THE PROCESS OF DEVELOPING AND BUILDING WORKPLACE LEADERSHIP
The process of developing and building workplace leadership is a much needed Leadership Skills which has now become an exceptional tool for organizational growth and excellence. Therefore, it is imperative that we understand how to develop and build workplace leadership.
Dare to Become an Exceptional Leader
Do not be conditioned the old-fashioned view of leadership which induce men to believe that leaders are marked out for leadership from early on in their lives, and that if you are not a born leader, there is little that you can do to become one. That is not true. The truth is that everyone has the seed of leadership inherent in them, and this can be developed and maximized. Through patience, persistence and hard work, you can be a truly effective leader, just as long as you make the effort needed.
The aim of this article is to help you develop your leadership skills so that you, too, can become an exceptional leader. By learning the lessons thought by great leaders you can help to develop the leadership potential in you. Let us briefly examine the life Abraham Lincoln and see how he emerge an eminent leader through the application of persistence, hard work, knowledge acquisition, faith and wisdom.
At the age of seven, Abraham Lincoln and his family were forced out of their home. The boy had to work to support his family. At the age of nine, his mother died. When he grew up, the young man was keen to go to law school, but there was no finance to enable him carries out his ambition, so he ended up having no formal education. However, this did not stop him from persisting in his effort to make his life count. Those who desire a better life always fight for it, and they eventually have it.
At the age of 22, he lost his job as a store clerk. At age 23, he ran for state legislature and lost. The same year, he went into business. It failed, leaving him with a debt that took him 17 years to repay. At 27, he had a nervous breakdown. All these failings instead of slowing him down, gave him great momentum for greater achievement.
Two years later, he tried for the post of speaker in his state legislature. He lost. At the age of 31, he was defeated in his attempt to become an elector. By age 35, he had been defeated twice while running for Congress. Finally, he did manage to secure a brief term in Congress, but at 39 he lost his re-election bid.
At the age of 41, his four-year-old son died. At the age of 42, he was rejected as a prospective land officer. This seems to have tragedy trailing him. He was always confronted with failure not because he wanted to fail or he had imagine he will fail, but because failure wants him, so that he will not be able to achieve his purpose. The more trouble and failure becomes his companion, the more he frustrated frustration with his bulldog determination for the top. He refused to settle for second best when he knows that the best is achievable. At the age of 45, he ran for the Senate and lost. Two years later, he lost the vice presidential nomination. At the age of 49, he ran for Senate and lost again. I know most of his childhood friends may have discouraged him, but he persisted because he knew that there lies ahead of him a greater glory. H e gathered all he needed to learn and began to read and absorb knowledge. When his friends asked him why, he said “I will read and prepare myself for one day I know my turn will come” and his time and turn actually came. There is a time for everything. There is a time to loose and a time gain. .
Finally, at the age of 51, he was elected the President of the United States of America. He gave his country and the world the best and desirable in him which he had spent years developing with every pain, failure, criticism he experience, and knowledge he had acquired over the years. His years of study paid him a handsome reward.
Many of us are acquainted with this eloquent example of persistence and determination in achieving victory. We read it, stop for a moment and then sigh and say: “Great! That is the stuff real leaders are made off.”And in saying this, it is all too easy for us to think about leaders like Lincoln almost as “mythological creatures”, separate from the rest of humanity and empowered by some mysterious quality that smoothes their path towards inevitable success. This is the view of leadership that many people have traditionally taken: Leaders are marked out for leadership from early on in their lives, and that if you are not a leader, there is little that you can do to become one. The modern view is that through patience, persistence and hard work, you can be a highly effective leader.
Everyone has leadership qualities inherent in them. The problem is that most people feel they do not have it. And because they think they do not have it, they fail to explore their lives and discover and nurture the great leadership potential in them. This potential was placed in there by your creator to make you unique and outstanding. It is my aim in this article to lead along the part that will help you locate and nurture these leadership qualities inherent in you. Let us begin by finding out what leadership actually is.
WHAT IS LEADERSHIP?
Leadership means different things to different people around the world, and different things in different situations. For example, it could relate to community leadership, religious leadership, political leadership, and leadership of campaigning groups. However, this article focuses on the unique model of individual leadership, and relates to workplace leadership rather than to other types.
