| |
| |
|
Go Back | About | Contact | Web Design News | |
|
|
|
The Leadership Strategy: An Unmined Comstock Lode of Results
During the Second World War, Winston Churchill had a framed inscription on his desk that said, "It's not enough to say we are doing our best. We must succeed in doing what is necessary." The world demands results. Good intentions and promises are no use to it. And one of the best ways for any leader to get results is to employ a strategy, which is a plan, method or series of actions for obtaining a goal or specific outcome. It doesn't matter what job you have or how many people you are leading, if you don't come to grips with the challenges of developing and executing strategies, you're limiting your abilities to get results. In a sense, strategies are promissory notes, payment due upon demand. One reason for their becoming less than worthy tender is they are not backed by a Leadership Strategy. Leadership Strategy -- have you heard of it? I bet you haven't. For one thing, it isn't taught at business schools. And for another, even in the unlikely case that you have heard of it and know what it is, you probably don't know how to make it happen. In this article, I'll show you what a Leadership Strategy is and ways to institute it. It can be far more important than your standard business strategy. Whereas a business strategy seeks to marshal an organization's functions around central, organizing concepts, a leadership strategy, on the other hand, seeks to obtain, organize, and direct the heartfelt commitment of the people who must carry out the business strategy. The business strategy is the sail, the Leadership Strategy the ballast. Without a Leadership Strategy, most business strategies capsize. To understand what a Leadership Strategy is, let's look at your past leadership activities. Divide a single sheet of paper into two columns labeled A & B. At the top of column A write "business (or organizational) strategies". On top of column B write, "Leadership Strategies" -- in other words, what strategies were used to obtain people's heartfelt commitments to carry out the business strategies? Think of the strategies your organization has developed during the past few years. They might be product strategies, service strategies, growth strategies, sales strategies, marketing strategies. You do not have to explain it in detail, just give each strategy a tag and write down the tag. Did the listings in column A match the listings in column B? Were there any listings at all in column B? That gap between what was in column A and what was in column B is a killer gap. It means that the business strategies haven't been augmented by Leadership Strategies. And when that happens, results suffer. I don't care if you lead three people, three hundred or three thousand and more. I don't care if you're in sales, you're a plant supervisor, a marketing manager or a COO, CFO or CEO. You're going to need a Leadership Strategy. And if you don't think you need any kind of strategy, think again. Whatever job you're doing takes strategic thinking. In fact, getting in the habit of looking at whatever you do in strategic terms gives you a great advantage in your career advancement. The roots of the word "strategy" come from two German words, the first meaning an encamped or spread out army and then second word meaning "to drive." In other words, a strategy gives direction, organization and force to an otherwise scattered organization. Most business leaders are good a developing business strategies. They're taught how at business schools. But I'll bet that 9,999 out of 10,000 leaders don't know what a Leadership Strategy is, let alone how it fits in with a business strategy. Leadership Strategies are not taught at business schools because such Strategies find their meaning not in abstract formulations or case studies but in what can't be taught but must be experienced, process and relationship. And if you haven't thought of a Leadership Strategy before, start thinking about it now, because it can boost your career in many ways. Most leaders develop their strategies in bunkers, without taking into consideration those outside the bunker who have to implement it. Unwittingly, they buy into the "fallacy of automatic reciprocity" - the conviction that their devotion to the cause is automatically reciprocated by the people they lead. It's a fallacy because reciprocity is not automatic. It can't be ordered. It must be cultivated and earned. Here, then, are five steps to developing a Leadership Strategy. (1) Understand your business strategy. There are many books and courses on developing business strategies. I don't want to re-invent this wheel. Suffice to say you should clearly develop that strategy. (2) Identify the dream(s) of your cause leaders. Why do I say "dreams"? Far from being fluff, dreams are the stuff that hard, measured results are made of. Look at it this way: Leadership is motivational or it's stumbling in the dark. The best leaders don't order people to do a job, the best leaders motivate people to want to do the job. The trouble is the vast majority of leaders don't delve into the deep aspects of human motivation and so are unable to motivate people effectively. Drill down through goals and aims and aspirations and ambitions and you hit the bedrock of motivation, the dream. Many leaders fail to