Leadership Development for Successful Companies

Over several years Dr. J Hall, of Teleometrics, evaluated 64,000 managers and their subordinates to determine the behavioral characteristics that high performing leaders had that average and low performers didn’t have. His work is the largest leadership study ever conducted.

This is the first of a two part series discussing one of the characteristics; effective interpersonal communication. Communication plays a vital role in the success of every organization. Strong leaders are excellent communicators who have high levels of interpersonal competence leading directly to high personal achievement. Individual and organizational success ties directly to the interpersonal competence of the entire team.

The Johari Window Communication Model

A well established model describing interpersonal communication is the Johari Window.  This useful tool illustrates interaction styles, helps improve the personal self-awareness of individuals and leads to enhanced mutual understanding between individuals. The model is particularly relevant in today’s business environment with its emphasis on teamwork.

Individuals who work with the model will better understand their current communication style so they can use it as a basis to move to standards exhibited by highly effective leaders.

Johari Window

The Johari Window uses a four-part diagram to reflect interaction styles between yourself and others. The four sections represent information processing elements that are significant in creating quality interpersonal relationships.

The Arena area includes information known by self and others. In this area, communication and cooperation occurs free from distractions, mistrust, conflict and misunderstanding. Research shows that highly effective managers have a large Arena area, leading to rewarding, effective and productive relationships.

The Blindspot encompasses information known by others but unknown by self. Managers with a large Blindspot are not as effective and typically do not listen and talk too much.

The Façade area has information known by self but unknown by others. This includes sensitivities, fears, hidden agendas and manipulative intentions.

The Unknown area contains information unknown by self and others. This may include feelings, latent abilities, aptitudes, experiences, or deeper aspects of a person’s personality that influence behavior.

Highly effective leaders do not have a large Unknown. They are comfortable with communicating openly with employees, peers and managers around them.

An organization’s culture and working atmosphere have a major influence on employees’ readiness to disclose their hidden selves. Most people fear judgment or vulnerability and therefore hold back hidden information and feelings. When management encourages more openness, it enhances mutual understanding and enables better individual performance and organizational effectiveness.

If you are interested in determining your communication style, please contact me for an evaluation.

In the second part of this series we will identify four leadership styles and how effective they are in developing open communication and mutual understanding.

Good day all. As you have noticed there have been no posts here for a couple of months. I sent the last two months in the hospital and just got home last Saturday. The post is written by a long time associate Rich Lewine. Enjoy. I will be back on line with the next one.

Looking Forward – After the Fact

Recently IBM poured at least $10 billion into a new division, Information On Demand, built around the theory that businesses are drowning in a sea of unorganized and underutilized data.

We applaud IBM, Oracle, SAP and the other firms that are working to bring order to chaos. There are nuggets of gold in data warehouses around the world. With all this technology being brought to bear, the operational history of an organization should be readily available for use in decision-making.

While laudable, keep in mind that the information being culled is historical; it has already been generated by the efforts of the people in the organization. It’s similar to the accounting function. That is, “the beans are being counted.” Terrific, on the face of it. We believe, however, that not enough attention, time and effort is being focused on the front end. People’s activities created the results that are represented in these data. Our question is: are these human activities the right ones, leading to the desired outcomes?

Our experience shows that there is an abundance of “executing before the planning is done”. Why is this? Why does articulating a vision, formulating strategy and building an organization-wide executable system of goals get short shrift, while combing through a mountain of results is de rigueur?

In a word, Leadership. If the CEO/President/Head Honcho of an organization doesn’t champion the process, it doesn’t happen. If the leader isn’t committed to looking forward and leading the effort to determine the organization’s future, no one else can or will. If there is no future magnet attracting the organization, then the market, or some other external influence will make that determination for it. The historical data being massaged will represent what the people in the organization produced based on their best efforts; but not necessarily what the organization wanted.

Remember, Without a system of goals, our only motivation is survival. If just surviving is OK with you, don’t change anything. If planned, realistic, controlled growth is more your style, change is required. You make the choice.

Richard Lewine, RSL Consulting Group, LLC Greenwich CT 06831

How to positively engage your community

Successful leaders know the importance of connecting to their marketplace and employees. A Vision and Mission statement is one method used for this purpose. Often this becomes a staid exercise. Employees can’t recite them or see relevance to their job. The marketplace sees no connection. Dry statements don’t build passion about your business.

Effective leaders understand they need to engage others emotionally not just intellectually. Employees come to work for a paycheck. When they also emotionally connect to their job they are much more likely to be motivated and enthusiastic.

Simply put a Vision statement is what we do. A Mission statement is how we do it. What is missing is our Purpose, why we do what we do. The more passionate your purpose the more you will distinguish yourself from competition and build unfair competitive advantage.

