions including those outside of work.
Creating a culture of trust and integrity
While we’ve been focusing in this course on how to be a successful leader, it is also the role of leaders to build and maintain a great culture in the organization. An organization’s culture becomes the diving force that shapes the attitudes and behaviors of everyone in the organization. And it’s the most effective way to improve productivity, engagement, and other key measures of success. A leader’s efforts are most effective when they can spend or focus and energy on creating the culture, because they can create more widespread change than working with one department at a time. When you have a great culture, you can retain your best people, and you attract other top talent who want to work there. Productivity soars, because people aremotivated and engaged. Employees are loyal and take great pride in the organization and the work they do, thus driving innovation and effort.
The term great is somewhat subjective. What is great in a fast-growing tech company with a high percentage of young employees, may be different from what is great for a national nonprofit that fights for social justice, or a long-standing financial institution. Each industry region and organization has its own vibe, and people usually seek out the culture that matches their needs. But research has shown we can measure how people feel about where they work.Studies done on thousands of organizations in a wide range of industries, shows us that great cultures have four key factors in common.
Number one, there is a high level of trust between employees and management. Number two, people have pride in what they do, either their specific task or the meaningful purpose that the organization serves. Number three, they genuinely like and enjoy their colleagues. And number four, everyone is encouraged to learn and develop, individually and collectively. Certainly, a leader who practices the leadership skills I’ve outlined in this course will contribute to a great culture, but this effect could be limited to just that leader’s team or department.
Practicing sustainability
As you can see from this course, being an effective leader takes a lot of intentional focus, time and energy. You have to be constantly reading and responding to the people and environment around you, and making good choices. In order to be at your best, you must engage in a consistent practice of self care. That is what Sustainability is all about, keeping yourself in good shape so that you can meet and respond to the daily challenges over the long haul. We all know about the idea of self-care, but for many, it’s the first thing to go out the door when things get busy or stressful. But effective leaders know that the busy and stressful times are when you should double down on self-care.
This is the primary strategy of sustainability. Keeping yourself physically and emotionally strong so that you not only avoid burnout but can actually perform at your peak level. None of the key practices will surprise you but I want to be sure that you see how they are related to your leadership skills. Number one, Exercise. Yeah, yeah, I know, we all know about exercise but it’s related to effective leadership in the following ways. It’s one of the primary tools we have for managing our emotions and triggers. A key component of our emotional intelligence and it has the added benefit of raising serotonins in your brain which improve mood even under trying times.
Finally, exercise gives you physical strength and endurance, which makes your body more able to deal with stress and resist illness. Even 20 minutes a day can make a big difference, so make it a consistent part of your week. Number two, Nutrition. No surprise here, either, but how it relates to leadership is two fold. First, it helps to keep your immune system strong so that you can fight stress. Our thoughts are actually the biochemical process of our neurons connecting, and a nutritious diet promotes this process. Number three, Meditative activities.
Developing resilience
Resilience is the ability to recover quickly from adversity, and clearly this is a skill that all leaders need. People who are resilient not only perform competently under stress, but they recover quickly from negative circumstances, and they use those experiences to grow, becoming more resilient in the future. Throughout your career, you need to not only bounce back from challenges yourself, but help your people and your organization do so as well. Resilience is related to adaptability and agility, both key factors in successful organizations. It turns out that resilience is actually a two phase process. The first phase is self protective.
With the person assessing and reducing potential sources of adversity. For leaders, this would include much of what we’ve covered in this course. Using your emotional intelligence, developing key relationships, scanning your industry, and facilitating the change process are always to reduce sources of adversity. The second phase focus on promoting well being to effectively bounce back from the effects of adversity when it does happen. Interestingly, many of these strategies are also related to positive psychology, and all that we now know about how to increase happiness.
So implementing these strategies will get you a double bonus. The first strategy is practicing sustainability through the forms of self-care we covered in the last video. There’s just no getting around taking care of yourself. The second strategy is spending time with your supportive social network. This would be the friends, family, and colleagues who are outside your organization.Now it’s not just having trusted friends and family. But that you turn to them when under stress.And they offer encouragement, love, and support. One of the mistakes busy leaders make is that they pull back from their social engagements to put all their energy into work.
Conclusion
Working with ineffective leaders
It’s inevitable that as you learn more about effective leadership practices you’ll notice who uses good leadership practices and who does not. The challenging news is that it can be frustrating to watch others violate the principles and practices of good leadership. This is especially difficult when the person is your supervisor. The head of your function or the leader of the organization. If this is your situation, know that you’ll need to be artful about how you navigate these relationships. Drawing on every ounce of your emotional intelligence. Often you’ll be teaching by example, and your best efforts may not be seen or appreciated for how great they truly are. If you have good relationship in place, you may be able to offer suggestions andinsights about the choices you’re making and why.
Your attitude and approach is very important here. If you sound like you’re judging the person or trying to teach him or her a lesson, you’ll trigger defensiveness. You want to genuinely share the reasons for your approach and the benefits you’ve seen. If they seem open you can share this course and other leadership development resources. Also, if you have a training anddevelopment department in your company, you could recommend this course to them. Some people are more receptive when something is endorsed by human resources. As you know, the business skills segment of lynda.com.
Has a large selection of courses that can help build professional development for every leadership level. But the reality is that people have to be willing to change in order to do so. I’ve personally witnessed well-established leaders and people who are nearing retirement change make giant shifts in their attitudes and behaviors. Change can happen at any time, but it onlyoccurs when the person is motivated to do so. So, lead the horse to water, show them how great the water is, take some sips yourself, and then let go. The rest is up to them. And there is good news. By using these sound leadership practices your performance will speak for itself. Sometimes organizations take a while to catch on. But inevitably the organization will need to grow and approve, and that is the time they’ll seek out peak performers and best practices. So be ready when they call.
Next steps
Phew, we’ve covered a lot in this course. This was truly an overview, but it gives you a lay of the leadership land. It’s impossible to tackle all of these right away, so go back and review which one to two areas you should focus on first. In the exercise files, I have a list of recommended resources, so you can further enhance your learning. Once you identify your first area or two, make a four to six week plan to focus on that skill and actively engage in changing your behaviors and habits. The timing of four to six weeks is intentional, because of all the researchon habits. It will take you that long to groove the behavioral and neurological pathways of the new habits you want to create.
And take stock of how things are working. Assess what is improving and what needs more attention. My recommendations can get you started, but you’ll need to tweak as you go, to suit your personality, organization, and industry. Other actions you can take include. Number one, take advantage of leadership development programs in your area. If your company has a learning and development component, you should find some good offerings to enroll in there. In addition, local colleges and universities, and non-profit centers will offer programs. And there are many national training organizations that host courses in which you can enroll. Number two, form a leadership development group with co-workers or friends. Choose a book or a course on lynda.com and commit to reading or watching it. Then come together to discuss the key points and support each other in implementing the changes.
Number three, create a masterminds group with your professional peers. You can focus locally and meet in person every few weeks, or you can connect with colleagues outside your area through video meetings. The goal can simply be to share your challenges and successes, and support each other with suggestions and encouragement for improving your leadership. You may also be able to network and create mutually beneficial opportunities. My only word of caution is to not bite off too much. It is better to focus your attention on one area at a time, and build the daily practices and habits that will shift your effectiveness.
