Secrets of Leadership Success

Leadership Success Series Introduced

By Susan M. Heathfield, About.com

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Team Building SenariosDownload Trainer's Notes, Games Exercises, Articles & Icebreakers!www.TrainersLibrary.com What Makes A Leader?Emotional Intelligence Appraisal predicts 60% of leader job success.www.TalentSmart.com The Top Three MistakesCompare your list with this one of the top three mistakes leaders makeChristianityToday.com/leaders HR Ads 12 Leadership Skills Theory of Leadership Leadership Test Leadership Model Leadership Mentoring Key leadership success secrets set the great leaders apart from the so-so leaders in today's organizations. Leadership style is learned from mentors, learned in seminars and exists as part of a person's innate personal leadership skill set developed over years, and existing possibly, from birth. Nature or nurture is a question often asked about leadership. I answer, "yes," because I believe the combination of natural leadership skills and nurture through leadership development defines your leadership style. Working from personal experience and research, I will define the characteristics of leadership that make great leaders. I envision a series of interlinked articles, each of which focuses on one aspect of leadership. Leadership differs from management and supervision although some people and organizations use the terms interchangeably. While the definitions of the terms differ, an individual may have the ability to provide all three.

Supervision means that an individual is charged with providing direction and oversight for other employees. The successful supervisor provides recognition, appreciation, training and feedback to reporting employees.

Management means to conduct the affairs of business, to have work under control and to provide direction, to guide other employees, to administer and organize work processes and systems, and to handle problems. Managers monitor and control work while helping a group of employees more successfully conduct their work than they would have without her. A managers job is often described as providing everything his reporting employees need to successfully accomplish their jobs. One famous quote from Warren Bennis, Ph.D. in On Becoming a Leader distinguishes management from leadership: Managers are people who do things right, while leaders are people who do the right thing.

While a supervisor and a manager may also exhibit leadership skill or potential, true leaders are rare. This is because the combination of skills, personality and ambition essential to leadership are difficult to develop and exhibit. According to Don Clark, on his excellent leadership resource, Big Dog's Leadership Page, Bernard "Bass' theory of leadership states that there are three basic ways to explain how people become leaders. The first two explain the leadership development for a small number of people. These theories are: o Some personality traits may lead people naturally into leadership roles. This is the Trait Theory. o A crisis or important event may cause a person to rise to the occasion, which brings out extraordinary leadership qualities in an ordinary person. This is the Great Events Theory. o People can choose to become leaders. People can learn leadership skills. This is the Transformational Leadership Theory.

The Transformational Leadership Theory is the one I believe is correct for most leaders today. This belief forms the basis for my thinking about leadership.

The Key Leadership Trait

The first, and most important characteristic, of a leader is the decision to become a leader. At some point in time, leaders decide that they want to provide others with vision, direct the course of future events and inspire others to success. Leadership requires the individual to practice dominance and take charge. If you choose to become a leader, whether in your workplace, community or during an emergency, the discussion of these characteristics will help you formulate the appropriate mix of traits, skills and ambition. Successful leaders choose to lead. Unlike Keanu Reeves as Neo in 1999s smash hit, The Matrix, you get to decide whether you are the one. The first characteristic of a leader is Choice - leaders choose to lead.

Characteristics of a Successful Leadership Style

Much is written about what makes successful leaders. I will focus on the characteristics, traits and actions that, I believe, are key.

Choose to lead. (Current article - you are here.)

Be the person others choose to follow. Provide vision for the future. Provide inspiration. Make other people feel important and appreciated. Live your values. Behave ethically. Set the pace through your expectations and example. Establish an environment of continuous improvement. Provide opportunities for people to grow, both personally and professionally. Care and act with compassion.

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Lead the Team: How to be the Person Others Follow

Leaders are hard to find. They exhibit a unique blend of charisma, vision and character traits that attract people to follow them. They exhibit the other nine characteristics around which this article series was developed. Leaders recognize the need to attract followers. Followership has recently been studied as a key to understanding leadership. To follow, people must feel confidence in the direction in which the leader is headed. They are enabled and empowered to do their part in accomplishing the stated objectives. Further, leaders people follow are accountable and trustworthy. If progress towards accomplishing the goals ceases, the leader takes responsibility to analyze the problem he doesnt search for people to blame. So people can have confidence that their efforts wont be punished if they take reasonable and responsible risks. Followers need to believe that, at the end of the journey, they will be recognized and rewarded for their contribution. The leader must help followers answer the question, Whats in it for me? Successful leaders are honest about the potential risks inherent in the chosen path. They communicate, not just the overall direction, but any information followers need to successfully and skillfully carry out their responsibilities.

