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Leadership (or Herding Cats)
You started out as a lone entrepreneur but now you've got a staff. Yet it often feels like you are trying to herd cats. You'd like to improve your leadership skills. There's nothing like a good book to help. You dial up Amazon.com and EEK! Your "leadership" search nets you 7, 937 suggested books. This huge number of books attests to the fact that everyone wants to be a better leader.
Whether it's to lead a family, a church, a committee, a nation or a remodeling company. It would be difficult to even imagine anyone saying they had mastered leadership. Yet the term leadership is so intangible. I asked a random group of remodelers to define leadership and got these answers:
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Being an example-setter, a model
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Having charisma, qualities that others feel comfortable with, look up to, trust and are drawn to
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Stating the vision and the mission. Listening to others. Taking input from everyone and determining how it fits within the vision.
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Providing a course for others to follow. Thinking ahead.
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Motivating and inspiring people to reach their full potential. Getting everyone to understand the goal and work toward it.
All those I surveyed agreed that leadership was a skill that could be honed. To improve our leadership skills we have to define it in such a way that it is so tangible that we can easily assess where our strengths lie and focus on the area(s) where we are the weakest. A good working definition is central to this process in that it will lead us to practical ways we can put leadership into practice.
In the early 1980's, James Kouzes and Barry Posner teamed up to study leadership focusing on how ordinary people led others to accomplish the extraordinary. They found that "Leadership isn't a mystical quality that only a select few are born with; it's a set of behaviors that both experienced and prospective leaders can use to turn challenging opportunities into remarkable successes." Out of their research came books (The Leadership Challenge) and a profiling instrument that compares the leader's assessment of their own skills with the anonymous assessments of their staff. Over 100,000 Leadership Practices Inventory profiles have been done.
Kouzes and Posner define leadership as consisting of five practices each of which has two practical strategies.
1. Leaders challenge the process by searching for opportunities
such as innovative ways to improve the organization. They experiment
and take risks accepting inevitable failures as learning opportunities.
2. Leaders inspire a shared vision by envisioning the future for
the company and enlisting others in that future.
3. Leaders enable others to act by fostering collaboration and building teams. They strengthen others, "making each person feel capable and powerful."
4. Leaders model the way by setting an example for others to follow and help staff in achieving small wins as they work toward bigger goals.
5. Leaders encourage the heart by recognizing contributions from team members and celebrating accomplishments. "They make people feel like heroes."
Kouzes and Posner also offer a short definition for leadership - "the art of mobilizing others to want to struggle for shared aspirations." The most notable part of this definition is the concept of getting others to "want" to struggle. This is not the picture of a driving boss who rules by fear. It is an encouraging, optimistic, motivating leader. But still, if you were given just this one line definition, you would probably be inclined to say "Boy, I sure wish I was more like that," and you'd be off to return the next phone call or generate the next estimate.
Instead, go back to those five practices and the 10 strategies above and rate yourself on how you are doing on each. Or even better and scarier, get some honest feedback from folks in your organization on how you are doing and how you can do better. Leadership is a skill and as such can be improved - it is a journey, not a destination.
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Remodelers Advantage Inc.
535 Main Street, Suite 211
Laurel, MD 20707
ofc: 301-490-5620
fax: 301-498-6869
Info@RemodelersAdvantage.com