Management Information |
Character: Is It Necessary In Leadership? (Part Two)
In the first part of this two part article, I talked about the importance of character in leadership. After all, the best leadership involves the people bonding with the leader in deep, human, emotional ways. The passive way of looking at character is that the bonding won't happen if the people are confused about or disdain your character. But there is also an active way of looking at character: You can use aspects of your character to actually promote results. Your best character traits can be turned results-multipliers. Here's how. By the way, the results I'm talking about don't necessarily have to be organizational results. Many leaders have used my processes in their lives outside their organizations, with teenagers or with their spouses, for example, and not simply as a "leadership" process. Who you are as a leader should be intertwined with who you are as a person. If your leadership is not your life, you diminish both your leadership and your life. To begin with, select any one of the character traits you identified in Part One. We will focus on ways to use that trait to get increases in results, however you define those results. For example, the trait "always ready to forgive" can be a results driver, because it enables you to clear the air with the people you need to help you get results. After all, if you're always ready to forgive slights and perceived slights, you avoid blame shifting and finger pointing - both impediments to organizational results. Epictetus (AD 55-135), another stoic philosopher, said, "Small-minded people habitually reproach each other for their own misfortunes. ? Those who are dedicated to a life of wisdom understand that the impulse to blame someone or something is foolishness. ? The more we examine our attitudes and work on ourselves, the less we are apt to be swept away by stormy emotional reactions in which we seek easy explanations for unbidden events." Although one's relationships in leadership are predicated on results, the most effective results-producing relationships arise when these relationships ultimately have nothing to do with results, when people respond to you not just as a leader but simply and profoundly as a human being. Get your values and your character right and the rest of leadership is a matter of details. After all, freedom isn't just in what you make happen, it's also in what you let happen. Furthermore, have the character trait you are acting on be a solution to your audience's needs. Put the character/solution into the soup of a results-challenge and then simply observe what cooks up. In other words, in a situation calling for results, act on the character trait you want to emphasize - in this case, being always ready to forgive - and observe the results. Of course, with this trait, your effort won't work unless there are hard feelings in the air, but finding someone exhibiting such feelings shouldn't be difficult - if you're leading well. If your leadership challenges don't lead to some people feeling overburdened, you're not challenging them enough. Take action with a group of people or an individual. You might say something like, "I know we've had hard feelings, and if there's blame to be handed out for causing them, you can look to me. But, as the first step in going after the new results, let's start with a fresh slate." When focusing on this particular character trait, it's important to avoid setting up conditions. Saying, for example, "If I do this, I expect you to do that" depreciates the trait. Character should exist without conditions, in you and for you, regardless of outside influences such as other people's opinions. Otherwise, they wouldn't be lasting character traits, but changeable sensibilities. When we're dealing with character and results, we can't expect to force the results. Let them grow naturally out of the interaction. It's like putting a seed crystal into a supersaturated solution. Given the proper solution and the right tension, you get an organic eruption of crystals. That's why I emphasize that you should understand and acquire the power of being be an observer. Focus on putting the trait into action as a solution for the needs of your cause leaders in order to increase results. Remember, the trait of always being ready to forgive is just one of many you can work on. No matter which trait you're developing, use the process I've just described to manifest it for results. In the long run, the important thing about leadership is not what we achieve but who we become in our achievements. A focus on our character, not only for the sake of character itself but also for the kinds of results character engenders, will make that becoming a treasure of our lives. 2005 © The Filson Leadership Group, Inc. All rights reserved. PERMISSION TO REPUBLISH: This article may be republished in newsletters and on web sites provided attribution is provided to the author, and it appears with the included copyright, resource box and live web site link. Email notice of intent to publish is appreciated but not required: mail to: brent@actionleadership.com The author of 23 books, Brent Filson's recent books are, THE LEADERSHIP TALK: THE GREATEST LEADERSHIP TOOL and 101 WAYS TO GIVE GREAT LEADERSHIP TALKS. He is founder and president of The Filson Leadership Group, Inc. - and for more than 20 years has been helping leaders of top companies worldwide get audacious results. Sign up for his free leadership e-zine and get a free white paper: "49 Ways To Turn Action Into Results," at http://www.actionleadership.com
MORE RESOURCES: Unable to open RSS Feed $XMLfilename with error HTTP ERROR: 404, exiting |
RELATED ARTICLES
