Character: Is It Necessary In Leadership? (Part Two)Learn Management Articles on management-info.biz. Character: Is It Necessary In Leadership? (Part Two) article will help answer your questions on Management Articles.We at management-info.biz specialize in Management Articles. Management Articles at management-info.biz provides the most up to date news and articles. If you have questions please do not hesitate to contact us.
Word count: 838 Summary: One element of leadership that many leaders ignore or neglect is character. Is it a necessary ingredient in leadership? The author answers the question with the challenging observation that character can actually drive leadership results. Character: Is It Necessary In Leadership? (Part Two) By Brent Filson 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.
|
More Articles:1. Towards Intercultural Understanding By Brenda Townsend Hall An individual’s ability to forge effective relationships across cultures is influenced by a very personal and highly complex mixture of emotional and cognitive processes. Anyone contemplating an overseas posting feels apprehensive about stepping into the unknown. The mere knowledge that we are leaving our own cultural comfort zone can trigger all sorts of subconscious defensive tactics that can make it difficult to operate effectively the new environment.The widely known work of Milton Bennett… 2. How to Get Your Procedures Project Done By Chris Anderson Wouldn't it be nice for business owners and executives to be finished with their policies and procedures project already? They know they need to get it done, but maybe it's taking too long. Or perhaps their people are staring at a blank piece of paper, and they don't know where to begin. Or maybe they're not sure what to write. Or they're just too busy.The Usual ScenarioCompanies face these hang-ups everyday, in every industry, in every market. And it can be frustrating when trying to balance … 3. Finding Proactive Solutions: A Key to Demonstrating Your Management Fitness By Tracy Peterson Turner, PhD In my book Talking Points: 25 Tips for Clear, Credible Communication, Tip #17 states: “Managers and professionals in positions of responsibility got there by finding solutions to problems. They didn’t rely on someone else to come up with the remedy. They worked to find solutions proactively.” Those of us in positions of responsibility can demonstrate our management fitness by looking for and adding a proactive step whenever we encounter potential problems. Adding that proactive step demonstrat… 4. Business Management - Be Aware Of Fear And-Greed By Hans Bool This is probably such a day as many others. Business as usual. Nothing wrong, no alerts, you loose some, you win some. You go with the flow and let your profits grow.... Do not think that this jargon is for investment managers only; business management and investment management is not that different.When you are in the business arena you know that you have to follow the market. You watch the competition, you check the trends and you respond to other incidents that you are involved in. Until th… |
||||
