General Comments on Effective Leadership Styles

Certainly to be a successful leader you will need to develop leadership skills, knowledge and aptitude, however, it's your leadership style that really gives your business unit (no matter how big or small) its flavor.
An effective leadership style for one individual or one organization may not work for you and your situation:

• How well do you think Southwest Airlines or Virgin would run with Jack Welch at the helm?
• How much would Herb Kelleher struggle (internally at least) if he were to find himself a leader in The Ford Motor Company?
• It is well documented that Winston Churchill was a great leader during World War 2. Yet in peacetime his style was found lacking by the nation that had so recently held him in esteem as a hero leader.

Your style as a leader will be largely influenced by two things:

1. The culture of the organization you find yourself in
   
2. The quality of leadership, coaching and mentoring you experience as you move through your career
   

When you inherit a style from the culture or are overly influenced by another person, you may find yourself feeling frustrated and on-edge. You may have the feeling that you are trying to be someone you are not. You will do well to remember that leadership isn't something that you do, it is an expression of who you are.
Learn about and then try applying the various styles to find the a style that works best for you, your team and your organization.
A word of caution. Do not try to make your preferred/(natural) style fit all circumstances. Remain flexible enough to alter your style to fit the particular situation you find yourself in.
If you are ready to be at your best, take a peek at why leadership coaching with me may help you fast-track your career and enhance the quality of your life.

Qualities of Good Leadership

I've worked with and coached a lot of high performance leaders. Listed below are the top five qualities of good leadership that set these men and women apart from the rest of the pack.
 
That isn't to say that these leaders don't make use of the other 50+ leadership traits, qualities and characteristics listed over at the good leadership skills page.
But what it does mean is that the leaders who are at the top of the game ... the cream of the crop if you will ... are VERY, VERY good at applying and integrating into their life and work the five leadership qualities listed below.

Are you a high performance leader?

 

What about you? Do you have the goods to be a high performance leader? Do you have the qualities that will help you and others be at your best?
Let's take a look at each of these stand out leadership qualities in detail.

1. Trustworthy

Trust is the basis for all the relationships in your life. Without trust, it's impossible to create healthy and productive environments, either in work or personal situations.
Be aware that others are watching you ... assessing your values system and integrity. People want to be assured that their trust, followed closely by their respect is being placed in a safe place -- your hands -- and that they are indeed wise to follow where you lead.
When people trust you, they are more willing to give their best, as they know that they always get your best. This leadership quality is sometime referred as integrity or honor, but all these terms have the same basic meaning: you say what you do and do what you say ... period.
Read more here about how high performance leaders build trust in the workplace

2. Self Aware and Insightful About Your Impact On Others

This is one of the qualities of good leadership that you really want to master. The best leaders are really great at watching how others are reacting to them and fine-tuning what they are saying to ensure that they are building the relationship. 

2. This doesn't mean that they change their minds every second to get people to like them. 

Rather it's about finding other ways to say things so that the person they are interacting with wants to work with them and not against them.
The master leaders' know that the power is in the relationship (which is why a lot of the site is dedicated to building relationships!). And all relationships begin and end with what others think of you.
I'm a real fan of the DISC profile system because it helps you to understand your impact on others and gives you the tools to flex your style so that you can get through to others ... so that they are in the place to 'hear' your message ... and it stirs them to respond favorably to you. You may want to take a look at the ecourse called Communicating With Power which is designed to help you understand your impact on others.