take it into account. Dreams are not goals and aims. Goals are the results toward which efforts are directed. The realization of a dream might contain goals, which can be stepping stones on the way to the attaining dreams. But the attainment of a goal does not necessarily result in the attainment of a dream. For instance, Martin Luther King did not say, "I have a goal." Or "I have an aim." The power of that speech was in the "I have a dream". Dreams are not aspirations and ambitions. Aspirations and ambitions are strong desires to achieve something. King didn't say he had an aspiration or ambition that " ....one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.'" He said he had a dream. If you are a leader speaking to people's aspirations and ambitions, you are speaking to something that motivates them, yes; but you are not necessarily tapping into the heartwood of their motivation. After all, one might aspire or be ambitious to achieve a dream. But one's aspiration and ambition may also be connected to things of lesser importance than a dream. A dream embraces our most cherished longings. It embodies our very identity. We often won't feel fulfilled as human beings until we realize our dreams. If leaders are avoiding people's dreams, if leaders are simply setting goals (as important as goals are), they miss the best of opportunities to help those people take ardent action to achieve great results. I teach leaders to have their organizations get into the realm of achieving "more results faster, continually." To do so, you must first take the trouble to understand the dreams of the people you lead. (3) Create a Shared Dream. If your vision of where you want the organization to go and their dream of where they want to go are shared, you call it a Shared Dream. Furthermore, you can't go to the next step unless you have developed a Shared Dream. Look at it this way: The critical issue of the Leadership Strategy isn't the motivation of the leaders. As a leader, you must be motivated. If you're not motivated, you shouldn't be leading. The critical issue is: Can you transfer your motivation to the people so they are as motivated as you are? (By the way, the Shared Dream is not "win/win". As you'll see, it's much deeper and richer relationship than the self-limiting "win/win"; for unlike "win/win", the Shared Dream is an on-going relationship process from which flow mutually beneficial expectations and solutions.) (4) Turn the Shared Dream into a Leadership Strategy. The Leadership Strategy is the Shared Dream manifested by an action plan. In the action plan, delineate milestones that take you to the Shared Dream. The first milestone may be a comprehensive, rigorous identification of the needs of the cause leaders and how those needs dovetail into the business strategy. (Remember, you can use this process with any number of cause leaders. Just scale it up to the number you require.) Churchill had it right, " ... we must succeed in doing what is necessary." And one of the best ways for any leader to get people to succeed in doing what is necessary is to combine a business strategy with a Leadership Strategy. 2005 © The Filson Leadership Group, Inc. All rights reserved. PERMISSION TO REPUBLISH: This article may be republished in newsletters and on web sites provided attribution is provided to the author, and it appears with the included copyright, resource box and live web site link. Email notice of intent to publish is appreciated but not required: mail to: brent@actionleadership.com The author of 23 books, Brent Filson's recent books are, THE LEADERSHIP TALK: THE GREATEST LEADERSHIP TOOL and 101 WAYS TO GIVE GREAT LEADERSHIP TALKS. He is founder and president of The Filson Leadership Group, Inc. - and for more than 20 years has been helping leaders of top companies worldwide get audacious results. Sign up for his free leadership e-zine and get a free white paper: "49 Ways To Turn Action Into Results," at http://www.actionleadership.com
MORE RESOURCES:
SEO - Google News |
|
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
What Makes A Good Leader? Ask Uncle Sam What do the major generals who are leading the war efforts in Iraq have in common with executives and entrepreneurs who are conducting business back home? When it comes to leadership, the answer is probably a lot more than you think.In a recent study conducted by the Army War College, subordinates of the major generals who are leading the war efforts in Iraq were asked to rate the performance of their superiors. The Three Essential Attributes of a Leader: (Part 2) Bringing Others to the Vision We need to engage our listeners and transform them into excited, willing and committed supporters of the vision - for the duration of delivery!Logic, our intellect, doesn't know how to do this. It knows how to present the facts. Two Vital Abilities Any Leader Must Have As a business owner, you are a leader whether you like it or not. Whether you like it or not you have to guide your group in order to expand your organization. Reveal the Leader Within A Leader is not a certain type of person or position of power. It is not the one at the top of the golf leader board at any specific time or the person at the top of an organisation. The Three Factors of Leadership Motivation Leaders do nothing more important than get results. But you can't get results