DL What is Great Leadership

WHAT IS GREAT LEADERSHIP

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What Is Great Leadership?

“Control is not leadership; management is not leadership; leadership is leadership.

If you seek to lead, invest at least 50% of your time in leading yourself — your own purpose, ethics, principles, motivation, conduct.

Invest at least 20% leading those with authority over you and 15% leading your peers.”

Dee Hock Founder and CEO Emeritus, Visa

Think about the leaders you have known and reported to. Were they, in your eyes, great?

Effective?

Adequate?

Woeful?

How did the different leaders you’ve had make you feel?

Empowered?

Excited?

Capable?

Inadequate?

Doubtful?

Worried?

Leadership is one of those things where success can only be measured by observed response in the team. How your team responds is the measure of how you’re going as a leader. Are you getting the results you want? Are they getting the results they want?

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There are three exceptions to this – 1. The majority of the team is effective and achieving goals and there is one or even two ‘poison pills’ who do not embody the culture of the organisation.

You will see them undermining the leader, complaining about others instead of taking responsibility, blaming the leader, speaking inappropriately to team members or even the leader and so on.

They have an ‘axe to grind’ and by upsetting the team focus, they get significance.

Their arrogance and their ignorance does not allow them to see that they are only harming themselves and that the leader will observe, correct and then if there’s no improvement, will eventually move them on to other companies for them to spread their particular version of poison somewhere else.

Regardless of your effectiveness as a leader, there is going to occasionally be a mishire. Don’t dwell.

2. A team member hasn’t made the decision yet to really dig in and have a ‘red hot go’ at the role.

Sometimes when someone starts out in a high performing team they aren’t used to the structure and the KPI’s and the accountability and it can take some acclimatizing.

Give them a little space for them to find their feet and to make their own decision about whether they are going to really take responsibility for their success and become part of the team.

“Constant, straight talking feedback is the best way to go, so that they know the standards and the criteria for success that is available for them to use as a guide for their own success.

Training, mentoring and encouragement is the order of the day here.”

3. The team member has received training and mentoring. There is a structure and a system that others have used successfully.

There has been constant and accurate feedback, in writing and in conversations.

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Feedback has been delivered in real time. And still, the team member is not meeting the KPI’s or is meeting them only with high supervision and constant reminders.  The team member seems to struggle a lot of the time.  They are easily overwhelmed, constantly needing to be reminded of what they should be doing and are a drain on the resources around them.  They are not adding value beyond doing the minimum, because the minimum is a strain for them.

In this situation, they can, if it’s available be moved into a different role, but generally this is a case of mismatch between the team member and the role.

I HAVE EXPERIENCED ALL THREE EXAMPLES IN MY OWN BUSINESS.

The First Example: Where someone is just determined to not comply with how the company does things, and sees themselves as ‘above’ it or superior in some way to others, is the most frustrating, because often there is real talent there and they can do the job, they just do it in such a way that the damage to the culture is too high a price to pay.

Regardless of their ability to do the job, I have the least patience for this category of team member.

Working in my company with this attitude is tough for the person.

Until their UGR’s are a match with the culture they are not given more responsibility, they are not mentored on new opportunities that they could excel at, they are shut out of new leadership opportunities and their own professional growth stagnates – this is by necessity as I can’t risk exposing them to any more opportunities to ‘poison the well’ than they already have.

They are given one 90 day cycle to correct this behaviour, are given feedback on its inappropriateness three times, and then if it doesn’t improve, they are then highly encouraged to share their ‘unique’ ways with another company.

What’s interesting is the resentment they can send my way as they justify their behaviour, blame others, and deny there’s anything wrong. If you look at the quadrants to leadership (coming up later), you see they are below the line.

Anyone who is below the line repeatedly is not going to move forward in my organisation.

They either take responsibility for their own results, and seek to be accountable and own what they’re creating, or their career development goes on hold.