3. Love To Learn, Grow, Expand

If you aren't learning, growing, expanding then you certainly can't expect the people around you to be either!
One of the things that seems to set all the great leaders apart is their absolute commitment to stepping into their potential and discovering ways to be the best possible version of themselves. I don't know about you, but I've yet to meet a leader that is considered to be at the top of his or her game, who doesn't read, listen to audios, go to courses or share what he or she learns with others.
They certainly don't sit around waiting to be sent on some corporate course.
And here's the biggest distinction I've witnessed. They seem compelled to learn, grow, expand and yet they also seem to be very content with who they are as an individual. It is kind of like they have this mantra 'Happy with where I'm at ... but not settling'. There is no sense of desperation or not being good enough. More it is am intense curiosity and that deep knowing that the reason we as humans are on this planet is to grow, learn, expand.
One of my favorite sayings is "if you aren't growing then neither are your people" (and you can quote me on that ~wink~).
A high performance leader stays relevant by making sure they are at the leading-edge in terms of leadership skills, interpersonal skills and knowledge in their organization's field of expertise.
You may want to consider joining Align-Lead-Inspire.com - it is the membership site I created for high performance leaders and contains the premium leadership development content ... audios, ecourses, interviews, articles, ebooks

You'll claim the qualities of good leadership and make your mark when you Learn, Grow, Expand

4. Have High Self Worth and Self Esteem

You might not think that how you feel about yourself has a whole lot to do with how others perceive you or how effective you can be at taking charge of a group situation. However, it would be a huge mistake to make this assumption. Every individual is either their own best friend or their own worst enemy.
How you feel about yourself often leads to subconscious patterns. Those with a negative self worth may have many other leadership qualities, but sabotage their own efforts with a deep belief that they aren't good enough to carry the day.
Dealing with self esteem can seem like a touchy-feely waste of time, but that is absolutely not the case. It is crucial to your success and leadership ability.
In this article on leadership and self esteem you can read how Steve's self esteem almost railroaded his career.
It's interesting but almost without exception the leaders that I have coached (and that is in the high hundreds in one-to-one coaching, and thousands in workshop situations) have at some point struggled with their self-esteem. In coaching sessions time and again leaders have asked me to help them work through situations where their self-belief is hurting them. For most leaders this is just a momentary thing and not something that dominates their lives.
But even those momentary lapses do make sure that you have the skills to recognize when its your self-worth thats creating a problem and pick yourself up and get back into the game with a healthier perspective.
I suspect self worth is one of those qualities of good leadership that most people will glide over ... I'm okay with that ... just make sure on those times when you take a hit you've got the skills to get back in the saddle fast!

5. Are Excited By Life

If you aren't excited about the journey ahead how on earth will you excite those around you? Now this doesn't mean you need to go all cheerleader. But it does mean that you get out there with a spring in your step and a vibe of passion, urgency, desire, energy and animation that others just can't help but be compelled by.
As you read the pages on my site you'll guess that I'm a real fan of Richard Branson. He really embodies this quality of good leadership in bucket-loads. You just know that he's thrilled to be alive and seems to bring that sense of thrill and curiosity into everything he does .... whether that's ballooning, building the Virgin Brand, working with a kid in an orphanage or talking to a passenger on a plane.
I contrast Richard's out there, extroverted style with one of the leaders that has most inspired me in a work situation. He was almost the complete opposite of Richard, quiet, more serious than cheerful, considered in his thinking. But did he ever have belief in what we were doing and he was 'quietly' thrilled by the journey we as a team were on.
This quiet sense of destiny and purpose that he brought in to our team inspired all of us. It simply meant that the rah-rah stuff he left to those of us in the leadership team who were higher up on the extrovert scale, and he would come quietly behind reinforcing with all the team members that this was a special moment in their life and be excited by the possibilities of where we were going. And his quiet style did embed in each and every one of us a sense of meaning and joy about what we were doing!

 Types of Conflict in the Workplace

In your leadership career there are many types of conflict in the workplace that you will need to deal with. Personality conflicts are, by far, the most challenging and frequent.
Let's take a quick look at the other four most common types of conflict and then look a bit more deeply at how to overcome personality clashes.

The Five Most Common Types of Conflict In The Workplace

1.      Interdependence Conflicts. A person relies on someone else's co-operation, output or input in order for them to get their job done. For example, a sales-person is constantly late inputting the monthly sales figures which causes the accountant to be late with her reports.

