Thinking Like a Leader

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Thinking Like a Leader

• Presented by
• Michael Clingan
• The Claymore Group
• Loveland, Colorado
• 970-613-0923
• michael_at_thinkinglikealeader.com

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Introduction One of the biggest challenges in
helping others to grow into leadership roles, or
in becoming a better leader ourselves, is the
mastery of a particular type of thinking
skills. Unlike followers, leaders have to think
about how to balance various needs, resolve
differences of opinion, meet goals, improve their
organization, create new opportunities and even
how to keep people following them. And the
higher up one goes in an organization, the more
important it becomes to think holistically and
strategically, requiring a broader and even more
rigorous approach to thinking. Fortunately, a
few tools have the power and practicality to be
used throughout ones career to plan and drive
action and results. These tools are equally
useful in a hallway conversation, chapter
planning session, corporate offsite or in a
crisis. These tools arent part of the latest
management fad they were developed for an
organization about 2,500 years ago that needed to
grow a large number of leaders in a very short
time due to competitive pressures and changing
demographics.
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Thinking Like a Leader Tools Since a major
function of leadership is to influence a group to
make a change, the tools presented in this
session follow the core requirements of that
process. The first tool is designed to identify
both what to change and what to change to. It
does this by utilizing an approach refined by
Israeli physicist and author Eliyahu Goldratt.
This tool is also excellent for understanding and
solving organizational conflicts. The second
tool serves to plan the change in something of a
unique way by working backwards from the goal,
identifying each huge obstacle along the way,
breaking the obstacles down into manageable tasks
and then assigning resources and timelines. Using
this tool, a planning process that might normally
take four hours is usually finished in less than
one. The last tool presented in this program is
a template to both check the quality of the plan
for change as well as to communicate the plan
effectively and thus gaining the buy-in necessary
to implement it. After all, even great ideas and
plans mean little without followers willing to
make them real. As a final note what the
presenter finds very interesting is that by using
these three tools, he not only finds himself
thinking more like a leader, but that he also
does a far better job of listening and talking
like one as well.
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Management v. Leadership
Ethos is knowing yourself, your values and living
authentically. Pathos includes empathy for
others and a passion for the greater good. Logos
is the ability to think precisely yet creatively
and to be able to exchange ideas effectively with
others.
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Creating new opportunities and resolving conflicts
Goal
Needs
Wants
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ASTD Chapter Example
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Creating new opportunities and resolving conflicts
Goal
Needs
Wants
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Creating new opportunities and resolving
conflicts

• Because

B
D
A
C
D

• Because

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Creating new opportunities and resolving conflicts
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Prerequisite Planning Method
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Prerequisite Planning Method
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To achieve real buy-in

• Reach agreement, one step at a time, on each of
  the following. Do not skip ahead. If resistance
  is encountered, back up one step and recheck for
  agreement before moving ahead.
• The Challenge
• The Strategy
• What success looks and feels like
• How to deal with potential negatives
• How to overcome obstacles
• What, Who and When