A Modern-Day View of Situational Leadership

The cartoon may be a bit extreme but it does illustrate how much our view of successful leaders has changed. It used to be that leaders were to be feared. They led powerful armies, built their empires through force and then secured them by the strength of their personalities. Think of Genghis Khan, Caesar, and Napoleon.   These infamous leaders are mostly remembered as ruthless, egotistical, charismatic and driven by short-term gains.  Genghis Khan, for example, cold-bloodedly conquered and ruled the most continuous empire in history - a self-made kingdom of nearly twelve-million square miles which survived for nearly seven hundred years.  

But times change.  Today’s effective leaders are very different. Their power comes from a different source. They don’t conquer with weapons of war. They lead with a different kind of strength.

• Servant Leadership.  Instead of expecting to be served, the best leaders feel a mission to serve their constituents.  Successful leaders rely upon their teams to get things done. They know they can’t succeed on their own. They need the collaboration, accountability and commitment of their employees. 

Today’s best leaders don’t inspire through force but through trust. Because their employees believe in their integrity, leaders are able to lead. They are respected because they deliver on what they promise. They look out for their teams and their teams respond by looking out for them.

• Likeable Leadership.  Recent research seems to support the belief that effective leaders are generally  liked by those in their organization. We all know it is easier to work hard for someone you appreciate and admire than for someone you dislike. As with any relationship, you feel more engaged and committed when you are with people you want to spend time with. So forget the domineering, hard-hearted, even cruel boss. The studies show that hated leaders have less than a .05% chance of being effective. 

• Developmental Leadership.  Good leaders know how to develop others. Somewhere along the line they must have been exposed to the tenets of situational leadership training. They have a facility for recognizing strengths in their followers and providing helpful feedback. They seem to know intuitively how to motivate their followers to ever greater achievement. They know how to set clear expectations and then provide the resources needed to accomplish the tasks at hand. 

Personally, we prefer the more modern style of situational leadership. How about you?

Learn more at: http://www.lsaglobal.com/situational-leadership-training-consulting/

3 Tips on How to Up Your Game as a Leader

Sometimes it’s not your leadership style that needs to change as much as your ability to flex from one leadership situation to another. In fact, that’s what situational leadership training is all about. The proven program helps leaders understand what their followers need in order to be successful. Leaders learn how to assess and manage their followers’ performance, make the best use of their talents, and harness their motivations in each situation with an eye toward desired performance results.  In sum, it helps leaders up their game.

Are you at a point as a leader where you realize you need to operate differently in order to optimize your team’s performance and your overall influence as a leader? If so, you will need to let go of some of the previous behaviors that were not serving you well and you will need to pick up new leadership behaviors that will serve you and your team better in the future. 

Here are three situational leadership tips to transform yourself into the leader that you want and need to be:

1. Know yourself.
Be clear about how you dealt with your followers in the past: what worked and what didn’t. If you were autocratic, you may have destroyed your followers’ motivation to think on their own. If you micro-managed, you may have taken away their desire to solve problems independently. If you were lackadaisical, you may have missed opportunities to pull the team together and work collaboratively toward a common goal. Figure out just what you want to change in your behavior as a leader and what you hope to achieve as a result.

2. Tackle the challenge a little at a time.
Don’t undermine your success by trying to achieve too many changes at once. Perhaps you can begin by trying out new leadership behaviors with one team member at a time. For example, how about choosing the new employee you micro-managed to the point where they don’t dare do anything without your specific approval? Make sure they understand your expectations for the job and then be straight with them. Tell them it has been hard for you to give up control of the details but that you trust them to do a good job. Stay available for questions but back off otherwise.

3. Reflect on your progress.
If it helps to keep your eye on the prize, keep a journal of the situations in which you have tried a different way of leading. How did you behave? How did your employee react? What were the results? What is working?  What is still a struggle?

With a steady commitment to your goals and thoughtful reflection, you will become the leader you want to be…situation by situation.

Learn more at: http://www.lsaglobal.com/situational-leadership-training-consulting/

How an Investment in Front-Line Leaders Pays Off

This is a perfect picture of a newly promoted manager. Once part of the team, the duck still looks just like the others but has suddenly been given higher status. Will the new leader jump back down and blend in or will new ways of behaving inspire and lead the team forward from a different vantage point as they grow?

Do not expect new managers to learn how to lead others well on their own. They need help. Situational Leadership Training for example, can provide some great foundational management skills to help new managers transition from an individual contributor to a role where success is measured by the success of their team. Managers are the ones who have a major impact on employee engagement; they are the ones who translate senior leaders’ strategies to the teams who must implement them.  The better they are at leading, the more likely employees will perform at their peak, the less likely employees are to quit, and the greater chances of important corporate-wide initiatives being effectively implemented.

Here is why your investment in front-line managers will pay off. They learn how to:

• Delegate effectively
Effective front-line managers know the strengths and drivers of their team members, match them to job roles, inspire ownership of the work to be done, and get the best from their people.

• Drive better results
With targeted training, smart front-line managers are better at thinking strategically. By thinking through to the goal and planning how to reach it, they are able to articulate a clear and compelling vision that inspires their people to commit to doing high quality work that matters most.

• Set a standard for behavior
The best front-line managers set a high performance standard for both results and behavior.  They know how to coach their followers to ever higher levels of performance to get more than the sum of the parts of their team.

