Christian Whamond Leadership learnings

6 leadership challenges

16/12/2013

A recent research paper from Center of Creative Coaching for Leadership titled “The Challenges Leaders Face Around the World: More Similar than Different” explores the challenges facing leaders today.

The research found that senior management and executives wrestle with the following 6 leadership challenges:

Developing Managerial Effectiveness: The challenge of developing the relevant skills — such as time-management, prioritisation, strategic thinking, decision-making and getting up to speed with the job — to be more effective at work.

Inspiring Others: The challenge of inspiring or motivating others to ensure they are satisfied with their jobs and working smarter.

Developing Employees: The challenge of developing others, including mentoring and coaching.

Leading a Team: The challenge of team-building, team development and team management. Specific challenges include how to instill pride in a team or support the team, how to lead a big team and what to do when taking over a new team.

Guiding Change: The challenge of managing, mobilising, understanding and leading change. Guiding change includes knowing how to mitigate consequences, overcome resistance to change and deal with employees’ reaction to change.

Managing Internal Stakeholders and Politics: The challenge of managing relationships, politics and image. This challenge includes gaining managerial support and managing up and getting buy-in from other departments, groups or individuals.

Reflecting on this list of challenges it’s clear that we are struggling to adapt effectively to a Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity (VUCA) environment - the uncertain and fast changing times of today. We’re experiencing immense change at all levels of society. And this change is happening so fast that we often find ourselves struggling to keep up. Leadership styles and practices of the past are often no longer relevant. The result? Significant change that requires personal and corporate transformation to navigate successfully.

In times like these it comes as no surprise we’re seeking to build teams, inspire others, lead change and manage dynamic internal relationships and politics. The immense time pressures and the speed of change requires leaders to improve their strategic focus, decision-making processes and their personal effectiveness.

Enterprises who are not proactively addressing these challenges will be ill equipped to lead into the future. So there is an urgent need to develop people at all levels and prepare them for the competitive environment of tomorrow.

Reflecting on these top 6 challenges what are you doing in response?

Collaborative Leaders

1/11/2013

Collaborative leadership is crucial for leading in uncertain and turbulent times. Leading in turbulent times requires a deliberate shift away from command-and-control towards a more collaborative style of leadership. When talking about leadership here, we’re referring to leadership as a verb and not a noun. We’re talking about leadership as the social process shared by all members of an enterprise. We’re not the person at the top of an enterprise’s organisational structure!

If you are considering making the shift towards a more collaborative leadership approach you may be asking yourself, “What are the practices that support collaborative leadership?” Good question. In this post we will briefly explore the 11 practices of collaborative leaders.

1. Passionate Purpose and Vision

Collaborative leaders create an environment where people can unite behind a common purpose, vision and set of values. Clear and compelling purpose, vision and values are essential. They unite people and provide guidance as to the goals and standards of behaviour. Passion begins with the leader, unless the leader is passionate and leads by example others will be reluctant to follow.

Having a purpose and vision is necessary, but it’s not sufficient. Vision and purpose must be supported by passion. Collaborative leaders have passion for a cause. It’s passion that drives people to initiate, to act and draws them into conversations about the best ways to create a new future. It’s passion that causes people to step up to a challenge, to take on ambitious responsibilities and accept risk. Seek out people who are passionate about the purpose and vision of the enterprise and help the participate in bringing the vision into reality.

2. Accept You’re Not in Control

The reality is a leader in never in control. Leaders are unable to command the commitment and passion required for success. People may comply when you’re around, but they only commit as the result of inspiring leadership and a meaningful cause. Moving towards collaborative leadership requires you moving away from the thinking that leadership is about control. Making the shift from “command-and-control” is not easy, but it’s critical if you want to develop a more collaborative leadership style.

Collaborative leadership demands that leaders, lead without the safety of authority, position and hierarchy. This requires that leaders let go of their need to control and embrace an alternative a collaborative leadership style.

Collaborative leadership begins with the understanding that although you cannot change others you can change yourself. You can change your leadership philosophy, your leadership behaviours and develop a new set of leadership beliefs and skills. The bottom line is that collaborative leadership starts with you and your example. It’s a decision you must make and begins with a change in your mindset, behaviours and the example you set for the team and your enterprise.

3. Flatten Your Enterprise Structures

Flat organisational structures have fewer levels of management with more people reporting into a single manager. This supports a fast, reliable communication and increased collaboration when compared to tall, deep structures. Flat structures are more agile and flexible as a result of faster decision making. However to be successful flat structures require more competent employees as higher levels of responsibility is placed on each individual. Collaborative leaders seek to flatten their enterprises structures allowing individuals to take more responsibility, increased accountability for decision making and power to initiate change.