Best selling author Simon Sinek in his book, “Start With Why”, argues “People don’t buy what you do, but WHY you do it.” People do business with people they like, so it’s critical to tell them what you believe in, why you’re doing what you’re doing. That’s how you make a positive connection, and it’s the first fundamental in establishing trust and rapport. Here is a You Tube link to hear more from Simon. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qp0HIF3SfI4.

You may say our business is simple not like the examples in the video. In my experience any business can build passion in their product or service. For example one client markets restroom supplies; partitions for example. How mundane. Their purpose is to give the maintenance supervisors – who have no product knowledge and are under great pressure to immediately fix the problem – very quick and 100% accurate service. Their purpose is to help him be a “hero” in the eyes of his constituents.

An effective leader also understands it is important to build her personal Why. You are a role model, people follow what they see. Your personal purpose inspires others to become passionate in their own right. It is one step in building a results oriented culture of motivated, enthusiastic, confident employees.

To build a personal Why I recommend “The Why Café” by John Strelecky.

Move from the staid and dry to passionate statements. They will differentiate you and your organization from competition helping you build unfair competitive advantage and sustainable revenue and profitability.

In our December post “Is Leadership a Soft Skill” we established strong results are a direct effect of good leadership. An effective leader understands the connection between leadership, performance and people development. She builds a culture that promotes and rewards personal growth.

Lack of leadership commitment to people performance can have an enormous cost. An effective organization has a team of enthusiastic, motivated employees. What if some employees are not motivated and maybe even become demotivated?

Employees in an organization fall into one of four quadrants. Employees in each quadrant impact organizational results.

Quadrant 1      Motivated not yet Competent

Quadrant 2     Competent and Motivated

Quadrant 3     Competent but Demotivated

Quadrant 4     Not Competent and Demotivated

In his first day, a new hire is motivated but not yet competent. Through orientation this employee moves from quadrant 1 to quadrant 2. He is now a motivated, functioning member of the organization.

Unfortunately, over time many employees move from quadrant 2 to quadrant 3. They are competent but have lost motivation. They go through the motions but make no effort to improve and excel.

The extent of this problem is well documented. “A mere 14 percent of employees around the world are highly engaged in their work. In other words, roughly 85 percent of people at work are giving significantly less of themselves than they could.” From the Towers Perrin Survey of 86,000 employees around the world.

Employees move from quadrant 2 to 3 for numerous reasons, including no connection to the mission of the organization, weak supervision, confusing direction and siloed operations.

When these conditions persist some employees move to quadrant 4. They are demotivated, they lose interest over time, and they become incompetent.

This takes a person far beyond the lack of motivation we saw in quadrant 3. People in quadrant 4 complain in the parking lot with the fatal disease called …………. Ain’t It Awful Here! Their negative attitudes poison the organization’s culture and the work of others.

The lower productivity in quadrants 3 and 4 has an enormous cost. If 30% of employees in a 200 person organization with a $8 million payroll are in quadrant 3 and are only 60% productive the cost is $960,000. If we assume a product / service gross margin of 30% the organization must sell $3.2 million to recover the wasted payroll investment.

In addition to productivity costs, employee failure costs include time wasted by managers, the cost of repairing fractured team morale, and replacement hiring costs.

Effective leadership is key to employee and organizational achievement.

Effective leadership builds a results based culture based of enthusiastic, motivated, confident employees committed to achieving the organization’s vision. Employees desire to improve personally and to meet challenging goals. They feel valued and rewarded.

Effective leaders understand a basic truth: no company with unhappy unmotivated employees ever performed well. Ongoing employee development strengthens results and brings competitive advantage in your marketplace.

Thanks to Mike Weaver, Achievement Associates, for much of this material.

We have just finished the New Years resolution season. It seems that on January 1 we make a whole series of resolutions such as eating better, exercising more, or losing weight. And what happens? We try for about a month and by February we return to our old habits.

This year think about making a new set of meaningful resolutions that will have a profound impact on your life. Don’t limit them to personal resolutions, which are good. Equally important should be to focus on your professional life.

You are one of the leaders in your organization. You are a role model and as such every action you take counts. Your employees and co-workers observe you and your behavioral traits every day. John Maxwell put it this way, “People do what people see.”

Your personal leadership reflects your expectations for yourself and for your organization. Making and achieving meaningful resolutions is one way to demonstrate effective behavior.

When you make your resolutions, ask yourself, “Am I positioning myself this year to be truly successful?” The following questions will guide you.

• What personal behaviors can I improve to increase my effectiveness?

As a thought producer review the 20 Interpersonal behavior flaws in “What Got You erHHere Won’t Get You There” by Marshall Goldsmith.

• What tasks can I delegate so I can work more on high payoff activities?

• How can I help my people succeed?

