I believe in Leadership Development and I have dedicated my career to learning about leadership and helping others become great leaders. I developed a leadership competency model many moons ago and have found and kept a library of competencies accordingly. In March of 2018, I decided to start sharing my library online. The same narrative is shared on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.
Each month, a blog post just like this one will be created housing all the random social media posts from that month. The blog will publish after the first social media post and updated throughout the month as other posts occur. I hope you find it insightful and valuable as you work towards effective and successful leadership.
March 28: Organizational Awareness and Influence
March 26: Innovation Management
WHAT? Isn’t that an oxymoron? HA! This competency is about enabling creativity and new ideas to be fully discussed and executed. It includes not only curiosity and effective facilitation, but good judgment and active listening.
Leadership in one margin may look like someone rejecting an idea because it is traditional or “old school” or someone who is only focusing on crazy or new ideas. Perhaps this person focuses too much on ideation and not enough on actual implementation. In the other margin is someone who is incapable of realizing the potential of a creative or innovative idea, or someone who is only comfortable with “tried and true” ideas and solutions. This person avoids risk and is often reluctant to look stupid or do something that may fail.
Today’s business environment demands innovation and creativity. That being said, it goes without saying that successful businesses need leaders who can manage this process effectively.
March 22: Self-development
Well, that seems funny, doesn’t it? That a competency is about building a competency!
Well, don’t be fooled by what appears to be a circular argument. What we’re talking about here is a the commitment to learning and improving oneself. Those who use this competency well are good at self-awareness and willing to admit when they don’t know things. They deploy their strengths to situations that benefit from it, and try to mitigate their vulnerabilities or weaknesses when it benefits the organization or team to do so.
Those “in the margins” may be focusing too much on their own needs – meaning they focus more on learning or improving and not nearly enough on doing. Or they are easily distracted on the “new and trendy idea” that has little substance or positive result on real improvement. On the other hand, the leader who doesn’t have a good grasp on this competency fails to adapt, fails to improve, fails to learn from his/her mistakes.
As always, finding the right balance is tricky – and in this particular instance, finding the sweet spot and growing and learning “just enough” will go a long way in empowering, inspiring and engaging a developing workforce!
March 19: Composure
Effective leaders maintain it! They don’t become defensive or irritated when stressful situations occur, and are rarely knocked off balance. They are often considered the “calm” among the chaos.
On the other hand, too much composure can come across as being cold, uncaring or apathetic. Leaders that don’t show any emotion are often hard to relate to or understand. Not enough composure looks and feels like a pressure cooker, with the person getting easily overwhelmed and often blowing up or behaving inappropriately. These individuals are often seen as being easily rattled or offended.
Your challenge, if you choose to accept it, is to keep calm and carry on – your ability to remain composed will heighten your ability to influence and lead others.
March 16: Drive for Results
Effective leaders are consistently top performers, have a tendency and commitment to consider bottom line and push themselves and others for results.
Leaders who may be somewhere in the margins are either focusing or pushing so hard for results that they fail to demonstrate concern or empathy for their teams or even the process itself. Or they may waste time, be personally disorganized, fail to set priorities and not committed enough to push through and get to results or completion.
What about you? Do you consider yourself effectively driven?
