Leadership in Today's World
The most important thing you do is LEAD your people. Every
productive activity on your daily agenda is leadership,
regardless of what you call it. You manage, advise, teach,
decide, and direct. The list goes on but it's all leading.
The most valuable commodity of any great organization is the
quality of good people. They deserve the most inspired caring
leadership you can provide.
Leaders seize the opportunity and use it properly to attain
excellence.
A critical factor in the exercise of leadership is the
adaptability of the person in charge. Whenever any of the
variables change, the necessarily "right" style must change. The
leader must then adjust his or her approach. The style that
worked yesterday may not work tomorrow--but the leader will
adapt. It takes time for a new leader to identify the "right"
style of leadership. By the time that leader discovers the
correct approach he or she may have damaged his or her
credibility. The leader may then have established a pattern of
behavior that will stick with him or her for the rest of their
lives.
Another component of good leadership is caring. Good leaders
care about and take of their people. They help them deal with
stress that arise both from the job and from external
sources.Leaders never let the pressure of their job interfere
with taking care of their people.
What your members of your team or organization say is important.
Without exception every group complains to some degree. But this
is not always bad. Quality of leadership must be assessed by
looking at where the irritants lie. If discussions generally
dwell on internal issues within the team or organization,
leadership might need improvement. If they focus instead on
internal issues at a higher level such as company or corporate
headquarters, there is a chance your people are satisfied with
your leadership.
Equally important in the assessment of leadership is how
participants interact in sensing sessions. This is commonly seen
as an indicator of morale--how they feel about themselves. It is
also a broad indicator of how they feel about their organization.
Cooperative groups generally come from good environment. They
talk about anything. At times they even complain but they also
frequently recommend solutions. The tone and body language of
these group suggest that they are basically satisfied with their
leadership. The willingness to recommend improvements suggest
confidence in their leaders to listen to opinions and to act on
recommendations.
Vocal, hostile groups generally come from poor environments.
These groups use sensing sessions to vent their frustrations.
They don't sense that their leaders understand or care enough
about them to deal with their problems. In most cases, these
groups see their leaders adding more to their burden than they
take away.
Reticent groups also generally come from poor environments. They
hesitate to say anything. These groups demonstrate the
resignation that sets in when they feel no one cares about their
problems. Alternatively, they may respresent teams that work
under repressive leadership that is intoleratnt to "whiners" or
threatens retribution for complaining. A good senior leader can
do things to overcome poor leadership below them. The converse
is not true . Even the most inspired junior leaders cannot
compensate for the "wrong" style imposed upon them and their
team from above.
So far we've dealt with selection of leadership style, based on
individual and organizational varibles . Another way to look at
leadership is to consider how it is used. We will explore the
leader's selection of the "right" approach to running an
organization in my next edition on leadership.