Occasionally, the leader is the person who is in charge, the founder of the business, the CEO, the president or department head. Leadership qualities combined with positional power magnify the ability of an individual to attract the all-important followers. In fact, business owners can count on a certain amount of respect and followership based on their ownership and title. Longevity, too, plays a role in attracting and retaining followers. People who have followed the leader for ten years will continue to follow unless they lose trust in the leaders direction.

Leadership Vision
"The very essence of leadership is that you have to have a vision. It's got to be a vision you articulate clearly and forcefully on every occasion." --Theodore Hesburgh, President of the University of Notre Dame "There's nothing more demoralizing than a leader who can't clearly articulate why we're doing what we're doing." --James Kouzes and Barry Posner Leaders have vision. They share a dream and direction that other people want to share and follow. The leadership vision goes beyond your written organizational mission statement and your vision statement. The vision of leadership permeates the workplace and is manifested in the actions, beliefs, values and goals of your organizations leaders.

The ReCellular Leadership Vision

ReCellular, Inc. is a mid-sized company that refurbishes, repairs and resells wireless phones and other electronic devices. Not only does the company keep millions of pounds of these devices out of landfills, they make thousands of products available for re-use. In recent years, a major source of the products recycled is charitable and donation partners who receive funds for their missions of service in return. (These partners include the March of Dimes and the International Myeloma Foundation.) Now, if you are an environmentally-committed person and care about the millions of electronic devices that can potentially reside in landfills, this leadership vision is most appealing. Additionally, the opportunity to serve many charitable and environmental causes while working simultaneously appeals to another group of vision, missiondriven people. The ReCellular leadership vision is powerful. The leadership vision is powerful because the senior managers and leaders believe in the vision and mission. Not just a statement hanging on a wall, the leadership vision is even more powerful because people live the leadership vision every single day at work. Employees are not just processing wireless devices to make money for company owners, they are saving the tiniest babies or providing a safe haven for abused women. Can a vision get any more powerful than this?

Leadership Vision Fundamentals

While your organization may not have such an intrinsically compelling vision as ReCellular, your leaders can inspire with their own vision. In fact, most businesses were started because the founder had a vision about what he or she could create. Sharing that vision with others in a way that compels them to act is the secret to a successful leadership vision. These are the fundamentals necessary for a vision that excites and motivates people to follow the leader. The vision must:

Clearly set organizational direction and purpose; Inspire loyalty and caring through the involvement of all employees; Display and reflect the unique strengths, culture, values, beliefs and direction of the organization; Inspire enthusiasm, belief, commitment and excitement in company members; Help employees believe that they are part of something bigger than themselves and their daily work; Be regularly communicated and shared; Challenge people to outdo themselves, to stretch and reach.

Want to learn more about articulating a vision, mission statement, values and the strategic framework needed by an organization? See Build a Strategic Framework: Mission Statement, Vision, Values ... and Build an Organization Based on Values.

Leadership Inspiration
Leadership Success Secrets
By Susan M. Heathfield, About.com "Coaching isn't a great mystery. It's just hard work, determination, and inspiration at the right moment." --Bob Zuppke in The Book of Football Wisdom edited by Criswell Freeman, 1996. "Leadership is based on a spiritual quality; the power to inspire, the power to inspire others to follow." --Vince Lombbardi What makes a leader inspirational? The ability to inspire people to reach great heights of performance and success is a skill that leaders need. Passion, purpose, listening and meaning help make a leader inspirational. The ability to communicate that passion, purpose and meaning to others helps establish the inspirational culture of your organization. These points will tell you how to enable inspiration and motivation in the people you lead.

How Leaders Instill Inspiration in the People They Lead

The inspirational leader feels passionately about the vision and mission of the organization. He or she is also able to share that passion in a way that enables others to feel passionate, too. The nature of the vision and mission is critical for enabling others to feel as if their work has purpose and meaning beyond the tasks they perform each day. Sometimes leaders have to help their staff connect the dots by explaining this big picture to all. Communicating the big picture regularly will help reinforce the reason your organization exists.

The inspirational leader listens to the people in her organization. Talking to people about your passion is not enough. To share meaning - my definition for communication - you must allow the ideas and thoughts of your staff to help form the vision and mission, or minimally, the goals and action plan. No one is ever one hundred percent supportive of a direction they had no part in formulating. People need to see their ideas incorporated or understand why they were not.

