LEADERSHIP: WHERE AND HOW DO WE ALL FIT IN?

Published: 2010-04-19   please add a comment below

The golden rule of property is position, position, position. And, leadership is similar. But, in this case it’s people, people, people. And the bottom line is simple: you’re not a leader if you don’t have followers. How would your team rate their commitment to you and your plans: high, medium or low?

There are many reasons they might want to follow. They like your vision. They believe it’s possible. The culture’s positive. And, they sense you’ve got the necessary technical and commercial skills. Sounds fine.

But, what if you don’t relate well to people. You find it tough to engage them as individuals? And, perhaps you lack the self-awareness to manage your responses and the impact your over-the-top outbursts have on others?

Sadly, many of us trip up in this area. I’m in this camp at times. We may be technically OK and have developed a good game-plan, but we fail to treat people well – or worse, bully them. Even if we’re great in other areas, nothing will bring us undone quicker than failure around people. They won’t follow. They’ll leave.

But, even if you’re good interpersonally, the game isn’t over. You also need to organise things: structure your team; define roles; train, develop and guide people; build teamwork (up, down, across); and act as ambassador internally and externally. But, once again, none of this is much help if they don’t like working for you.

If you asked your people, would they say you’re better at the IQ-driven (technical) leadership skills, or the EQ (people) ones? What would be their advice? Are you already aware of your shortcomings? From my experience (as a line leader and consultant), most of us, who fall short on engaging people, have been told countless times before. But, it’s one of the toughest things to change. If you’re a technical perfectionist, then you get upset by someone goofing off or doing shoddy work. The challenge is to engage and develop them, not lose your cool.

This is central to many people’s Leadership Action Plans.

Dr. Timothy Pascoe AM
PhD (Cambridge), MBA (Harvard), BE & BEc (Adelaide)
Creator, V|E|C|T|O|R Leadership^®