The real measure of your leadership ability is your ability to build and maintain a high-performing team. Do you have a better definition of leadership?
When he was on the campaign trail before becoming President of the United States, Barack Obama was quoted as saying, “Leaders don’t need the answers. They just need to know what questions to ask.”
As you will know only too well, at 12.51 pm on Tuesday 22nd February 2011, a 6.3 magnitude earthquake struck the Canterbury region of New Zealand. It devastated the town of Lyttelton and the city of Christchurch, and caused a State of National Emergency to be declared.
A recent request for tips on managing your manager got me thinking about an approach that I’ve found very successful.
I’ve used this approach to manage my own manager in a corporate business, and to help others in both corporate businesses and the public sector to manage their boss.
Span of control, or span of management, refers to the number of direct reports a people leader manages. With a larger span of control, the cost of management can be reduced. However, if the span of control is too large, managers may not have the capacity to effectively lead their people for high performance.
There are specific qualities that leaders must demonstrate if they want their people to voluntarily commit themselves to action in support of a common cause. The majority of us look for leaders who are honest, forward-looking, inspiring and competent. Consistently these four characteristics rank well above any other qualities desired in leaders.
We’re overwhelmed with choice; not only in everyday life, but also in our work. For many people managers, this is a barrier to leading people for high performance.
One thing many poor leaders have in common is that they are simply not aware that they’re just bad people managers. Frequently they actually think they’re good. And if they’re aware on some level that they’re not that great, they’re often not willing to admit it to anyone, least of all themselves.
Modern western society is all about speed. You want it fast. You want it now. From business book summaries you can read in 10 minutes, to food in a minute for dinner. You don’t want to hang around.
So to save time, let’s cut to the essence of Effective Leadership. In the end there are only three essential practices of Effective Leadership. Without you taking action on these bad boys, you’ll find it difficult to motivate frontline staff and your team will be going nowhere.
You’ll probably agree that dealing with conflict in the workplace can be a difficult and delicate matter. Which suggests that conflict might be a bad thing. But that’s not necessarily the case.