4. Lead Horizontally

Collaborative leadership is about breaking down silos and building trust based cross-functional relationships. This requires a shift in thinking about who’s your team. Instead of seeing your team as consisting only of your direct reports you must learn to embrace the horizontal team consisting of your peers. Your peers, those leading and working in other functional disciplines, is your team. Leading a horizontal team requires influence and strong relatiopnships. To lead outside your area of responsibility and accountability is the hall mark of collaborative leadership.

5. Develop Leaders at All Levels

Unless we invest massively in the development of leadership at all levels we’ll be stuck with command-and-control as the primary way of getting things done. We’ll constrain the extent to which the enterprise could embrace collaborative leadership. Sadly, many enterprises have historically underinvested in the development of the necessary leadership skills required throughout the organisational structures to navigate in complex, ambiguous and uncertain times.

Collaborative leaders focus intensely on the development of leaders at all levels of the enterprise. Everyone is a leader. Everyone is expected to take responsibility to lead. Everyone is developed to become a leader. Collaborative leaders commit to the development leaders at all levels. Letting go of control and sharing power gives other the opportunity to step up and develop their leadership skills.

One of the best ways to develop leader is through leadership experiences. This means viewing mistakes as a learning and development opportunities. It means placing your best leaders on your biggest opportunities, rather than your biggest problems. It means rotating individuals so they lead outside their comfort zone and to encourage them to lead strategic projects.

6. Build a Foundation of Trust

Trust is the foundation of effective team work and collaboration. When trust fails, leadership fails. All the dysfunctions of teams as described by Patrick Lencioni – the lack of accountability, fear of commitment, lack of conflict and the avoidance of accountability – are a result of the absence of trust. Trust is the foundation of successful team work and collaboration.

Trust does not “just happen” as the result of spending time with others. Trust needs to be deliberately nurtured and developed. Trust is a choice we make about someone, it’s a belief in the competence, reliability, integrity and character of another person. To encourage trust you need to be trustworthy, it’s a two way street. Collaborative leadership have the courage required to trust others, to risk being vulnerable and to expose who you are and what the stand for to others.

7. Encourage Risk Taking

Developing leaders at all levels means encouraging people to take initiative and the implications of that is we need to take risk. When individuals feel trusted and secure they’re open to risk taking. This is a good thing. Thoughtful risk taking by individuals and teams is necessary for creativity, innovation, learning and growth. Without this enterprises find themselves stuck in the mire of process, procedure, bureaucracy and the status quo. When individuals feel free to take risk they spend less of their time figuring out how to cover their asses and devote more time to driving change.

8. Lead with Questions

When you lead with questions you’re trading control for collaboration. Information and knowledge is spread throughout the enterprise in different silos. To leverage this information require shifting the leadership role from providing the answers to asking questions. Effective questions opens up the conversation and the search for creative new solutions. Effective questions engage people in meaningful conversations. Conversation is how groups think. Effective questions generate conversation. Collaborative leaders bring people together in conversation around the enterprises biggest opportunities.

9. Share Information Broadly

Information is the lifeblood of any enterprise. Sharing information widely places everyone on same level, it encourages responsibility and collaboration. A continuous stream of information about customers, suppliers, markets improves agility and decision making at all levels.

There was a time when information was seen as a source of power and many hoarded and withheld information. However collaborative leaders share information generously. This gives others the information they need to confidently step into leadership roles and take responsibility for initiating change.

Sharing information broadly contributes to building an environment of trust. Without information people feel isolated and tend to make up their own version of reality. This leads to gossip and rumours that undermine trust and leadership effectiveness. Collaborative leaders share information creating an environment of trust and openness.

10. Support Transparent Decision Making

Collaborative leadership requires that leaders share power and allows individuals to contribute and influence decisions. Collaborative leaders are clear about who makes decisions, how decisions will be made, who is accountable for the outcomes and how others can participate in the process. When decision making processes are transparent people spend less time questioning decisions and commit their energy to implementation.

Collaborative leaders create processes and systems that support participation in decision making. Transparent decision making processes empower individuals and teams with the authority to make decisions. They develop supporting principles, values and decision making criteria as decision making guidelines. This empowers individuals and teams by providing the necessary decision making processes and frameworks in which they can execute their decision making authority.