2.      Differences in Style. People's preferred way for completing a job can differ. For example, one person may just want to get the work done quickly (task oriented), while another is more concerned about making sure that everyone has a say in how the work gets done (people oriented). When you understand people's difference in style you can hose down a lot of potential conflict.

3.       Differences in Background/Gender. Conflicts can arise between people because of differences in educational backgrounds, personal experiences, ethnic heritage, gender and political preferences. Listen to an interview I did with Barbara Annis on gender diversity and inclusiveness.. There are some great tips in the interview to help you make the most of gender differences.

4.      Differences in Leadership. Leaders have different ways of leading their teams. Employees who have to deal with different leaders throughout a day, can become confused and irritated by these different ways of being led. For example, one leader may be more open and inclusive whilst another may be more directive.

To avoid this type of disruption make sure that your leadership team have put together a solid set of principles and values that are used to provide consistency in how decisions are made and how people are involved in the business.

5.      Personality Clashes. These types of conflict in the workplace are often fueled by emotion and perceptions about somebody else's motives and character. For example, a team leader jumps on someone for being late, because she views the team member as being lazy and disrespectful. The team member sees the team leader as out to 'get' him because he isn't one of the 'favored' children.

How To Handle Personality Clashes

All types of conflict in the workplace can be messy, but differences in personality cause the most grief. Statistics show that 85% of dismissals in the US are due to personality conflicts.
At some point in your working life you will experience a personality conflict. So, here is possibly one of the most important principles to follow, if you want to successfully resolve any conflict you find yourself caught up in... You Must Identify The Story You've Got Going On.
There are two types of stories you can tell yourself.
One story puts a halo over your head and enables you to justify to yourself why you have behaved poorly and makes you look the innocent/injured party.
The second type of story is the one you tell yourself about others. This story causes you to see devil horns on the heads of others and has you labeling them in a negative fashion, placing you in a downward spiral of ill feeling and bad temper toward them. A few examples:

Situation/Scenario	Story You Tell
Someone lets you down and it's not the first time.	They are irresponsible and unreliable
You let someone down and it's not the first time.	It's because you've been overworked recently.
Someone cuts you off while driving	They are rude, aggressive and inconsiderate.
You cut someone off while you are driving	It's because you are in a hurry and if you don't catch these lights you'll miss your doctor's appointment
One of your peers buys the boss a birthday card	It's because they are soft-soaping the boss and trying to weasel their way in for a promotion.
You buy your boss a birthday card	It's because you are warm and caring.
Someone flies into a rage at the post office clerk	They are bad-tempered
You fly into a rage at the post office clerk	It's because you're tired and this is the 3rd time you've been here trying to resolve the problem and the post office keeps making the same mistake which is costing you money

Sometimes your stories are accurate, but more often than not they are either inaccurate or incomplete or just completely wrong.
The truth is often somewhere in between the story you've told yourself about why the other person is acting 'that' way and the actual facts.
Identifying your story is important for three reasons:

1. It ensures you don't over-react to a situation
2. You open yourself up to the possibility of holding a healthy discussion ... rather than ambushing the other person with your emotions
3. You begin to sift fact from story.

Use this Exercise to Sift Story from Fact

Think of a conflict you have with someone at the moment. On a piece of paper in the left hand column write down all the stories you are telling yourself about the person. All the feelings, thoughts, judgments, labels, conclusions that are running through your head.
On the right hand column write down all the Facts. These are observable, objective, specific actions and information.
Now write down how your reactions or actions (or inactions) might have contributed to the situation.
As you look at your list you may find that the story you have been telling yourself is not fully supported by all the facts. That you have made many assumptions and interpretations about what the other person's behavior MIGHT mean! Have you ever heard the saying "We judge others by their actions, but ourselves by our intentions"? You don't truly know what the other person's intentions are without asking.
This exercise is not designed to stop you from talking with the other person about the problems you are having with him or her. Its purpose is to help you wash down any over-heated emotions you may have running riot through your body and help you to become a bit more objective about the situation. Then you will be more likely to hold the conversation with less accusation and more curiosity.
In "Influence Your Way To Success" you learn that your number one goal in any type of conflict is to discover the truth. Identifying your story is one sure step in enabling you to achieve this goal.