Quick Tips On Bringing Out The Best In People Want to bring out the best in people?Edward W. Smith, motivational speaker, author and TV show host, who specializes in quick tips on how to move your life ahead even faster, offers the following advice. Hire People For What They Do Best I recently flew from Seattle to Atlanta, I realized, just as we began our taxi, that it takes hundreds of support personnel to maintain a flight. I saw the woman at the check-in desk, security, pilots, luggage handlers, flight crews, air controllers, and the various staff physically on the tarmac doing whatever people do on an airport tarmac. Creativity and Innovation Management: The Value Of Due Diligence Creativity can be defined as problem identification and idea generation whilst innovation can be defined as idea selection, development and commercialisation. There are other useful definitions, for example, creativity can be measured according to the number of ideas produced, the diversity of those ideas and the novelty of those ideas. Give Yourself a Boss Day Gift, Part 2: Are You the Position or the Person? Are you the position or the person?Bosses can lose their own identity sometimes. It's easy. 5 Ways of Increasing Business Profits The economy may finally be turning around and showing signs of a rebound. Interest rates have begun to rise and the stock market is recovering from the lows it experienced in the last couple of years. You Didnt Use Brainstorming to Select Your Measures, Did You? IntroductionWhen Alex Osborn invented the creativity technique called brainstorming, I wonder if he had any idea just how extensively business would apply it. Almost every meeting employs some kind of brainstorming event, but there's one meeting that really should leave it off the agenda: the performance measure selection meeting. Tales from the Corporate Frontlines: Finding The Perfect Balance This article relates to the Work/Life Balance competency, which investigates how your staff feels with regard to the balance between work and personal life. It explores issues such as priority of family and hours on the job, also covered in this competency. Delegation - The Basic Steps To Reducing Your Workload And Creating A Successful Team If you have a task greater than you can handle on your own, then you need to delegate. Not a choice many of us choose to make, but one we can all learn. How To Use Outsourcing To Beat Your Competition Outsourcing is when you hire outside professionals orservices to take on part of your business workload. Youmay want to outsource part of your work because youdon't have the room, you need an expert, you have periodicbusy periods, or you need more production to get ordersout on time etc. Innovation Management - Rigorous data analysis Creativity can be defined as problem identification and idea generation whilst innovation can be defined as idea selection, development and commercialisation.There are other useful definitions in this field, for example, creativity can be defined as consisting of a number of ideas, a number of diverse ideas and a number of novel ideas. Why All Managers Are Alike Because, like you I suspect, they have key target audiences whose behaviors help or hinder them in achieving their organizational objectives.But even in their own best interests, too few involve themselves in their public relations effort to the degree they should. Managing YOUR Expectations I sit on the board of an organization and at the last meeting found myself speaking with another board member named Standolyn Robertson. Standolyn is also a business owner and our conversation was about managing expectations ? both ours and our clients. 9 Tips for Getting the Most From Your Conference Investment Tips for Getting the Most From Your Conference Investment All professionals attend conferences, seminars, and trade shows each year. Through my observation and person experience here are my top tips for maximizing your time and monetary investment in these events. What To Do When Your IT Project Is Late, Over Budget, and Looks Like It's Never Going To Work Here's a scary statistic. According to four prominent research firms, only around 20% of all IT projects are finished in a timely manner. Weaknesses of Wishing When you're starting a business, you might wish for a lot of things, like having more than enough customers or not having to do marketing. But wishing is weak willed, having no momentum behind it. Micromanagement and Delegation Micro-Management and Delegation Recently I had a long discussion with a friend of mine about Managers and managing. She is a former HR Manager for several major companies and was bemoaning the fact that training for managers has been cut back so significantly in recent years and that managers no longer receive the type of help, guidance and assistance that they received just a few short years ago. How To Decrease Downtime and Increase Productivity All maintenance activities of the workforce must be documented, this includes breakdown repairs, callouts, preventive maintenance, replacement maintenance, overhauls, and Testing & Inspection work. Maintenance work by production line employees must be included, whether or not the employee is listed as in maintenance. Creativity and Innovation Management - Core Competencies and Competitive Advantage Following is a brief definition of core competencies and competitive advantage and their fit with creativity and innovation management.Core Competence:A core competence is one which critically underpins the organisation's competitive advantage. What Cross-cultural Training Can Do for You International business is more complex than ever before. Success in every sector is now seen in global terms. Eight Key Steps to Building B2B Major Account Client Alliances Audiences who saw the fabled Broadway musical, Chorus Line, marveled at the intricate timing and seamless interaction of the dancers as they mastered the choreographer's precision steps after many false starts in rehearsal.At the final curtain, the stage is crowded with dancers whose images are multiplied by mirrors strategically placed about the stage. |
home | site map | contact us |