To experience inspiration, people also need to feel included. Inclusion goes beyond the listening and feedback; for real inclusion, people need to feel intimately connected to the actions and process that are leading to the accomplishment of the goals or the decision. At a client company, we cancelled an annual employee event because of customer orders for product. Many people did not like the decision, but we involved the whole management group, the Activity Committee members and many other employees in the discussion about whether to cancel or reschedule the event. The inclusion led to a compromise that, while not perfect, still enables a celebration and a positive motivation boost, yet allows the company to meet customer needs.

Important to inspiration is the integrity of the person leading. Yes, vision and passion are important, but employees must trust you to feel inspired. They must believe in you. Your person is as important as the direction you provide. Employees look up to a person who tells the truth, tries to do the right things, lives a "good" life and does their best. Trust me. Your actions play out on the stage of your organization. And, your staff does boo and cheer and vote with their feet and their actions.

Finally, an inspirational leader gives people what they want within his capabilities. (You cant provide a raise in pay without company profitability, as an example, but you absolutely must share the rewards if the organization is doing well.) The inspirational leader also understands that, while money is a

motivator, so are praise, recognition, rewards, a thank you and noticing an individuals contribution to a successful endeavor.

Leadership Rewards and Recognition

Leadership Success Secrets
By Susan M. Heathfield, About.com "Today many American corporations spend a great deal of money and time trying to increase the originality of their employees, hoping thereby to get a competitive edge in the marketplace. But such programs make no difference unless management also learns to recognize the valuable ideas among the many novel ones, and then finds ways of implementing them." --Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi There are two things people want more than sex and money -- recognition and praise." --Mary Kay Ash A leader makes other people feel important and appreciated. The leader excels at creating opportunities to provide rewards, recognition and thanks to his or her staff. A leader creates a work environment in which people feel important and appreciated. Learn more about rewards and recognition in this fifth article in my Leadership Success series.

How Leaders Make People Feel Important Through Rewards and Recognition
A key leadership trait is the ability to inspire followership. In addition to supplying a shared vision and direction, leaders must develop a relationship with the people they inspire to follow them. The successful leadership relationship inspires people to become more than they might have been without the relationship. Following an effective leader, people accomplish and achieve more than they may ever have dreamed possible. The foundation of this successful relationship is the leaders ability to make people feel important. (Sure, money works to a certain extent, although, as a limited quantity in organizations, I wouldn't overemphasize its importance.) So, effective leaders need to demonstrate these practices.

Pay attention to people using common courtesy. Say good morning. Ask people how their weekend turned out. Ask whether Rebecca won her soccer match. Practicing simple courtesy is a powerful relationship-building tool.

Listen to what your coworkers, peers and staff members have to say. Listen giving full attention to the person seeking your attention. If you cant

pay full attention and listen actively, set a time with the person to meet when you can. You gain much information from the ideas and opinions of others. You make people feel special when you listen to them without distraction. Know that Rebecca has a soccer match.

Use powerful, positive language in your interaction with others. Say "please" and "thank you" and "you're doing a good job." Say, We couldnt have accomplished the goal without you. Your contribution saved the customer for the company. Powerful, positive recognition makes people feel important. Powerful, positive recognition encourages your employees to contribute more of the same work in the future.

Put praise in writing. A "thank you" note to the employee, with a copy to her file, magnifies the impact of the recognition.

Keep your commitments to staff. If you have a meeting set up for Tuesday, attend the meeting. Cancellation should not occur except in a true emergency. Promised Pat a raise? Dont do it unless you know you can keep your promise.

Give staff public credit for contributions. You didnt think up the idea for senior staff review. Instead say, Mary thought this approach would work well and I agree with her. The credit belongs to John. Isnt that a terrific idea?

You may think these actions sound a lot like leadership by the golden rule. Youre right, although a fellow consultant told me about an even more powerful rule - the platinum rule. In the golden rule, you treat others as you wish to be treated. In the platinum rule, you treat people as they wish to be treated. These are powerful, yet simple, ways you can reward and recognize people. These are powerful, yet simple, ways to make the people you employ feel important and appreciated. The bottom line? Believe people are important. Act as if you believe people are important. People will feel important. Important people will think of you as a great leader. Think of more ways to reward and recognize and make people feel important? Ill be happy to add them. Please share your ideas in the Community Connection Forum.