by yourself. Strengthening Leadership Development with Employees Within every business lies a network of people who are working to make their employer successful. Because growing business requires more employees, employers need to seek prospective candidates who will align well with their business. Premature Articulation Ask anyone about what makes a good leader and they are sure to put the ability to communicate high on the list of necessary skills. Yet all to often communication is simply seen as the ability to speak. What We Can Learn From J. Paul Getty J. Paul Getty planned to enter the U. What Kind of Leader Are You? There are literally millions of words written and spoken each week on enlightened leadership yet the fact remains that low morale, high stress and job dissatisfaction continue to be three of the most serious problems facing the workplace. We seem to be so effectively socialized into top down leadership that we find it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to change our autocratic ways. The Incandescence Of The Human Spirit There lives within every individual a power, an energy, an incandescence of spirit that is being constantly held in check, like a dimmer switch turned way down.A lifetime of being told: "we are nothing special; to stand out is egotistic and wrong; to conform is necessary; to be different is bad; the collective good must be served even to the determent of our own being; we must support; we must never defy; to question authority is inherently evil; the majority is always right; don't rock the boat;" -- creates an habitual thought pattern of lassitude, often leaving us without any sense of our ability to make a substantial difference and therefore with no real sense of urgency. It Begins Like This Jonathan was drunk multiple times before ever completing elementary school; his father fed him bourbon so Jonathan would resist less while being sexually molested. On the night his mother was released from jail, Jonathan rode eagerly by his father's side to pick her up. Make the Most of Your Mentoring Relationships Mentoring is one of the best ways to learn, to get feedback, and to take your career to the next level. Here are ten tips for making the most of your mentoring relationships. The Happy Jar I just delivered a free speech. I am a great believer in free speech, but an even greater believer in paid speech. How To Party Like Leonardo Da Vinci After studying scores of great thinkers like Leonardo Da Vinci, I think I've stumbled upon what really set them apart from the rest of the folks living (and thinking) at the same time.It's remarkably simple. Asking for Help For many of us, asking for help is a difficult concept. It can require a certain amount of vulnerability. Leadership and Change in a Holographic Universe Have you ever noticed that since the early part of the 20th century, nearly every new scientific theory manages to sound more and more like the same sort of metaphysical philosophies science once dismissed? Well, it's happening again and this time our views on the structure of the universe, the power of human consciousness and even the nature of reality itself are being challenged by a startling new finding: that many hard to explain events and scientific puzzles become suddenly clear and easily understood if we consider that everything we see and experience around us is not in fact a physical reality, but rather our own interpretation of an infinitely large, dynamic and multidimensional hologram, constructed by and interpreted through our own consciousness.Most people are familiar with the concept of a graphic hologram - an image imprinted on a special film that, when illuminated with a certain type of laser, projects a 3-dimensional picture that you can view from any angle. The Defining Moment: The Straw That Stirs The Drink Of Motivational Leadership (Part One) Decades ago, as a rifle platoon commander in the Marines, I saw leaders who could motivate troops to do extraordinary things -- and leaders who couldn't get the troops to do much at all. I wondered what was the difference between the successful and unsuccessful leaders; and if that difference be taught. Peek Inside The Heads of Amazingly Successful Leaders Would you like to know what really goes on inside the heads of astoundingly successful leaders? Here is your chance. Part of the research for my book Absolutely Fabulous Organizational Change? involved highly successful executives filling-out my Abilities & Behavior Forecaster? pre-employment test. Leadership Training: The Bit They Didn't Tell You About Changing! A willingness to change first is one of the major pre requisites for leaders!If the situation is deadlocked or blocked, they need to find the best opportunity, shift their personal perspective to accommodate it and take action from there. This is no matter how personally attached they are to their current position!Three sixty degree feedback is a great example. Are You a Leader or a Manager? President Ike Eisenhower once demonstrated the difference between leadership and management to his cabinet by putting a piece of string in a straight line on the conference table. He then asked one of the attendees to put his finger on one end of the string and push it.
|
ChicagoAnimation's Acquisitions: Market Polls - 1pennyStock.com
Sponsors: Paving | VTL's | Religious Statues
