Practical Leadership - a skills-based approach to managing and leading
If you simply learn a process you know the steps to follow and can tick a box. When you apply skills within the process you develop your capability to achieve more of your desired results. The more clearly you define the context for learning, the more effective your skills acquisition.
More and more of our clients are telling us that they need good leaders and more and more are using the term practical leadership when asking for leadership training for their people. The move away from traditional text book models and theories is becoming very apparent as forward thinking companies look for leaders who can keep their eye on the overall purpose of the company as well as communicate effectively with people at the sharp end. Flexibility of thinking and behaviour is the name of the game and leaders who achieve this not only demonstrate more personal effectiveness in the work place but they lead more fulfilled lives.
So what do our clients mean by practical leadership? They use words like, effective communicators, excellent decision makers, good team players, coaches and networkers – all qualities which effective leaders would be proud to possess – so where to start?
If I was to ask you all reading this article right now to define what you mean by effective communication, excellent decision making and being a good team player, you would all come up with a different answer. Try it now – write down 5 things you think effective communicators do and ask some colleagues to do the same. Then compare your answers – are they all identical? Probably not. Similarly do all organisations require the same brand of leadership? Probably not. Your leadership brand is unique to your organisation in the same way as your product brand is. Compare the concept of ‘good leadership’ to ‘having a good lunch’. In the same way that the latter can vary from eating a healthy packed lunch at the desk to eating a 5 course gourmet meal with champagne depends on the context, then good leadership will depend on the context in which you want it to take place. It’s no good teaching your leaders to be as charismatic as Barak Obama if when they get back to the work place the context neither requires this type of leadership nor supports it.
The context of leadership
So herein lies the first key in order for leaders in your organisation to perform effectively they need to know exactly what effective leadership looks like and even more specifically does this fit with the perception you want to create with your clients and employees? This first stage is often neglected in leadership training because it requires expert facilitation at a high level within the organisation – it can take time and time is valuable. However, neglecting to establish a leadership brand can be costly over time as people become more and more confused by the differences in interpretation and begin applying their own brand of leadership to their own particular area of the business.
Once the leadership brand has been described you have defined the context and the task of training the leaders can begin. Herein again our clients express widely differing expectations from their perception of a leadership programme. The structure and format of the training will of course depend on any number of factors not least of which will be time and finance – the purpose of this article is to present a simple structure which can be flexed to accommodate the specific needs of individual organisations following detailed discussions. Here are some simple stages around which a structure for practical leadership can be built –
- Define the particular form of leadership brand which is relevant to your organisation and your clients. It is important that this stage ends with a clear definition of what behaviours are included in the brand. For example, how much time do you expect your leaders to be engaged with a computer, in team meetings, coaching, encouraging and so on. Getting this right up front can save hours or heartache and misunderstanding later.
- Create personal awareness for your existing and/or potential leaders. By awareness we mean much more than a behavioural typology assessment. # Awareness goes much deeper into the thinking and belief structure that creates behaviour and which ultimately determines results. Neuro Linguistic Programming offers fast change techniques for converting unhelpful habitual thinking to something more effective and likely to culminate in results.
- Learn to define positive intention and use the awareness of both self and others’ thinking and behaviour patterns to influence, engage and encourage others, relating this to the leadership brand.
- Learn the practical processes associated with the leadership brand – presentation skills, coaching, delegation and feedback and anything else that has been clearly defined in the brand. Traditionally these processes are taught as a set of behaviours without the deeper in-sights and skills required for them to be fully effective.
Following these simple steps will give you and your organisation the kind of leadership which –
- Is easy for everyone to understand
- Suits your organisation
- Is cost effective and doesn’t waste resources unnecessarily
- Provides a platform for creativity
- Encourages an open and honest environment
- Ultimately increases productivity by reducing absenteeism and providing a supportive and encouraging work environment
Pat Hutchinson
Quadrant 1 International
The attached diagram sets out the Quadrant 1 approach to practical leadership. Call us on 0870 762 1300 to find out how we can help you and your organisation