The word "leadership" can bring to mind a variety of images. For example:
- An army officer, charging forward to meet the enemy.
- An explorer, cutting a path through the jungle for the rest of his party to follow.
- An executive, developing her company's strategy to remain ahead of the competition.
According to Dwight D. Eisenhower, Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.
Professor Warren G. Bennis, defines Leaders as people who do the right thing; and managers as people who do things right.
Leaders help themselves and others to do the right things. They set direction, build an inspiring vision, and create something new. Leadership is about mapping out where you need to go to "win" as a team or an organization. Leadership is dynamic, vibrant, and inspiring.
More so, it is imperative to understand that while leaders set the direction, they must also use management skills to guide their team to the right destination in a smooth and efficient way.
Tips:
The words "leader" and "leadership" are often used incorrectly to describe people who are actually "managing." These individuals may be highly skilled, good at their jobs, and valuable to their organizations – but that just makes them excellent managers, not leaders. So, be careful how you use the terms, and do not assume that people with "leader" in their job titles, people who describe themselves as "leaders," or even groups called "leadership teams," are actually leading.
The danger in these situations is that people or organizations that are being managed by such an individual or group think they are being led; but they are not. There may actually be no leadership at all, with no one setting a vision and no one being inspired. This can cause serious problems in the long term.
In this article, we will focus on the process of leadership. In particular, we will discuss the "transformational leadership" model. This model highlights visionary thinking and brings about change, instead of management processes that are only designed to maintain current performance.
Definition
According to the idea of transformational leadership, an effective leader is a person who does the following:
1. Creates an inspiring vision of the future.
2. Motivates and inspires people to engage with that vision.
3. Manages delivery of the vision.
4. Coaches and builds a team, so that it is more effective at achieving the vision.
Leadership brings together the skills needed to do these things. We will look at each element in more detail.
Creating an Inspiring Vision of the Future
An effective leadership is that which creates an inspiring vision of the future. In business, a vision is a realistic, convincing and attractive "best case" description (picture, illustration, depiction, delineation, drawing, portrayal and interpretation) of where you want to be in the future. Vision provides direction, sets priorities, and provides a marker, so that you can tell that you have achieved what you wanted to achieve within a given space of time.
To create a vision, leaders focus on an organization's Strengths by using tools such as Porter’s Five Forces, PEST Analysis, USP Analysis, Core Competence Analysis and SWOT Analysis to analyze their current situation. They think about how their industry is likely to evolve, and how their competitors are likely to behave. They look at how they can innovate successfully, and shape their businesses and their strategies to succeed in future marketplaces. They also test their visions with appropriate market research, and by assessing key risks using techniques such as environmental or Scenario Analysis. In the light of the above, leadership are proactive (practical, positive, down – business, problem solving, looking ahead, and not being satisfied with things as they are.
Once they have developed their visions, leaders must make them compelling and convincing. A compelling and motivating vision is a vision that people can see, feel, understand, and embrace. Effective leaders provide a rich picture of what the future will look like when their visions have been realized. They tell stories, and explain their visions in ways that everyone can relate to. Effective leadership therefore, combines the analytical side of the vision with the passion of shared values, creating something really meaningful to the people being led. Motivating and Inspiring People
Effective leadership motivates and inspires people to put in their best to achieve a corporate and personal goal. Although a compelling vision provides the foundation for leadership, it is the leader's ability to motivate and inspire people that will help them deliver that vision. If the leader cannot motivate his team, his vision will not be realized, irrespective of the potency of his vision.
For instance, when you start a new project, you will probably have lots of enthusiasm for it, so it is usually easy to support the project's leader at the beginning. However, it can be difficult to find ways to keep the vision alive and inspirational, after the initial enthusiasm fades, especially if the team or organization needs to make significant changes in the way that they do things. Leaders recognize this, and they work hard on an ongoing basis to connect their vision with people's individual needs, goals, and aspirations.
One of the key ways they do this is through Expectancy Theory. Effective leaders link together two different expectations: 1. Hard Work Orientation: The expectation that hard work leads to good results.
2. Good Results Mentality: The expectation that good results lead to attractive rewards or incentives.
This motivates people to work hard to achieve success, because they expect to enjoy both intrinsic and extrinsic rewards as a result.