Why Being Top-Notch At Handling The Different Types of Conflict In The Workplace Is Important

No matter the types of conflict in the workplace, ignoring them and hoping they will go away, is going to cost you. Possibly cost you quite dearly.
If you are a leader in the business it is going to cost you in terms of:

·         wasted time listening to people's complaints

·         you complaining to others about how tough you've got it (which no leader worth his or her salt should ever do!)

·         lost productivity as people spend more time worrying about the conflict than the organizational goals,

·         absenteeism,

·         health claims,

·         people withdrawing emotionally,

·         employee turnover,

·         aggression and at times even violence.

If you are involved in the conflict you may feel these emotions: discontent, miserableness, distress, frustration,resentment. Unfortunately, generally, most people are not adept at leaving these feelings in the workplace at quitting time, so they trundle along home with them impacting on and often causing conflict and tension on the home-front as well.

Understanding Types of Conflicts

In a story, starting a fight is an easy way to make the mood tense. But conflict can do more than just make a story feel tense, suspenseful. Conflict engages the audience. It makes us sympathize with the characters and root for them. And it heightens other emotions in the story. In summary, conflicts in stories serves as a hook to readers. With conflicts, one is engaged in the issues that happened between opposing parties. Knowing how to use them creates excitement in our writings. 

Elements of a Short Story: CONFLICT
Conflict in some quarters describes it as Man versus…Man, Nature, Society, or Self.
Some research work brought out the following interesting types of conflicts which would be helpful for us to ponder and use.
In an article “conflict 101” written by Rod Windle and Suzanne Warren, it mentioned seven main types of conflict.  Firstly, data conflicts, they touches on the disagreement on data presented. One party may disagree upon the presented facts.  In relationship conflicts, doubting the sincerity of the opposite party resulted in conflicts.  Conflicts over values is the dispute over our inability, our tolerance levels and our refusal to accept our differences in value system. Conflicts regarding resources, refers to resources availability and its cost. While one desires certain goals another may have desires for different resources limited by cost. In conflicts about past history, in which individuals may keep historical hurting by another throuh blame or guilt. Conflicts about structure, deals with external forces and contraints such as facing bullying; financial. Lastly, psychological conflicts deals with the desire for power, control, autonomy, recognition or love.
In another website, the author of “thewriter’s mentor” wrote about the following five conflict situations. I’ve quoted here.

“There are five types of conflict situations to be found in stories: inner, relational, social, situational, and cosmic.”

• Inner conflict suggesting that the characters are unsure of themselves, or their action, or even what they want.
• Relational conflict centers on the mutually exclusive goals of the protagonist (main character in the story) and the antagonist (character or force that opposes the protagonist).
• Social conflict deals with conflict between a person and a group (pitting a person against a larger system).
• Situational conflicts develop as characters disagree about how to best survive and within each scene, different points of view emerge. Some characters panic, others become leaders, trying to persuade the group to follow them.
• Cosmic conflict occurs between a character and a supernatural force. In order to watch the conflict unfold, we need to see the character project his problems with an invisible force onto a human being who just happens to be in the way.”–Linda Seger, Making a Good Script Great

http://www.selfleadership.com

Self Development

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"You cannot teach a person anything; you can only help him find it within himself" - Galileo Gallilei

Personal and Professional Development Programs

Self Development is intrinsic to self-leadership as leadership and learning are inseparable.
Self-leadership is knowing who you are, what you can do and where you are going, coupled with the ability to manage your communication, emotions and behaviour on the way to getting there.
Self Development includes, developing healthy self esteem, self knowledge, self image, self belief and self confidence so that you can develop your unique talents and abilities and contribute.
Through Self development and self leadership we can find meaning and significance in our lives, attain states of self efficacy (Bandura), flow (Csikszentmihalyi) and self actualisation (Maslow).

