Are You a Perfect Leader ?

You’re a leader.

You build relationships with those you are leading.

You articulate regularly the shared vision for the team.

You enable the others in the team to perform beyond what they believed they could.

Together with the team, you achieve all the annual objectives.

You practice leadership every day.

And were you told that practice makes perfect?

Sorry but practice makes improved practice. Not perfect. Close, maybe.

So what is 'perfect' when it comes to leadership?

In The Leadership Challenge, first written nearly 40 years ago, by Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner and is one of the most widely recognized books on leadership globally does not contain the magic formula for perfect leadership.

In The Leadership Challenge the word ‘exemplary’ is often used: The Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership are the cornerstone of Jim and Barry’s forty years of on going, evidenced-based research.

Guess they didn’t find any perfect leaders.

One of the most important aspects of lits behaviors is authenticity.

Leaders who are authentic are relatable: they make mistakes just like us mere mortals.

They build relationships, particularly through the trust and credibility which they live every day.

Exemplary leaders will ask themselves: “How can I be a better leader tomorrow than I was today?”

They will ask team members “How does what I do affect your performance?”

these don’t sound like the sort of questions that a perfect leader would ask. Why would he or she need to ask, anyway if they’re perfect?

So I’m sorry, no 10 out of 10

No “practice makes perfect”, either.

Just every day practicing to be a better leader than you were yesterday.

Then at the end of the day, you can genuinely reflect on the amazing performance of your team in the day just passed.

You can say “Yep, THEY did it…with a little help from me.”

And tomorrow I’ll be a better leader than I was today.

Aristotle said ‘courage is the first virtue’.

But where does courage have a place for leaders?

We could say that courage has a place very much in our daily lives. The decisions we make even simple ones often require a deal of courage.

Of course, the opposite of courage is fear. Some people are so fearful of making a decision that their life is impacted negatively - regularly.

Managers, often cloak their fear when making decisions or giving directions by asserting themselves, as assertiveness has become a default behavior.

Implied in their assertiveness is “do it my way, because I said so “.

Likely, the team of developed an entrenched response, not to challenge the manager’s assertiveness.

Many of the very successful decisions in the corporate world – let alone in our daily lives - has required courage.

We look to our leaders to live their values. Sometimes leaving your values, deeply held values, can require courage. This can occur when the leader is required to do something as a directive from senior management, which may compromise his or her values.

When this occurs, it can require courage to explain to senior management why their directive is challenging for them.

Courage is required when exploring the vision with the team - inspiring a shared vision. Any worthwhile vision, one that is hopefully going to embolden the team, to and inspire them requires courage.

After all, the vision may well involve overcoming the doubts of the team as likely it will involve uncertainty from the team members.

Through their courage, there maybe times when their courage inspires others to be courageous, to not be held back by their fear.

Leaders may even encourage team members to make decisions which were beyond the usual parameters.

Aristotle may well be tight, proven so by the decisions taken as history shows considerable impact by those who had the courage to ‘take a big step forward’.

#Leaders #Leadership #Courage

Contagious or contagion in the English language is usually used to describe an infectious illness or disease.

We know, even the common cold passes from one person to another, so therefore is contagious. Of course, more serious health issues are also contagious.

But the use of the word is not always confined to negative consequences.

We could say a laugh or even a smile is contagious, as it passes from one person to others.

Enthusiasm also fits into this behavior. Just as laughter will often lead to laughter in those around enthusiasm is characterized by tone of voice, facial expressions and even hand gestures.

Others who see this. will likely mirror this behavior.

The human species is like that.

We ‘copy’ what others are saying, their tone of voice and body language.

And usually we don’t realize we’re doing it.

When it’s a behavior, we enjoy, we’re more likely to copy that, to share it with others.

That’s obvious.

"Leadership behavior. The words we use, the emotions that impact on others positively - even the body language we might be using will, at first unconsciously, be adopted by the person who’s picking this up.

When the leader clearly shows that he is living the values by his words and behavior, the team, seeing that will begin to replicate what they’re saying from the leader.

When the leader talks positively about the future, the team will also begin to talk positively about what we’re going to achieve in the future. After all, that’s exciting and it’s motivating.

When the leadership encourages individual ‘to find a better way’, to challenge what may have been long-standing practice, the individual is likely to do this with others.

When the leader encourages a team member to go beyond what that team member believed here she was capable of, the result of this and genders such a positive feeling in the individual, but most likely they will pass this on for others to be able to do the same.

Just as recognizing and celebrating the good, positive actions of the team or the individual will be done genuinely and often, create positive feelings in those receiving this, and those on the receiving end, will want to pass it on - because of how they felt when they received this.

Each of The Five Practices of Exemplary in The Leadership Challenge create positive opportunities for contagious behavior.

Just like a ripple can go around the world (metaphorically) so can the positive outcomes of your leadership.

They can certainly go around your world.

#Leadership #Leading #LeadingByEmpoweringment#ChangingTheWorld