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JUST IMAGINE FOR A MOMENT… If their behaviour was not corrected, and they were in fact rewarded with new opportunities because they have talent, even though they were, For example: “Raising their voice at people, refusing to comply to the processes and systems because they didn’t see it as their problem, speaking over people to ram home their own views, and not contributing to the culture.”

For them to be rewarded for talent and ability is the completely wrong message for a high performing team.

Regardless of their abilities and skills, unless someone genuinely contributes to the culture and embodies the culture, they cannot be rewarded, or others will mimic the poor behaviour and this will destroy the company.

The Second Challenge A team member who hasn’t yet made the decision to dig in and have a go, is the fun example that I like working with.  They’re new, so they’re observing what’s going on and wondering where they fit in.  They see different examples of people embodying the culture, and occasional examples where people don’t.

In a high performing team the leader gives feedback straight away about what’s expected, so they see high standards and regular feedback.

They see people encouraged and praised when they embody the culture and use the systems.

These people seem to be the most confident with their roles and seem to enjoy their day the most.

The new team member wants to feel that way too, but has probably come from a culture where putting yourself ‘out there’ was not really encouraged.

A great example of this is: When we hire a new administrator. there’s a fair amount of phone work involved, and they always start out so ‘straight’ and formal. There’s no laughter in their voice or friendliness in their tone.

They sound like a stranger who will always be a stranger.

We want our phones to be answered by friendly, approachable people who want to talk with the person on the phone.

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I’ve discovered that this is not how people are trained in other companies!

So we have to retrain ALL our administrators in how to answer the phone ‘The TCI way… .

Fun Light Friendly Informal Administrators who like it have fun for the first time in years when they answer the phone!

They say they spent years being told to ‘not be themselves’ and then they arrive with us and it’s highly encouraged – no, expected!

The new team member who enjoys learning about this and stuff like this really go for it.

I see them sometimes sitting on the fence with it because it’s so different from ‘regular’ companies, but I don’t mind, because I know if they decide to have a go, they’ll have fun, and be contributing to the culture.

Sometimes, though, they don’t make the switch.

I’ve worked out from this that being a contributor to the culture is more important than any skill or ability. It’s not enough to not harm the culture.

They must actively contribute to it to be a good long term fit.

I’m looking, in these early days, for their openness to how we think and what we expect of each other.

A good leader is more mindful of how they respond to requests – their attitude, demeanour, willingness – than their competence with doing the task.

We’ve had competent people who have been encouraged to move on because their manner was disrespectful, dismissive, or they just didn’t ‘get’ our culture of ‘can do’.

The Third Category Like the second, is what the 90 day probationary period is all about.

Sometimes, even with all the best efforts in the world (after all, it’s not like we want to go to all that effort to hire someone only to see it not work out!) you put someone who seemed so ideal into their role and they just don’t seem to be able to do it.

No amount of training, mentoring and feedback seems to get them to crack the code of being effective in their role.

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In a small team particularly, the strain of having to pick up after them is soon felt.

If they have a great attitude and you know they’re really trying, I give them much longer to prove themselves, because I love a great attitude!

But if they’re easily overwhelmed, still not responding to feedback and clearly struggling it’s tough to justify keeping them in the role when you know they’re unlikely to ever bring that added extra value and at best they will only ever ‘get by’ in the role.

For this example: There is no exceptions – they can’t stay in a role where others have to compensate for them. The whole team suffers because of their lack of competence, and limits their effectiveness.

This example always troubles me, because it was our decision to hire them and we obviously got it wrong. Anyway, back to the main station – great leadership.

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SHARON PEARSON Disruptive Leadership Module 1 | What is Great Leadership Edition 1 | Version 3 | December 16 Published by The Coaching Institute Copyright 2016 Š The Coaching Institute All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical or electronic, including photocopying and recording, or by information storage and retrieval system without permission in writing from the publisher.

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