Beyond decision making, successful leadership across all areas becomes learned and instinctual over a period of time. Successful leaders have learned the mastery of anticipating business patterns, finding opportunities in pressure situations, serving the people they lead and overcoming hardships. No wonder the best CEOs are paid so much money. In 2011, salaries for the 200 top-paid CEOs rose 5 percent to a median $14.5 million per year, according to a study by compensation-data company Equilar for The New York Times.
I cover consumer-centric insights and analytics that provide executives with solutions needed to drive strategy. I am the CEO of Prosper Business Development where, for more than 20 years, we have provided market leadership and developed contemporary solutions to help Fortune 500 companies navigate change that impacts their business. I got my start in the radio industry.
The 1 Question All Great Leaders Need to Ask for Outstanding Success
Having clear expectations in your role as a leader is vital to success. Most of the time, understanding your role and the expectations that come with it begins with deciding what outcomes or goals need to be met. Whether you define them yourself or have an organization define them for you, they need to be clear, manageable and well-communicated.
Encourage people to believe in a better future. While stability focuses on today, hopefulness deals with the future. People need to see that their leaders have a clear direction in mind. They want to have faith that their leaders are guiding them in the right direction. When leaders communicate hope, they can help followers feel more enthusiastic about the future.
Great leaders actually start somewhere else: They start with an awareness, of both themselves (through strengths) and their job (their role and expectations). They should begin with a goal in mind, communicate the desired outcomes and then identify where they've had success in the past -- and then consider how they'll use those successes to help them now.
There are countless ways you could answer this question. But most people look to academic leadership theories or find a list of leadership personality traits and different leadership styles to try to answer this.
Each leader is naturally drawn to different things, so you may find that more traditional ways of compartmentalizing leadership styles leave you feeling confused. Instead, answer the questions presented by the four domains of leadership below.
Success is measured and defined differently by all, which means that good information on how to lead your team to success or understanding what makes a successful team can be hard to find. Before you know how to lead, you need to know what a successful team looks like.
CliftonStrengths makes this easier. Having team members discover, develop and lead with their strengths can lead to higher employee engagement and performance, which are outcomes of a successful team. However, they aren't the most important outcomes because giving your employees the opportunity to do what they do best is the greatest measure of a successful team.
If your attempts to develop in the past have fallen short, it may be because too few leadership development programs can clearly define the experiences that lead to excellence in leadership. They don't individualize, they can't match leader to experience at the time it's most needed, and they don't help leaders analyze their experiences so they can effectively apply them in the future.
1 We believe that knowing your strengths is a great foundation for creating a leadership development plan. When you take the CliftonStrengths assessment, you will get a report with personalized results. Our CliftonStrengths 34 report (featuring all 34 strengths in rank order) will help you discover what you do best and give you the confidence to live and work every day using those strengths.
3 Learn to identify your own key experiences, both the ones that got you where you are today and the ones you want to have. Consider your past and present, and decide what you want for your future. Key experiences are some of the most critical components of leader success. Put simply, "Key experiences are events in a leader's life that result in learning, growth and/or increased capacity to effectively lead." Every role and every industry looks different, but key experiences are one of the foundational elements to leadership development anywhere.
What sets apart good leaders from great leaders? Is it political savvy and the ability to maneuver their way to the top? Is it the number of connections they have? Is it their ability to speak well and motivate people?
One of the great temptations leaders face is to put themselves in a bubble. To surround themselves with yes-men who never challenge them or push back. The best leaders, on the other hand, build a circle of trusted friends who will give them honest feedback, both positive and negative.
If you want to avoid stagnation, make learning a lifelong habit. If you want to be constantly growing and improving, always be learning. If you want to be the best version of yourself, push yourself toward new ideas and experiences. The best leaders understand that great leadership requires deep learning.
Setting clear goals and employee expectations for your team is key to employee success. When setting these objectives, encourage employee questions and feedback. Including them in the process can increase engagement.
Leadership coaching can also help you discover areas where you need improvement. A professional who helps you develop a plan to achieve your leadership goals can be more motivational than books and seminars alone.
Remember that being a good leader takes time. Although some individuals are naturally inclined to have good leadership skills, it is something anyone can learn and improve upon. With hard work, dedication and strategic planning, you can lead your team to success.
As a manager, you knew what needed to be done, you taught others how to do it, and you evaluated their performance. Command and control was the name of the game, and your goal was to direct and develop employees who understood how the business worked and were able to reproduce its previous successes.
How well do you ask questions? From my experience, most managers and leaders don't think about this issue very often. The "ability to ask questions" doesn't usually show up on any list of managerial competencies or job description requirements. However, asking questions effectively is a major component of any manager or leader's job, and asking good questions often distinguishes outstanding leaders and managers from average ones (or worse, poor ones).
This is not a unique scenario. Many managers and leaders don't know how to probe the thought process of their colleagues and bosses and instead make assumptions about the basis of their actions. When those assumptions are wrong, all sorts of dysfunction can result. Who hasn't heard the following story? A a major product upgrade has been delayed by months because the product and IT managers have different assumptions about what is to be delivered by when, and both sides keep blaming each other for the delays. When a third party finally intervenes and helps them ask the right questions, they are able to come up with a plan that satisfies both sides and move ahead with the implementation.
Dig deeper. So often leaders and managers make the mistake of assuming that everything is going okay if they are not hearing bad news. Big mistake. It may mean staff are afraid to share anything but good news, even if it means stonewalling. So when information surfaces in your conversations and meetings, dig for details without straying into blaming. Focusing on learning rather than judging when asking questions will help you see the entire picture. Remember, problems on your team are, first and foremost, your problems.
Asking good questions, and doing so in a spirit of honest information gathering and collaboration, is good practice for leaders and managers. It cultivates an environment where staff feel comfortable discussing issues that affect both their performance and that of the team. That, in turn, creates a foundation for deepening levels of trust, increasing morale and innovation, and enhancing productivity.
Develop a range of leadership techniques and behaviors so that you have more to draw from. Only when it is no longer about you, and you stop thinking about greatness, can you achieve great leadership.
Also consider what is needed to drive your company culture. Then, think about the culture for leadership development at your organization. Ask: what needs to change to ensure this leadership development initiative is successful?
The bottom line? This company made sure there was strategic alignment to local leadership before officially launching the program. Local leadership then felt committed and compelled to support the corporate training plan. This global director was great at identifying sponsors and allies and getting others to share the load of supporting the initiative.
Savvy leadership development program owners host orientation calls for this group, teaching them how to coach their associates involved in the program. Program owners also conduct focused training sessions on necessary skills so managers can model them correctly. These sessions are designed to help managers support meaningful development plans for participants and, overall, make it easy for managers of learners to be successful.
Effective leadership and effective communication are intertwined. The best leaders are skilled communicators who are able to communicate in a variety of ways, from transmitting information to inspiring others to coaching direct reports. And you must be able to listen to, and communicate with, a wide range of people across roles, geographies, social identities, and more. The quality and effectiveness of communication among leaders across your organization directly affects the success of your business strategy, too. Learn how effective communication and better conversations can actually improve your organizational culture. 2ff7e9595c
Comments