10 Approaches to Leadership Excellence
Leadership is not a function of titles; it is a function of relationships. Learning from many years’ experience of leadership: Dame Neslyn has distilled leadership excellence in the following 10 approaches:
- Determine where you want your enterprise to be – the vision. The people that you lead want a positive vision of the future, clear communication and a high frequency of interaction focused on the vision.
Ken Blanchard in his book: Leading at a Higher Level illustrate a study of more than 500 leaders, the study demonstrated that strong visionary leadership had the highest performing teams. Leaders with good management skills but without vision had average team performance.
As Joel Barker says: vision without action is only a dream, action without vision passes the time, vision with action can change the world.
Jess Stoner et al paints a vivid picture with the quote: Leadership is about going somewhere. If you and your people don’t know where you are going, your leadership doesn’t matter.
- Determine how to achieve your vision – key strategies for getting there. One of the most important strategies for achieving your leadership vision is learning how to ask intelligent questions such as miracle questions – classic miracle questions, scaling miracle questions, exception-based miracle questions, future-oriented miracle questions, relationship-focused miracle questions. It is important that you adopt a future mind-set and start with the end in mind – start at the accomplishment of the vision, in order to eventually tell the story of how you got there.
The accomplishment of your vision is helped by creating a vision board and having unrealistic, big audacious goals; in so doing you reach for the stars and as Les Brown says: reach for the stars and you may land on the moon.
- Organise your intended accomplishment into broad themes and focus on what fits the story that you want to tell. Write the story of the vision accomplished, create a video with music and share the story with staff and key stakeholders. This is what is called creating an inspiring vision of the future.
Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality.
- Warren Bennis
- Identify the present situation, add value and draw people to you. When you have an element of magnetism in your style as a leader, you can draw people to you and people want to be around you by choice. The greatest leaders have magnetism that result in a natural following of people who have assessed the situation and agree to go in the same direction as the leader to accomplish the goals. This is what Jim Collins refers to as being on the same bus.
- Recognise the right road and enlisting support to progress to where you are going. The road is about possibilities and engaging others is about creating a vision of possibility that others can connect to. The function of your leadership is to create more leaders. If people are not connected to the vision, they cannot take it further.
- Engage and enrol people. Engagement is a powerful tool because once people buy into your leadership vision, it becomes a shared vision, people then own the vision, and they take action on the vision.
You are more likely to retain talent when you engage people. You will also find that engagement reduces the levels of stress people experience in your enterprise. In a blog by the Hay Group engagement was quoted as essential to the development of people – 44% of a data base wanted greater learning and development opportunities and 43% wanted more support from leaders.
Engaging your people is about getting them on board, enabling people to align with your vision and to take ownership. In creating the space for others to be their best, you enlist their support and action to accomplish the goals aligned to the vision.
To be successful with being a leader, it is essential that you focus on building effective relationships with others.
- Be clear about what you wish to go and what you wish to accomplish. The right road requires your clarity, so it is incumbent on you as the leader to develop your clarity and forward-looking capacity.
Ask questions such as: What is new? What is best? What is next?
In developing clarity, know that one of the most important distinction a leader can bring to leadership is clarity, clarity of vision, clarity of purpose, clarity of direction, clarity of key performance indicators, clarity of how success will be measured and clarity of outcomes for high and low performance.
You enlist and enrol people when they can see how their dreams and hopes can be fulfilled within the vision.
- Be passionate and creative in being a leader. Connect with people in the present, the only vision that will be successful is a shared vision and this is achieved by listening very closely to people, appreciating their hopes and attending to their needs through observation. Passionate enthusiasm always attracts people to a better future; don’t expect people to follow you if you are not bubbling with enthusiasm.
- Know the stages and events that have led to the present situation. Here it is important to be open and honest about the state of the business you are in – current and future state. This requires you to be clear and candid in your communication with the people you lead. Tell the truth and nothing but the truth, give the people you lead an accurate assessment of what is going well, not going well within the business and what needs to be improved. This level of openness and authenticity creates clarity of understanding and clear direction and in the long run minimises chaos and uncertainty.
The cultures that are most toxic are those where nobody knows the truth – or where nobody is talking about it.
- Warren Bennis
- Review and evaluate the milestones. Simply defined, a milestone is a significant point in development. Evaluation tells you if you are on the path to success and when you have arrived.
So, it is essential that you track, measure and report your results. Effective monitoring, review and evaluation will provide you with information on emerging issues, performance improvement and ensure accountability.
It is important that you plan from the start, what will be measured, how it will be measured, for what purpose and who will receive the information.
Start by asking good evaluation questions: Are we doing the right thing? Are we doing it the right way? Are there better ways of achieving results?
If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.
- John Quincy Adams
Demonstrate your leadership excellence by hosting the conversation on what is needed for success and effective results – know what factors will contribute to success.
Show understanding of the key outcomes and how to measure them. Your success is grounded in being future oriented, which means being connected to the bigger picture, seeking constant inspiration and innovation.
A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way and shows the way.
- John Maxwell