When individuals are involved in decision making they get a deeper understanding of the issues, challenges and constraints that influence decisions. When people feel their voice has been considered they’re more likely support the decision. This builds the commitment necessary in support of the decisions implementation. Transparent decision making creates buy-in, builds trust.

11. Encourage Constructive Conflict

The active sharing of diverse perspectives provides a richer understanding of what’s happening resulting in better decisions and outcomes. It’s when we combine different ideas, perspectives and understanding that we gain insight. But such insight is hard won – it occurs as the result of difficult conversations around conflicting issues and concerns.

Encouraging constructive conflict in an environment where people are free to raise tough issues, to provide raw feedback to their leaders and team members is essential. Without open and constructive conflict innovation fails, decision making stumbles and creative solutions become scarce.

Collaborative leaders invest in building the interpersonal skills necessary for constructive conflict in themselves and others throughout the organisation. They celebrate diversity and welcome new and challenging perspectives with the goal of finding innovative solutions.

Conclusion

Leading in turbulent times requires a deliberate shift from command-and-control towards a collaborative style of leadership. This is easier said than done. It demands that individuals at all levels take initiative and act in ways that supports the achievement of the vision, purpose and objectives of the enterprise. The freedom to take risk, to fail, to engage in constructive conflict, to participate in decision making and to experiment, to learn and innovate. All this is the result of collaborative leadership.

Leadership defined.

16/6/2013

Last week the CEO of Telstra David Thodey defined Leadership. David said that the things that make a good leader are the ability to execute and get things done, able to understand and feel the ebbs and flows of a business, understand the needs of the customer, have strategic insight and able to spot opportunities ability to manage in ambiguity (not everything is black and white), have a understanding of emotional intelligence and lastly passion.

This got me thinking, what is your definition of leadership? Over the years I have read many books and attending seminars on leadership. I have found that only few people have a solid answer to this question. Few have a clear definition of what leadership means for them personally.

The definition of leadership has been a thorny issue for many years with each author approaching the topic from a different perspective. This is not to say that any of the definitions are right or wrong, rather each attempt exposes a different and valuable facet on what leadership means and how it’s expressed. Therefore it’s useful to explore the different definitions, perspective and viewpoints on leadership.

Leadership as Influence

These definitions describe leadership as a process of influencing others. It’s the ability of the leader to build relationships and influence people’s behaviour as required to execute the vision. The outcome of leadership is about changing the behaviour of people. This perspective of leadership is focused on inspiring and motivating others, with an emphasising the relationship between leaders and followers.

“Leadership is influence – nothing more, nothing less.” – John Maxwell, The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership
“Leadership is the incremental influence that a person has beyond his or her formal authority” – Vecchio
“Leadership requires using power to influence the thoughts and actions of other people.” – Zalenik, A., Managers and Leaders: are they different?
“Influencing people – by providing purpose, direction, and motivation – while operating to accomplish the mission and improving the organization.” - US Army Manual
“Leadership is the capacity to influence others through inspiration motivated by passion, generated by vision, produced by a conviction, ignited by a purpose.” – Dr. Myles Munroe, The Spirit of Leadership
“Leadership is the art of influencing others to their maximum performance to accomplish any task, objective or project.” – William Alan Cohen, The Art of a Leader
“Leadership is an influence relationship among leaders and followers who intend real changes that reflect their mutual purposes.” – Joseph Rost, Leadership in the 21st Century
“Leadership is the process of influencing the activities of an individual or a group in efforts toward goal achievement in a given situation.” – Hersey, P., Blanchard, K., Dewey, E.J., Management of Organizational Behavior

Leadership as Change

These definitions describe leadership primarily as a process of change supported by social influence and persuasion. Change is central to effective leadership. The greater the change the greater the need for leadership. More change demands more leadership. Therefore leadership requires leaders develop vision and future direction, to influence people to move towards the vision to achieve a shared goal.

“Leadership is the ability to step outside the culture to start evolutionary change processes that are more adaptive.” - Edgar Schein
“Leadership defines what the future should look like, aligns people with that vision, and inspires them to make it happen despite the obstacles.” – John Kotter, Leading Change
“Leadership is a process whereby an individual influences a group of individuals to achieve a common goal.” – Northouse, P. G., Leadership: Theory and Practice
“Leadership is the art of mobilizing others to want to struggle for shared aspirations.” – Kouzes, J.M. and Posner, B.Z., The Leadership Challenge
“Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality.” – Warren G. Bennis
“Leadership is the process of persuasion or example by which an individual (or leadership team) induces a group to pursue objectives held by the leader or shared by the leader and his or her followers” – John W. Gardner, On Leadership
“Leadership is the capacity of individuals to spark the capacity of a human community – people living and working together – to bring forth new realities.” – Peter Sense

Leadership as Service

Then there the definitions of leadership as being about service to others usually referred to as “servant leadership”. This perspective of leadership speaks to the motives and intentions of the leader, proposing that effective leaders act from the desire to be of service to others.