Leadership Values and Ethics

Secrets of Leadership Success
By Susan M. Heathfield, About.com

Leaders know what they value. They also recognize the importance of ethical behavior. The best leaders exhibit both their values and their ethics in their leadership style and actions. Your leadership ethics and values should be visible because you live them in your actions every single day. A lack of trust is a problem in many workplaces. If leaders never identified their values in these workplaces, the mistrust is understandable. People don't know what they can expect. If leaders have identified and shared their values, living the values daily, visibly will create trust. To say one sentiment and to do another will damage trust - possibly forever. In Trust Rules: The Most Important Secret, three constructs of trust are explored. Dr. Duane C. Tway calls trust a construct because it is "constructed" of these three components: the capacity for trusting, the perception of competence, and the perception of intentions. Workplace ethics take the same route. If the organization's leadership has a code of conduct and ethical expectations, they become an organization joke if the leaders fail to live up to their published code. Leaders that exhibit ethical behavior powerfully influence the actions of others.

Choose Your Leadership Values

The following are examples of values. You might use these as the starting point for discussing values within your organization: ambition, competency, individuality, equality, integrity, service, responsibility, accuracy, respect, dedication, diversity, improvement, enjoyment/fun, loyalty, credibility, honesty, innovativeness, teamwork, excellence, accountability, empowerment, quality, efficiency, dignity, collaboration, stewardship, empathy, accomplishment, courage, wisdom, independence, security, challenge, influence, learning, compassion, friendliness, discipline/order, generosity, persistency,optimism, dependability, flexibility As a leader, choose the values and the ethics that are most important to you, the values and ethics you believe in and that define your character. Then live them visibly every day at work. Living your values is one of the most powerful tools available to you to help you lead and influence others. Don't waste your best opportunity.

Characteristics of a Successful Leadership Style

Much is written about what makes successful leaders. I will focus on the characteristics, traits and actions that, I believe, are key.

Choose to lead. Be the person others choose to follow. Provide vision for the future. Provide inspiration. Make other people feel important and appreciated. Live your values. Behave ethically. (Current article - you are here.) Set the pace through your expectations and example. Establish an environment of continuous improvement. Provide opportunities for people to grow, both personally and professionally. Care and act with compassion.

"Our people are our most important asset." Youve heard these words many times, if you work in an organization. Yet how many organizations act as if they really believe these words? Not many. These words are the clear expression of a value, and values are visible through the actions people take, not their talk. Values form the foundation for everything that happens in your workplace. If you are the founder of an organization, your values permeate the workplace. You naturally hire people who share your values. Whatever you value, will largely govern the actions of your workforce.

Sample Workplace Value-based Actions

If you value integrity and you experience a quality problem in your manufacturing process, you honestly inform your customer of the exact nature of the problem. You discuss your actions to eliminate the problem, and the anticipated delivery time the customer can expect. If integrity is not a fundamental value, you may make excuses and mislead the customer. If you value and care about the people in your organization, you will pay for health insurance, dental insurance, retirement accounts and provide regular raises and bonuses for dedicated staff. If you value equality and a sense of family, you will wipe out the physical trappings of power, status, and inequality such as executive parking places and offices that grow larger by a foot with every promotion.

Whatever You Value Is What You Live in Your Organization

You know, as an individual, what you personally value. However, most of you work in organizations that have already operated for many years. The values, and the subsequent culture created by those values, are in place, for better or worse. If you are generally happy with your work environment, you undoubtedly selected an organization with values congruent with your own. If you're not, watch for the disconnects between what you value and the actions of people in your organization.

As an HR professional, you will want to influence your larger organization to identify its core values, and make them the foundation for its interactions with employees, customers, and suppliers. Minimally, you will want to work within your own HR organization to identify a strategic framework for serving your customers that is firmly value-based.

Strategic Framework
Every organization has a vision or picture of what it desires for its future, whether foggy or crystal clear. The current mission of the organization or the purpose for its existence is also understood in general terms. The values members of the organization manifest in daily decision making, and the norms or relationship guidelines which informally define how people interact with each other and customers, are also visible. But are these usually vague and unspoken understandings enough to fuel your long term success? I dont think so. Every organization has a choice. You can allow these fundamental underpinnings of your organization to develop on their own with each individual acting in a selfdefined vacuum. Or, you can invest the time to proactively define them to best serve members of the organization and its customers. Many successful organizations agree upon and articulate their vision, mission or purpose, values, and strategies so all organization members can enroll in and own their achievement. Next, read about the strategic planning framework to create your vision, mission, and values. Want the background about why values are important in an organization? See the impact that identifying organizational values can have. Values are traits or qualities that are considered worthwhile; they represent an individuals highest priorities and deeply held driving forces. Value statements are grounded in values and define how people want to behave with each other in the organization. They are statements about how the organization will value customers, suppliers, and the internal community. Value statements describe actions that are the living enactment of the fundamental values held by most individuals within the organization. Vision is a statement about what the organization wants to become. The vision should resonate with all members of the organization and help them feel proud, excited, and part of something much bigger than themselves. A vision should stretch the organizations capabilities and image of itself. It gives shape and direction to the organizations future. Mission/Purpose is a precise description of what an organization does. It should describe the business the organization is in. It is a definition of "why" the organization exists currently. Each member of an organization should be able to verbally express this mission.

