Leadership: What Kind of Leader Do I Need to Be? Want to Be?

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Leadership What Kind of Leader Do I Need to Be?
Want to Be?

• Andrew Graham
• School of Policy Studies
• Queens University

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What Well Be Doing Together

• Getting Started What does leadership mean to you
  and what is it about your work context that
  affects how you lead?
• Some Basics about Leadership
• Getting off the white horse and into the real
  world
• Yes, the vision thing is important, as a start
• Context molds how and what you lead
• You can lead from behind, beside and up front
• Some Really Good Ways to Fail as a Leader
• Leading Yourself
• You as your organizations key resource
• How to treat yourself as a resource

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What is Leadership where you live?

• Lets discuss leadership and what you see it as
  being
• Take it to your home and not in some imaginary or
  ideal world.
• Lets go..

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You need to work on your leadership style when.

• Your staff is openly challenging your open door
  policy.
• The Chair of the Board calls yours office to
  speak to yours assistant, not you.
• Every time you come out of the your office the
  conversations stop and everyone is blushing.
• The social committee keeps asking you what youd
  like to do for your retirement party.
• They keep moving the executive meeting without
  telling you.

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You need to work on your leadership style when.

• The motto hanging on your wall is If it aint
  broke, I havent touched it yet.
• You adhere to the KISS principle Keep It
  Stupid, Simple.
• In the latest cost-cutting exercise, people are
  referring to you as the fat that wields the
  knife.
• The only way that can get people to come to a
  meeting in your office is by keeping your fridge
  stocked with beer.
• Youre envious of the job security of a
  contestant on The Apprentice.

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Distinguishing Leadership From Managing

• Managing
• Engages in day-to-day caretaker activities
  Maintains and allocates resources
• Exhibits supervisory behaviour Acts to make
  others maintain standard job behaviour
• Administers subsystems within organizations
• Asks how and when to engage in standard practice
• Goes for the brain

• Leadership
• Formulates long-term objectives for reforming the
  system Plans strategy and tactics
• Exhibits leading behaviour Acts to bring about
  change in others congruent with long-term
  objectives
• Innovates for the entire organization
• Asks what and why to change standard practice
• Goes for the heart

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Distinguishing Leadership From Managing

• Leadership
• Creates vision and meaning for the organization
• Uses transformational influence Induces change
  in values, attitudes, and behaviour using
  personal examples and expertise
• Uses empowering strategies to make followers
  internalize values
• Status quo challenger and change creator

• Managing
• Uses transactional influence Induces compliance
  in manifest behaviour
• Acts within established culture of the
  organization using rewards, sanctions, and formal
  authority
• Relies on control strategies to get things done
  by subordinates
• Status quo supporter and stabilizer

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Leaders Make Pathways
Path
Directive
Directive
Leader identifies employee needs.
Leader connects rewards with goal(s)
Appropriate goals are established.
Participative behavior
Supportive behavior
Leader provides assistance on employees path
toward goals.
Employees become satisfied and motivated and
accept the leader.
Motivation
Achievement
Both employees and organization better
reach their goals.
Effective performance occurs.
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The Working Leader

• So much research and theory focus on the leader
  bringing his or her organization along, to new
  levels, out of the depths into a new tomorrow, a
  better world.
• Leadership is also a set of functions that
  leaders fulfill to make their organization
  effective within both the larger organization and
  the overall environment
• Known as the action/functional concept of
  leadership
• We will focus our review of leadership at the
  coal face not the pulpit

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What Then is a Working Leader and what does she
do?

• Focus is on critical performance issues around
• Implementation
• Execution
• Operating capabilities and competencies
• Coordination
• Systems issues

Who does what with whom, when and where in order
to get the work done effectively and the
continuous reworking of these as circumstances
change and problems arise.
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Some characteristics of a working leader

• The working leader is constantly juggling
  connections to get things done.
• The working leader understands her operation well
  enough to understand its dependencies.
• The working leader is engaged. She must get into
  the messy fray of who should be doing what in
  the process the soft issues of people and
  relationships become entwined with the hard
  issues of resources and technology

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Roles of the Working Leader

• Building Relationships
• Networking
• Gathering emotional intelligence
• Supporting
• Explaining
• Fixing misunderstandings

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Roles of the Working Leader

• Managing Conflict
• Managing conflict and team building (within and
  outside the organization)
• Most conflicts occur within work routines,
  especially where they interface with other work
  routines (mutual interdependence is a key factor)

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Roles of the Working Leader

• Influencing People
• Getting people on board either internally or
  externally
• Matching organizational objectives to other
  organizations
• Creating a climate of co-operation and mutual
  value added in problem solving
• Taking a stand or defending turf