Executive Coaching

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"I learn teaching from teachers. I learn golf from golfers. I learn winning from coaches."- Harvey Penick

Executive Coaching and Leadership Development

Executive Coaching has become a core part of leadership development with most organisations now engaging Executive Coaches for their Leaders and Future Leaders.
Executive Coaching can also include: Leadership Coaching, Business Coaching, Career Coaching and Coaching for Managers. Mentoring is distinct from coaching but shares many of the same skills sets, which we include in our Mentoring for Senior Managers program.
In the past coaching was used to help fix toxic behaviours, but today coaching is about developing the capabilities of high potential performers. Harvard Business Review (Jan 2009) reviewed the field of executive coaching and found that the top 3 reasons for engaging an executive coach were:

1. To develop high potentials or facilitate a transition
2. To act as a sounding board
3. To address some derailing behaviour.

Some current definitions of Executive Coaching include:

• “Coaching is unlocking a person’s potential to maximise their own performance. It is helping them to learn rather than teaching them. Clients say coaching brings out their best by helping them focus, break down tasks and clarify their values.”- Fortune Magazine
• “Coaching is a managerial methodology that seeks to maximize employee performance by conscientiously considering individuals and their unique talents and abilities.”
• “Coaching is a conversation, a dialogue, whereby a coach and coachee interact in a dynamic exchange to achieve goals, enhance performance and move the coachee forward to greater success.” Zeus and Skiffington

The International Coach Federation (ICF) defines coaching as: "Coaching is partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential."

Coaching for Human Resource Development

Coaching is integral to Human Resource Development (HRD) where coaching plays an important part in reaching organisational objectives and filling the leadership pipeline. Coaching should be part of the skill set of every manager/supervisor and the organisation might retain experienced executive coaches for key high performers. Self Leadership International has provided consultants to partner with HR to develop a coaching culture.

Leadership Development

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"Leadership and Learning are Indispensible" - John F. Kennedy

Leadership Development and Training

At Self Leadership International, we believe that effective leadership development is about developing leadership skills and leadership attitudes within individuals and creating a leadership culture that supports leadership behaviours at all levels of the organisation.
We are a world-class provider of leadership development training, coaching and consulting to local and international businesses. We can assist at all stages of the leadership pipeline from new hires, to supervisors, to new managers, to senior managers and C-level executives. We offer public programmes but specialise in creating a customised in-house solutions to meet our clients needs.

Leadership Development Framework

We can work with your existing leadership framework or we can use our leadership model which has benchmarked leadership behaviour in the following areas:

Self Leadership	Knowing who you are, what you can do and where you are going, coupled with the ability to manage your communication, emotions and behaviour on the way to getting there. This leadership competency is about personal mastery and creates a strong attitudinal and skill foundation for effective management and leadership. Programs include: Self Leadership and Personal Mastery and Communication Excellence.
People Leadership	Getting the best from people by connecting their intrinsic motivators with the goals and vision of the organisation. Communication is at the heart of a learning organisation and this module develops the ability to communicate even in the presence of conflict and diversity. Finally people managers learn to coach and mentor for maximum performance. Programs include: Managing Performance, Leadership for Managers and Mentoring for Senior Managers.
Team Leadership	Bringing together individuals of different styles and competencies to work together towards a common goal. This competency emphasises bringing people together and empowering them execute the company’s vision, mission and objectives. Programs include: Leading High Performance Teams and Creativity and Innovation.
Customer/Client Leadership	This leadership competency emphasises serving and influencing both internal and external clients. The leader must know how to identify driving forces and utilises these forces to sell, negotiate and/or present ideas with different audiences. Programs include: The Power of Influence, The Psychology of Selling, Persuasive Presentations and Customer Service Excellence.
Strategic Leadership	Taking a larger perspective, systems thinking, planning and making decisions that place the company in the best position to fulfil its mission. Business intelligence (savvy) means recognising the systems that are crucial to the success or failure of the business in different markets. Strategic Leadership Programs include: Critical Skills for Senior Managers and Mastering Change and Transition.