Strategies are the broadly defined four or five key approaches the organization will use to accomplish its mission and drive toward the vision. Goals and action plans usually flow from each strategy. One example of a strategy is employee empowerment and teams. Another is to pursue a new worldwide market in Asia. Another is to streamline your current distribution system using lean management principles. I recommend that you start developing this strategic framework by identifying your organizations values. Create an opportunity for as many people as possible to participate in this process. All the rest of your strategic framework should grow from living these.

What are Values?

The following are examples of values. You might use these as the starting point for discussing values within your organization. ambition, competency, individuality, equality, integrity, service, responsibility, accuracy, respect, dedication, diversity, improvement, enjoyment/fun, loyalty, credibility, honesty, innovativeness, teamwork, excellence, accountability, empowerment, quality, efficiency, dignity, collaboration, stewardship, empathy, accomplishment, courage, wisdom, independence, security, challenge, influence, learning, compassion, friendliness, discipline/order, generosity, persistency,optimism, dependability, flexibility

Why Identify and Establish Values?

Effective organizations identify and develop a clear, concise and shared meaning of values/beliefs, priorities, and direction so that everyone understands and can contribute. Once defined, values impact every aspect of your organization. You must support and nurture this impact or identifying values will have been a wasted exercise. People will feel fooled and misled unless they see the impact of the exercise within your organization. If you want the values you identify to have an impact, the following must occur.

People demonstrate and model the values in action in their personal work behaviors, decision making, contribution, and interpersonal interaction. Organizational values help each person establish priorities in their daily work life. Values guide every decision that is made once the organization has cooperatively created the values and the value statements. Rewards and recognition within the organization are structured to recognize those people whose work embodies the values the organization embraced. Organizational goals are grounded in the identified values. Adoption of the values and the behaviors that result is recognized in regular performance feedback.

People hire and promote individuals whose outlook and actions are congruent with the values. Only the active participation of all members of the organization will ensure a truly organization-wide, value-based, shared culture.

Want more indepth information about each of these? See vision, mission or purpose, values, and strategies defined.

Leadership Values and Ethics

Secrets of Leadership Success
By Susan M. Heathfield, About.com Leaders know what they value. They also recognize the importance of ethical behavior. The best leaders exhibit both their values and their ethics in their leadership style and actions. Your leadership ethics and values should be visible because you live them in your actions every single day. A lack of trust is a problem in many workplaces. If leaders never identified their values in these workplaces, the mistrust is understandable. People don't know what they can expect. If leaders have identified and shared their values, living the values daily, visibly will create trust. To say one sentiment and to do another will damage trust - possibly forever. In Trust Rules: The Most Important Secret, three constructs of trust are explored. Dr. Duane C. Tway calls trust a construct because it is "constructed" of these three components: the capacity for trusting, the perception of competence, and the perception of intentions. Workplace ethics take the same route. If the organization's leadership has a code of conduct and ethical expectations, they become an organization joke if the leaders fail to live up to their published code. Leaders that exhibit ethical behavior powerfully influence the actions of others.

Choose Your Leadership Values

The following are examples of values. You might use these as the starting point for discussing values within your organization: ambition, competency, individuality, equality, integrity, service, responsibility, accuracy, respect, dedication, diversity, improvement, enjoyment/fun, loyalty, credibility, honesty, innovativeness, teamwork, excellence, accountability, empowerment, quality, efficiency, dignity, collaboration, stewardship, empathy, accomplishment, courage, wisdom, independence, security, challenge, influence, learning, compassion, friendliness, discipline/order, generosity, persistency,optimism, dependability, flexibility

As a leader, choose the values and the ethics that are most important to you, the values and ethics you believe in and that define your character. Then live them visibly every day at work. Living your values is one of the most powerful tools available to you to help you lead and influence others. Don't waste your best opportunity.