• What can I do to think more strategically?

Life is 10% of what happens to us (events) and 90% of how we react to it (our attitudes).  You are where you are and what you are because of the thoughts that dominate your mind. William James said, “We can alter our lives by altering our attitudes of mind.” Attitudes are habits of thought. The good news is that we can change habits. The bad news is that it will take time and effort.

Great athletes spend most of their time practicing and far less time performing. In contrast, most of us the business world spend none of our time practicing and all of our time performing. We get in a rut, defined as, “A coffin with the ends knocked out,” and never develop our potential or the potential of our organization. We fall into the insanity trap when we do the same things over and over and expect different results.

You are a leader and a role model. People will observe you achieving success. As a leader you challenge and assist others to achieve their success. Lead yourself and others to improve attitudes and skills.

The personal and professional reward of your development year after year is cumulative. You will develop a positive mental attitude and improve your effectiveness several times over your career.

All organizations are perfectly designed to get the results they’re now getting. All organizations have two things in common, a present and a future. During the present we program our future. If the future you envision is different from your present, you must exercise effective leadership to implement change starting today. Otherwise you will fall into the insanity trap; doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

Leadership has become increasingly important to creating a successful future. However, it is often identified with softness, which implies tolerance and compromising standards. Even those who acknowledge the effects of positive leadership believe that leadership is qualitative, that we can’t measure the results of our leadership. This limiting attitude has a far-reaching effect on performance and long term sustainability.

Change is always carried out by people in the organization. Organizational transformation is really about the growth of your people. Effective leadership is the necessary catalyst for the development of people and implementing change.

People want to be appreciated. Observe your employees. You will notice that all of them have the letters “MMFA” emblazoned on their foreheads: “Make me feel appreciated.”

John Maxwell says that people follow a leader because of what the leader can do for them.

An effective leader understands that he needs to have significance in the lives of his employees. He understands the connection between performance and development and builds a culture that promotes and rewards personal growth.

Managers are task oriented and focus on functional areas. Managers are rewarded for efficiency; doing things right.

Leaders focus on doing the right things. Many managers don’t make this shift. They continue to focus on role related tactical issues of revenue, shipments, or quality. A manager becomes an effective leader by focusing on developing opportunity and increasing value.

When you develop your people, the rewards can be significant and will drop directly to the bottom line. To illustrate:

Key staff employed to                        Cost

• Produce                      33% of Revenue

• Sell                              15% of Revenue

• Control                       15% of Revenue

• Profit                            6% of Revenue

A 4% improvement in the effectiveness of key staff reduces cost and increases profits.

Improve                     Cost /         Reduction

Produce                      33.0%              1.3%

Sell                              15.0%                .6%

Control                       15.0%                .6%

Profit improvement                           2.5%

Original Profit             6.0%

New Profit                   6.0%   plus     2.5% = 8.5%

The 4% improvement in effectiveness brings a 42% increase in the bottom line.

The key concept: When you create a small improvement in the effectiveness of key personnel, you always create a much greater impact on profitability.

Leadership is directly related to results, results that can be measured. Leadership culture is the single most important factor in determining the level of organizational productivity, achievement – your results.

In today’s uncertain world business leaders are having difficulty in developing sustainable revenue and profitability. Margins have been deeply affected. Customers have options and are in control. The world economy is struggling.

Through all this we want to excel and prosper, to develop “Unfair Competitive Advantage.”

There are three solutions to creating “Unfair Competitive Advantage.”

Make change a part of your culture.

Are your managers working harder but falling short on delivering exceptional results? If we keep doing the same old things we will NOT get results we have always gotten. Status quo is comfortable. When we are always firefighting there is no time to execute change. Change is happening we might as well be proactive.

Develop great leadership in your management team.

Leadership is the single most critical factor in determining the level of organizational productivity and achievement – your results. Excellence, efficiency, quality, service to the customer – overall organizational performance – are the result of an organizational culture and attitude. The culture and attitude are the result of effective leadership.

Effective leadership can be learned. An effective development program is key to developing sustainable long term change and results.

Strengthen your effectiveness in the 5 hidden mistakes CEOs make.

Five basic mistakes to overcome are lack of focus, development, practice, planning and accountability. They combine to limit the effectiveness of organizations. Outstanding leaders understand they can improve and they build regular development into their culture.

Through change, leadership and improving effectiveness you:

• Reach your vision and develop sustainable growth in revenue and profitability.
• Win in the market place by building ”Unfair Competitive Advantage.”
• Build a results based culture of enthusiastic, motivated, confident employees committed to achieving the organization’s future vision.

These are the topics we will explore over time in this blog. Besides myself I will have guest presenters to give a wide perspective of effective leadership. I welcome questions and comments so we can all learn together.