Leadership development is about moving you, inch by
inch along a personal leadership continuum. At the beginning, is a rough
management style – perhaps the one that came to your naturally at the other
end, is a perfected and optimised way of leading.
Leadership isn’t just a way to speak, or a manner of
dealing with employees or team members. It’s about how you approach the world,
and how you respond to it.
Are you pro-active? Are you re-active? Do you speak
more, or do you listen more? Do you imagine, or do you empower? Are you kind,
or are you ruthless? These are all characteristics within our personality, our
habits. Some of these can be changed
easier than others.
Leadership development is concerned with identifying
your development needs and one-by-one, proactively engaging in learning, activities
and experiences that will improve them.
Whatever the development need, whatever the issue, you can
work to resolve it, and you can become a better leader.
Ten easy steps to developing your leadership skills
by Sharif Khan who is a professional speaker and author of highly acclaimed, Psychology of the Hero Soul, an inspirational book on awakening the Hero within and developing peoples leadership potential.
Many
motivational experts like to say that leaders are made, not born. I would argue the
exact opposite. I believe we are all natural born leaders, but have been deprogrammed
along the way. As children, we were natural leaders - curious and humble,
always hungry and thirsty for knowledge, with an incredibly vivid imagination;
we knew exactly what we wanted, were persistent and determined in getting what
we wanted, and had the ability to motivate, inspire, and influence everyone
around us to help us in accomplishing our mission. So why is this so difficult
to do as adults? What happened?
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As
children, over time, we got used to hearing, .No,. .Don.t,. and .Can.t.. .No! Don.t do
this. Don.t do that. You can.t do this. You can.t do that. No!. Many of our parents
told us to keep quiet and not disturb the adults by asking silly questions.
This pattern
continued into high school with our teachers telling us what we could do and couldn.t
do and what was possible.
Then many
of us got hit with the big one .institutionalised formal education known as
college or university. Unfortunately, the traditional educational system doesnt
teach students how to become leaders; it teaches students how to become polite
order takers for the corporate world. Instead of learning to become creative,
independent, self-reliant, and think for themselves, most people learn how to
obey and intelligently follow rules to keep the corporate machine humming.
Developing
the Leader in you to live your highest life, then, requires a process of
.unlearning. by self-remembering and self-honoring. Being an effective leader
again will require you to be brave and unlock the door to your inner attic,
where your childhood dreams lie, going inside to the heart.
Based on Sharif Khan's
ten years of research in the area of human development and leadership, he proposes ten easy steps you can take to Awaken the Leader in YOU and rekindle your
passion for greatness:
Leadership starts with humility. To be a highly successful leader,
you must first humble yourself like a little child and be willing to serve
others. Nobody wants to follow someone who is arrogant. Be humble as a child .
always curious, always hungry and thirsty for knowledge.
For what is excellence
but knowledge plus knowledge plus knowledge - always wanting to better
yourself, always improving, always growing. When you are humble, you become
genuinely interested in people because you want to learn from them. And because
you want to learn and grow, you will be a far more effective listener,
which is the #1 leadership communication tool. When people sense you are
genuinely interested in them, and listening to them, they will naturally be
interested in you and listen to what you have to say.
How do you rate your listening skills?
Good advice for the person desiring a leadership role, "And whosoever of you will be the chiefest, shall be servant of all. " Found this in the New Testament.
ReplyDeleteCheck out Servant Leadership. Servant leadership is a very popular leadership model. It was developed by Robert K. Greenleaf in 1970. The servant leader serves the people he/she leads, which implies that employees are an end in themselves rather than a means to an organisational purpose or bottom line. Servant leadership is meant to replace command and control models of leadership, to be more focused on the needs of others. Happy reading:)
DeleteJust read J Adair's 'Develop your Leadership Skill', good book that clearly explains the skills and knowledge needed to atttain leadership status. Adair doesn't believe that thee are natural born leaders but that the skills need can be learnt. Adair lists 8 leadership factors that in his opinion are needed to be a good leader.
ReplyDeleteI found the book interesting and informative and causing me to analyse myself to determine what kind of leader I am(organistional leader) and if I fulfill the functions as laid out by Adair.I found that this give me a good SWOT analysis.
In contrast the article 'awaken the leader in you' the opinion offer by Sharif Khan is that we are all 'natural born leaders but have been deprogrammed along the way'. His 10 steps to 'develop the leader in you' includes the need to do a SWOT analysis.
The basis of his agruement that from childhood through the eductional system we are continually told 'dont,stop' and are 'institutionalise to obey'.
Personnally I found more in common with Khan's agruement that we are all born with the potential to be leaders but do not get the oppertunity to develop. But I did find Adair's exercises and 8 factors as more practical in the real world. IT is interesting that both authors agree that leadership needs to be developed and learned. Both article and book have made me think about style of leadership and were I may be falling down and were I am strong. It has also made me look at the others in our organisation in 'leadership roles' and I have come to the conclusion that they are 'bosses' and people do what they ask because the carry the authority rather than inspiring or motivating them to perform their duties to the best of their abilities.
Some really helpful insights here, well done. The purpose of the module and the blog is to make you think about your leadership practice and what needs to be developed so I am really pleased you have started to engage in reflection of your leadership practice. well done
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with Khan's observations. As a child, I was a great little leader, always organising everyone in the playground, inventing games and starting up groups etc. Then I got hit in two different ways with Khan's 'big one'. I went to Queen's University, got my UG and PG degrees and then shortly after graduating, secured a job at the same University. Having worked for the University for 20 years, I am now totally institutionalised. My working life focuses very much on following, writing and implementing rigorous policies and procedures. As there is no management development programme as such in Queen's, I suppose I have begun my own process of 'unlearning' by undertaking the Management Development programme at UU, to update and formalise my skills set and to support my professional development. Being on a temporary contract, it may come in handy in the years to come if I am faced with a hunt for a job 'on the outside'.
ReplyDelete