learning The personal skills of leadership
The old days of “command and control” leadership are dead. Yet, leaders are alive and well. Big things do not happen without the personal stand of a committed leader with a vision for change, the passion to overcome the inertia of the status quo, and the courage to face difficulties along the way.
How then do you lead without just telling people what to do and how to do it? The first clue comes from Jim Collins in Good to Great when he talks about getting the right people on the bus. “They first got the right people on the bus (and the wrong people off the bus) and then figured out where to drive it.” Leadership is easier surrounded by the right people certainly, but the second point is equally important - Collins is suggesting the team, not the leader, figure out where to drive the bus. The leader does not have a franchise for all the good ideas. Most come from the leadership team. The first personal skill of leadership is how to listen.
There is not a better book to start this journey of coaching and listening than my friend Michael Bungay Stanier’s The Coaching Habit, Say Less, Ask More, and Change the Way You Lead Forever. We are big fans of Gino Wickman and the EOS framework, check out How to be a Great Boss to learn how to manage to the accountabilities of 90 day goals called Rocks, weekly todo’s, and managing the business by a scorecard of metrics owned by the team members that can affect their outcome.
What is the difference between managing and leading? A speaker to our invitation-only CEO group Edger Papke made that very clear. Check out his book The Elephant in the Boardroom. Edgar discusses leadership in three domains; Change-Maker, Conflict-Manager, and Self-Aware leader. To round out your self-paced leadership skill program: read Leadership and Self-Deception by the Arbinger Institute (This story changed my life), Fierce Conversations, Achieving Success at Work and in Life by Susan Scott , Five Dysfunctions of a Team, by Patrick Lencioni and Tribes, We Need You to Lead Us by Seth Godin.
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