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Roles of the Working Leader

• Getting decisions made (not just making
  decisions)
• Internal decision-making making sure there is a
  link to a specific decision and an actual outcome
• Influencing necessary decision out of the
  leaders control horizontally and vertically
• Creating effective reward/payback systems to
  ensure a flow of positive outcomes (you scratch
  my back and Ill scratch yours)

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Roles of the Working Leader

• Moving and Leveraging Information Flow
• Understanding what is happening within the
  organization to influence desired outcomes
• Understanding what is happening elsewhere that
  has an impact on the organizations desired
  outcomes
• Making sure that the organization understands if
  performance
• Selling, explaining, get the organizations
  concerns listened to
• Clarifying roles
• Reducing inter-organizational friction

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Some Key Tasks of a Working Leader

• Defining the task
• Involving the key players in generating creative
  ideas, seeking consensus on options and providing
  direction.
• Clarifying how we will know when we have
  achieved the task.
• Communicating and explaining this to all involved
  Identifying contingency arrangements
• Constantly building work arounds or alternative
  ways of doing the same thing
• Briefing, Cajoling, Begging, Beseeching

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Some Key Tasks of a Working Leader

• Distributing resources, bartering resources
  across units, fighting for more resources
• Setting or negotiating standards limited or
  defining expectations, prescising delivery of
  goods and services and time, setting limits on
  sharing, defining scope of control.

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Some Key Tasks of a Working Leader

• Controlling Watching the organization and its
  dependent organizations at work, checking
  progress through monitoring systems and
  intervening when required to ensure the work flow
  keeps on course.
• Evaluating Building formal and informal ways to
  assess issues as they emerge or as primal
  indicators emerge that trouble is on the way (it
  is, by the way)
• Giving feedback and identifying ways of improving.

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Some Key Tasks of a Working Leader

• Motivating Understanding the needs of the
  organization and individuals and using these to
  build further commitment.
• Sensing dissatisfaction and removing or reducing
  these factors.

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Then again, maybe being a leader is just about
herding kittens
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Bad Leadership and how to get some

• A good leader can do bad and a bad leader can at
  a minimum do very little harm
• So why does having good leadership matter? Why
  does have a good leader doing good matter even
  more?
• The costs moral, financial and human of bad
  leadership in pursuit of good causes is extremely
  high
• In addition, we only learn about what good
  leadership should look like through an
  understanding what bad leadership both
  technical and ethical looks like.

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Types of Bad Leadership

• Incompetent leadership the leader and at least
  some followers lack the will or skill to sustain
  effective action
• Rigid Leadership the leader and at least some
  followers are stiff and unyielding. Although they
  may be competent, they are unable or unwilling to
  adapt to new ideas, new information or changing
  times
• Intemperate Leadership the leader lacks
  self-control and is aided and abetted by
  followers who are unwilling or unable effectively
  to intervene.

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Types of Bad Leadership

• Callous Leadership - the leader and at least
  some followers are uncaring or unkind. Ignored or
  discounted are the needs, wants and wishes of
  most members of the group or organization,
  especially subordinates.
• Corrupt Leadership - the leader and at least
  some followers lie, cheat, or steal or facilitate
  same in others. To a degree that exceeds the
  norm, they put self-interest ahead of the public
  interest

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Types of Bad Leadership

• Insular Leadership - the leader and at least
  some followers minimize or disregard the health
  and welfare of the the other i.e. those
  outside the group or organization for which they
  are directly responsible.
• Evil Leadership - the leader and at least some
  followers commit atrocities. They use pain as an
  instrument of power.

Based on Barbara Kellerman Bad Leadership What
It is, How It Happens, Why it Matters
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Managing You

• The Leaders Key Resource

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The Leaders Asset Base
PEOPLE
TIME
INFORMATION
MONEY
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The Leaders Asset Base- Revisited
PEOPLE
YOU
TIME
INFORMATION
MONEY
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Why Manage You?

• Leadership is an active and positive force.
• It is also a highly personal and personable
  activity
• Effective leaders use all of their resources to
  get things done and done well huge draw on
  their creativity
• The big secret is the degree to which they manage
  themselves as one of those key resources

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Why Manage You?

• Leadership itself is a balancing act of art,
  craft and science
• Each leader has a different set of talents and
  abilities that blend to make them unique
• To meet your needs and that of your organization
  you need to understand yourself, your impact on
  the organization and where things work and do not
  and find compensatory strategies

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Know Your Strengths

• You can perform only from strength
• Knowing what that is may often be difficult
• Leaders get less direct and helpful feedback than
  they probably need
• You need to create some form of feedback loop to
  get information/ preferably off-line or drawing
  on the experience of others
• You need to analyze your strengths and weaknesses
  by clinical

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Feedback Analysis Dont Wait for it.