• Be and hold others accountable
Knowing how to take responsibility for their own behavior and the results of others, well-trained front-line managers can build a culture of trust. This, along with clear and transparent success metrics and aligned roles, creates the foundation for high performing teams.

Do not leave the training and development of your front-line managers up to chance. The risk to the organization as a whole is too great in terms of turnover risk, employee disengagement and missed targets. The investment you make in developing your new managers will pay off many times over in productivity, and in motivated, engaged employees.

Learn more at: http://www.lsaglobal.com/situational-leadership-training-consulting/

Situational Leadership: Hire, Support and Reward “Adapters”

As a leader, it is your responsibility to provide clear and compelling direction to your followers. They look to you to articulate the company goals, define the organization’s values, and set the course toward a successful future. It is, then, the followers’ responsibility to walk the path that has been set. But sometimes there is a disconnect between the leader’s expectations and the followers’ execution.

Most successful leaders are really good at asking for clarification, admitting mistakes and striving to learn and grow. That’s why they don’t understand the psychology of many followers who suffer from a lack of self-confidence that undermines their being able to accept and make good use of criticism. Followers generally avoid admitting they need help or owning up to their faults. 

It all goes back to situational leadership training. The disconnect between what leaders expect and what followers deliver has enormous implications for effective performance management and coaching. Before you provide feedback as a leader, you should evaluate a follower’s readiness to receive coaching, reflect and act upon it. “Unready” followers may see their need for coaching as acknowledgment of weakness or inability. Criticism offered in this situation will not have the desired effect…instead of encouraging improvement, it will serve only to shut down the follower to any effort and highlight their feelings of incompetence.

So what’s a leader to do?

1. Show your genuine willingness to support your team. Help them see that you believe in their potential and that they are worth the company’s time and investment. Help them understand that coaching is not intended to point out something they have done wrong but to show them another, better way. Your followers with openness to learn, change and grow are your company’s greatest asset.

2. Hire and reward employees who seek learning opportunities, the so-called adapters. From their point of view, being coached is an opportunity to improve and they are ready and eager to do so. When you interview, ask candidates questions about how they liked school or what they appreciate about training. Studies have shown that older workers and adapters are much more open to coaching by their leaders than younger and less flexible, less confident employees.

The more coachable your followers, the more learning and growing they will do. As a leader, create an environment where coaching is welcomed and a team where readiness is a constant state of mind.

Learn more at: http://www.lsaglobal.com/situational-leadership-training-consulting/

3 Common Decision Making Traps Leaders Should Avoid

One of the key skills taught in situational leadership training is how to make effective decisions. Sound decision-making is a critical trait of great leaders. No one said the process is easy…there are so many factors to consider and multiple paths to take…and it is not without risk. Be wary of the common traps that drive you in the wrong direction in the challenging maze of decision making.

Here are 3 biases that can steer you wrong:

1. OverconfidenceIf you have been lucky so far in the choices you’ve made, you may have to fight the bias of overconfidence. It can lead you to decide prematurely. Far better to look at all the data, especially those that contradict your thinking, and to listen thoughtfully to alternatives to your solution.
2. Over-reliance on first impressionsBeware of weighing first impressions too heavily. You may leap to conclusions that are not accurate. Instead, try to avoid relying too much on the most familiar or the most recent and slow down your thinking process.
3. Selective filteringIt is only human nature to pay more attention to the information that favors your position than to conflicting data. But, again, this bias can lead you astray. To counteract this tendency, be sure to examine all the information, especially the information that does not align with your opinion.

Learn more at: http://www.lsaglobal.com/situational-leadership-training-consulting/

How Would You Rate Your Management Effectiveness?

Good leaders have a positive impact on employee engagement and therefore on employee performance. Bad managers have the opposite effect. If you are in charge of an organization large or small, you had better take a good look at how effective your managers are so you can predict the success or failure of your strategy.

Here is a breakdown from situational leadership training of what constitutes good and bad leadership from the point of view of the people who managers lead.

Bad managers…
• Are out for themselves, neglect the team and do not support their followers.
• Over-monitor their team members and nit-pick their every move.
• Don’t care much about their own work and do as little as possible.
• Lie to their workers and probably just about everybody else.

Good managers…
• Admit their mistakes and are not afraid to show some vulnerability.
• Care about their employees and regularly check in on how they are doing.
• Are supportive, encouraging and recognize effort and growth.
• Lead by example and with confidence.

On which side do your leaders fall?

Learn more at: http://www.lsaglobal.com/situational-leadership-training-consulting/

The Best Leaders Work Differently

The best leaders are no longer the ones with the biggest shoes that dominate all the rest of us. The best leaders work differently. They don’t bully and dictate; they create strategies that inspire, cultures that maximize performance and talent that drives toward excellence.

Situational leadership training brings the qualities of top leaders to the fore to be observed, practiced and adopted. A few attributes that differ from the former leadership styles are:

• TransparencyNo longer working in an ivory tower, top leaders  share key information with their executive team as well as with the work force so all can pull in the same direction and support one another.
  
• AccountabilityAll are held accountable for performing to agreed-upon expectations. And if low performers do not improve, they are re-assigned or dismissed. Tenure matters less than performance because poor performers undermine the motivation of even the highest of performers.
  
• Constructive DebateNew ideas are welcomed. The best leaders appreciate challenges to the status quo and foster an environment where discussions are open.

Learn more at: http://www.lsaglobal.com/situational-leadership-training-consulting/