“Leadership is about service to others and a commitment to developing more servants as leaders. It involves co-creation of a commitment to a mission.” – Robert Greenleaf
“The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. The last is to say thank you. In between the two, the leader must become a servant and a debtor. That sums up the progress of an artful leader.” – Max DePree
“All of the great leaders have had one characteristic in common: it was the willingness to confront unequivocally the major anxiety of their people in their time. This, and not much else, is the essence of leadership.” – John Kenneth Galbraith

Leadership as Character

There are definitions leadership that refer to the importance of the leader’s character for effective leadership. These recognise the important of integrity, trust and the character of the leader. This is the recognition that without character and integrity, people will not trust the leader and without trust leaders cannot influence others to follow them on a journey of change.

“Leadership is a combination of strategy and character. If you must be without one, be without the strategy.” – General H. Norman Schwarzkopf
“Leadership: The capacity and will to rally people to a common purpose together with the character that inspires confidence and trust” – Field Marshal Montgomery
“Leadership is not a person or a position. It is a complex moral relationship between people, based on trust, obligation, commitment, emotion, and a shared vision of the good.” – Joanne Ciulla

Leadership as Development

There a a number of definitions of leadership that focus on the responsibility of the leader to grow and develop others into leaders. They highlight the importance of knowing and expressing who you are as a leader. These definitions recognise the need for the personal development of the leader and their constituents so they are able to effectively deal with the challenges of change brought about by a challenging vision.

“The function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers.” – Ralph Nadar
“Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others.” – Jack Welch
“If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.” — John Quincy Adams, American 6th US President (1825-29)
“Leadership is a function of knowing yourself, having a vision that is well communicated, building trust among colleagues, and taking effective action to realize your own leadership potential.” – Warren Bennis

The above definitions provide an overview of some of the most widely reference definitions of leadership.

What’s Your Personal Definition of Leadership?

As you would have noticed from the collection of leadership definitions above that there is no one single definition of leadership. There are as many definitions of leadership as there are leaders. This is a good thing. It recognises that leadership is deeply personal and a topic to be wrestled with by each of us as we prepare to lead. Leaders are unique and each leader needs a personal definition of leadership that guides and inspires them. Unless we understand what we mean by leadership it becomes difficult to select, develop and grow leaders.

As leadership is personal and unique to the individual, having your own personal definition provides an anchor for your role as leader. Your definition of leadership affects how you think about your role, how you act, your relationship with others and ultimately your results.

If you don’t as yet have a personal definition of leadership take some time over the next week to develop one that’s your own. I would suggest the following process to create your own personal definition of leadership:

Review the definitions listed previously as a source of inspiration. Highlight those that resonate with you personally.
Start a conversation with your peers and others on how they define leadership. Use these conversations to stimulate and challenge your own thinking.
Work on and revise your personal definition as you go.
Your personal definition should create awareness for you concerning to your role as leader and help you answer the question, “How do I know when I’m leading?”.

I look forward to reading in the comments people's own definition of leadership.

You can tell a lot about which direction your life is heading by looking at the people with whom you've chosen to spend your time and share your ideas

12/4/2013

A factor in your personal development comes in the area of your relationships with others. You can tell a lot about which direction your life is heading by looking at the people with whom you've chosen to spend your time and share your ideas. Their values and priorities impact you the way you think and act. If they're positive people dedicated to growth, then their values and priorities will encourage you and reinforce your desire to grow.

It's not always comfortable to associate with people who are ahead of you in their growth, but it's always profitable. Try to cultivate relationships with those people who can help you grow, but don't think only in terms of what you can gain. Always bring something to the table yourself. You've got to make the relationship win-win or it won't last.

Training is NOT a luxury.

11/6/2012

Training and development is a necessity, and the best leaders and organizations know it. This dedication to improvement is
reflected in their calendars and in their budgets.

COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE THROUGH PEOPLE DEVELOPMENT

13/5/2012

Are those with fortunes simply fortunate? Do our life circumstances depend more on fate or choice? Are leaders born or made?
Harvard economist Michael Porter looked at these questions from the standpoint of national economic performance. Why do German engineers, Swiss chocolatiers, and Japanese electronics manufacturers enjoy a competitive advantage over the rest of the world? Is it the luck of being in the right location or something else?
Porter’s research contradicted conventional wisdom that industry leadership is explainable by geographical advantages such as plentiful natural resources, cheap labor, and abundant capital. He demonstrated that “a nation does not inherit but instead creates the most important factors of production—such as skilled human resources or a scientific base.” Countries develop their elite industries.

The Three C’s of Developing a Competitive Advantage
As leaders we sometimes feel like the deck is stacked against us. We envy others with more financial resources at their disposal, a better business location, or a more recognizable brand. The good news is that whatever the external circumstances of our business climate, we have the ability to gain a competitive advantage by developing our people.
How do you create a superior culture of people development? Michael Porter discovered that world-class industries share three common traits: competition, challenges, and connectivity. Each quality is transferable to your organization and can help you tap into your most appreciable asset—your people.

1) COMPETITION
Top global industries develop in countries with intense domestic competition. For example, in Italy’s leather-good fashion industry Gucci continuously must re-invent itself or else Prada and Fendi will steal away its share of the market. Conversely, when a firm enjoys a national monopoly, it lacks the pressure to innovate that comes from having local rivals. For that reason, national industries with a single, dominant business seldom attain global influence.
There’s a reason why athletes swim faster and jump higher in the Olympics than they do in practice. People perform at their best when pushed by competitors. Even competing against ourselves motivates us to excel. After writing down our personal best time for a bike race, we then have incentive to do better the next time we ride. In what ways can you foster healthy competition within your organization? How can you encourage people to compete against themselves by setting performance goals?

2) CHALLENGES
Porter found that industries in countries with noticeable disadvantages often ascended to global leadership on account of the creative solutions they invented in order to overcome economic handicaps. As a case in point, Japanese manufacturers in the 1970s and 1980s were limited by scarce natural resources and relatively high-cost labor. Yet by pioneering innovative management techniques (in the areas of quality control and just-in-time production) Japan’s automotive and electronics manufacturers attained international renown.
People grow through adversity not ease. As a leader, what are you doing to nudge people outside of their comfort zones?

3) CONNECTIVITY
World-class industries sustain global dominance through the cluster effect—having cutting-edge companies in close proximity to one another. For instance, software developers bunched together in California’s Silicon Valley benefit from rapid information flow and immediate technological interchange. Companies piggyback on one another’s novel applications to spur a dizzying pace of innovation in the industry.
Within an organization, even a small one, work teams can become isolated from one another. When that happens, people not only miss out on the insights of their peers but also feel powerless to bring about change through their ideas. As a leader, you have responsibility to facilitate communication between upper management and those on the front lines, between customer service and product development, or between accounting and marketing. What steps are you taking to facilitate connectivity between your people? How are you clustering them together so that their ideas are transmitted throughout the organization?

Think of yourself as a gardener, with a watering can in one hand and a can of fertilizer in the other.

3/5/2012

"Too often, managers think that people development occurs once a year in performance reviews. That's not even close. It should be a daily event, integrated into every aspect of your regular goings-on. Customer visits are a chance to evaluate your sales force. Plant tours are an opportunity to meet promising new line managers. A coffee break at a meeting is an opening to coach a team member about to give his first major presentation. Think of yourself as a gardener, with a watering can in one hand and a can of fertilizer in the other. Occasionally you have to pull some weeds, but most of the time, you just nurture and tend. Then watch everything bloom."

~ Jack Welch

leadership is about developing other people

12/4/2012

Increasingly, leadership is about developing other people into both team members and individual contributors who can work towards a larger vision.

To aid in the development of others and manage the processes appropriately, the leader must be clear about his or her own strengths and have appropriate mental models about working with others.

A leader should also possess interpersonal competence, which is commonly referred to as emotional intelligence.

Leaders who are confident that they can meet the challenges they face, are open to the lessons of experience, and actively consider the effects of their behavior on others reach incredible heights of performance.

Leaders are not required to change their essential nature; they are required to extend the range of their behaviors to enhance their effectiveness. As situations change, those behaviors that led to success in one context may not translate to another; thus, flexilbility is essential.

Source: The Leadership Advantage Training Program: Using the MBTI® Tool for Effective Leadership Facilitator's Guide
(2001) by Roger R. Pearma