• Spend some time when big things happen and note
  what outcomes you expect
• Go back 9 months later and note what actually
  happened
• You get very busy and forget and only hear when
  things go wrong
• Doing this consistently will give you great
  feedback on what you do well there will be lots
  of people to tell you what you do wrong

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Work on Your Strengths

• Forget the all singing, all dancing uber
  performers they are not there and are spread too
  thin
• Work on improving your strengths
• Your weaknesses will either be fixed through
  feedback or never go away
• Sort out where your intellectual firewalls are to
  learning about both your strengths and weaknesses

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Work on Your Manners

• Civility is the grease that keeps friction down
  and things moving
• Managers too often get caught up in the rush of
  events and ignore the people along the way
• There is always a tomorrow in management and,
  surprise, a lot of the same people will be around
  then too
• please and thank you work miracles

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Discover Your Performance Personality

• Do you read or listen when you learn things and
  get the facts?
• Do you read people or read notes?
• How do you learn best? Academically or
  experientially?
• How do you think a problem through? On your own?
  By writing? By talking it through?
• Do you act alone or with others?

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Discover Your Performance Personality

• Are you best leading or best following or best as
  second-in-command?
• Are decisions your thing or is advice your thing?
• How are you in high stress environments?
• Do you like big organizations or small ones?

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Product Warning Tamper at Risk

• Understanding your work personality takes work
• Do not try to change yourself for its own sake
• Do try to build your strengths and work on your
  weaknesses
• Just being aware is a major plus

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The Values Test

• To what degree do you know your values?
• To what degree are your values and that of your
  organization compatible?
• Are your strengths compatible with your values?

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Knowing Where You Belong

• Successful careers are not planned they follow
  opportunities that you create and your strengths
  permit and your values make work
• The right fit is a hard thing to find and there
  is not a priori answer can be by trial and
  error
• Often means knowing what you do not want to do
  before really knowing what you want to do
• Choose your boss carefully they wont change
  after you take the job

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Where Can I Do My Bit?

• Making a contribution is part of the new work
  paradigm not just doing as others tell you but
  where can you make a difference?
• It means sorting out the key things you can do in
  your time on the job you are always passing
  through, even when you are in the same job a long
  time.

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Leaders Carry Unique Responsibilities for
Relationships

• You have to know the strengths and weaknesses of
  those working for you and those for whom you work
  
• You have to manage communications, the heart
  blood of modern organizations and knowledge work

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So, to things like Vision and Value, add..

• Verve yes, you have to make things exciting
  from time to time
• Prescience get those antennae out
• Common sense
• Flexibility and adaptability

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Manage All Your Resources

• Manage time yours and others as one of the
  most precious resources plan and reflect on how
  you are doing this
• Always find unique skills in your employees to
  use and celebrate

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Manage All Your Resources

• Networking and advocating for your workplace
  sends major signals throughout the organization
  bad-mouthing your boss or workplace often makes
  you look bad
• Information needs management, not just
  information technology computers are still as
  stupid as they always were they are just faster
  at it.

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Avoid Becoming a One Dimensional Person

• Develop and nurture parallel or separate
  interests it broadens your perspective
• Think about the second half of your life same
  old, same old does not work
• Plan for boredom
• Avoid bringing home to work or work to home
  without some guidelines, delineations or rules
  for doing so

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Avoid Becoming a One Dimensional Person

• Build in safe houses for yourself (mentors and
  coaches work for some, exercise or hobbies for
  others).
• Never under-estimate the powerful relationship
  between mind, emotions, capacity and body,
  fitness and well-being

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Dont Take Yourself Too Seriously.. Signs for a
spouse that your marriage to an executive is in
trouble when he/she.

• Refers to your wedding day as a swearing-in
  ceremony.
• Valentines Day card has bullet points.
• Develops an agenda for the long week-end at the
  cottage.
• Refers to parental guidance as achieving
  downstream impact.
• Refers to your kids as major files.

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Dont Take Yourself Too Seriously.. Signs for a
spouse that your marriage to an executive is in
trouble when he/she.

• Refers to those intimate moments as win-win
  situations.
• Refers to the bathroom as a robust system where
  the situation is fluid.
• Prepares key messages for dinner conversation.
• Designates mother-in-law as stakeholder
  relationship.
• Refers to first-born as the template.

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Be Well Do Good Work Keep in Touch http//post.que
ensu.ca/grahama/