Another way effective leaders motivates their team is by restating the vision in terms of the benefits it will bring to the team's customers, and taking frequent opportunities to communicate the vision in an attractive and engaging way. They engage all productive avenues to ensure that their goal is achieved.
It is very much helpful if the leaders at this point can draw upon extra source of expert power. People admire and believe in these leaders because they are expert in what they do. They have credibility, and they have earned the right to ask people to listen to them, and follow them. This makes it much easier for these leaders to motivate and inspire the people they lead. But if on the contrarily leaders lack some sort of specialize knowledge that can be beneficial to their organizational goals and personnel development, they will be left alone. People will gladly follow a leader who has something to offer.
Leaders can also motivate and influence people through their natural charisma and appeal, and through other sources of power, such as the power to pay bonuses or assign tasks to people. However, good leaders do not rely on these types of power alone to motivate and inspire others. They live by examples. They will be involve and help to fulfill organizational goals and personal development of all employees. Managing Delivery of the Vision
This is the area of leadership that relates to management. According to the Hersey-Blanchard Situational Leadership Model, there is a time to tell, a time to sell, a time to participate, and a time to delegate. Knowing which approach you need to use, and when you need it, is key to effective leadership.
Leaders must ensure that the work required to deliver the vision is properly managed – either by themselves, or by a dedicated manager or team of managers to whom the leader delegates this responsibility – and they need to ensure that their vision is delivered successfully within the stipulated time frame. In order to fulfill this task, team members need performance goals that are linked to the team's overall vision. Change effectiveness is also one area that leaders must ensure that they manage effectively. This will ensure that any changes required to deliver the vision are implemented smoothly and thoroughly, with support and full backing from the majority of people affected. Coaching and Building a Team to Achieve the Vision
Coaching the people who delivers the vision is fundamental to building effective leaders. Individual and team development are important activities carried out by transformational leaders. To develop a team, leaders must first understand team dynamics. Several well-established and popular models describe this, such as Belbin's Team Roles Approach and Bruce Tuckman's Forming, Storming, Norming, and performing theory. A working understanding of the wisdom advocated by these models will go a long way to make your leadership effort a fruitful one.
A leader must ensure that team members have the necessary skills and abilities to do their job and achieve the vision. They do this by giving and receiving feedback on a regular basis and also by training and coaching the people who delivers the vision. This also helps in improving individual and team performance. As a leader it is your fundamental responsibility to look out for leadership potentials in others. By developing leadership skills within your team, you create an environment where you can continue success in the long term. And that is a true measure of great leadership. Fundamental Key Points to Remember
Conclusively, I want you to remember that Leadership can be hard to define and it means different things to different people.
In the transformational leadership model, leaders set direction and help themselves and others to do the right thing to move forward. To do this they create an inspiring vision, and then motivate and inspire others to reach that vision. They also manage delivery of the vision, either directly or indirectly, and build and coach their teams to make them ever stronger.
The process of developing and building workplace leadership is an exciting journey, not a destination. It requires constant effort of training, knowledge acquisition, faith and persistence in the direction of purpose. There is a seed of leadership in everyone, and this can be developed through persistence, hard work, study and wisdom. Do not settle for less when you can actually be the best. There is something unique in you. You are not in any way inferior to anyone. Those who are successfully moving ahead in life today are not borne with supernatural abilities uncommon to the ordinary man. They are ordinary people who achieve extraordinary feat by doing ordinary things in an extra ordinary manner. Believe you can be the best. Believe you can give your best. Believe you can live your best. When
Do not refuse to commit yourself to personal development. Your potential can only mature and make you outstanding by constant use. Give your life everything that is required to make you thick. Give yourself to study. Prepare yourself and one day you will come in contact with great opportunity to establish and manifest your uniqueness. When opportunity meet preparation freedom becomes inevitable. Those you see today have great leaders have spent years preparing themselves in their chosen field of endeavor. You too can do same and one day you emerge a mighty force to be reckoned with. Commit yourself to excellence, and your life will never again remain in the common place of drifting and insignificance. Relevance will embrace you like a magnet, and your generation will be glad for your having lived.
For more inspiration articles, take your time to explore this blog. Your life will never remain the same after spending some few hours with me in this blog.
See more related articles:
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- The Principles of Extra Ordinary Achiever
- Positive attitude of Extra Ordinary Achievers
- Personnel Intelligence
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