Lesson #3 Fundamental Leadership
Know your self
Once a person has decided and committed to being a leader and determined what type of leader they will be (Officer or Pirate), they then need to identify their strengths and weaknesses so that they can lead in a manner based on their strengths.
To learn what your strengths and weaknesses are I recommend taking the Gallup Clifton Strengths survey. There are other solutions as well. I know this one.
https://store.gallup.com/c/en-us/assessments.
Pick the one that cost $49. Save your results.
About the survey.
When you get the results there will be a shaded box halfway down the first page to the right-hand side of the page. It will tell you that “You lead with …..” There will be four topics with a colored box in front of them in the shaded area. These are the four categories of strengths. Your primary and secondary type is based on how many strengths you have in your top 15 with that color.
You will then see a column on the left side with 10 topics. These are your top ten strengths. You are on your “Balcony,” or operating from your strengths, when you are leading using these approaches. Beware, should something trigger you, your emotion and enthusiasm will drop to the last five topics in the Navigate column. This is your basement.
The next pages explain the top ten strengths and how to use them best. Every person is unique. You will have a better experience and outcome if you put yourself in a place where you can operate from your strengths.
For Example, I lead with Strategic Thinking and then Influencing. My top five strengths are Futuristic, Strategic, Self-Assurance, Connectedness, and Command. I also have Activator, Maximiser, Ideation, Learner, and Intellection. A great place for me to be a leader is working as an Advisor or Consultant. I’m great with forecasting future circumstances, developing a strategy, and influencing people to get involved with the plan.
My weakness is Developer, Discipline, Harmony, Restorative, and Adaptability. Note that a weakness is different from a strength. In other words, you behave negatively in a weakness and it works against you.
What does this look like? When I experience a trigger that discourages me, I drop to my basement where my emotions come out as weaknesses. You would see me just give in, go along with whatever is happening, and just want to have Harmony with everyone. My thinking would be, “If you don’t like my ideas let's see how well yours work out.” Not a good place to be for me.
The point is, we all have different talents, strengths, and weaknesses. You will have a better experience leading when you know your strengths, triggers, and weakness. If you experience a trigger and fall to the basement, quickly recognize it and do something to get back to your strengths.
Lesson #1 Fundamental Leadership
The juice is worth the squeeze.
Principle 1. The juice is worth the squeeze. The first principle of leadership is that there is a greater benefit you will experience for every effort you put into improving your leadership ability. Leadership, when done correctly, will magnify your outcomes. Think of it this way. You have two choices, do the work yourself, or recruit people and have them help or do the work with you. One person or many people? The difference is leadership. With leadership, you can get more people involved. I heard this saying many years ago, “I would much rather have 1% of a hundred people’s efforts than 100% of 1 person’s efforts. The sum can be, and often is, greater than the individual parts. It is like a drop that hits the still surface of water. The energy that is released roles out to all corners in waves.
Principle 2. Leadership starts with me. In order to be a leader a person must choose to engage in this work. To do so they must have some fundamental skills. Think of a sports team or musical group. To be a member of the team one must be able to dribble a ball or play an instrument. After they have demonstrated proficiency, they are then put on the team or in the band where they learn their part. So step two is learn fundamentals.
Principle 3. Leadership is a team activity. Leadership requires interaction with people above, to the side and below the person leading. The shear act of leadership is to convince others to support and follow. Once a person has learned the fundamentals of leadership they then need to learn how the group works together to lead. This system of philosophies, tools and practices is called a Business Operating System (BOS), no pun intended. Great organizations have excellent business operating systems. Examples of systems and partial systems include the Studer Group’s, “Hardwiring Excellence”, Lean Six Sigma. All organizations have a BOS either intentionally or unintentionally created. High performing organizations have a better BOS than other companies.
Principle 4. Leadership has its own, intrinsic rewards. To choose to be a leader, and remain engaged in the responsibly, stress and pressure that come with leadership positions one must “see the end from the beginning” as Steven R Cover explains in his book “Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.” There are a few perks that come with leadership such as titles, offices, salaries and benefits. If you go into leadership for self serving purposes you most likely will burn out. When you see the difference you make and want to be apart of something greater than yourself then the rewards will be far greater than dollars and titles.
Principle 5. Leadership is far more than authority. If your plan for leadership is to use control, manipulation and maneuvering to accomplish your ends you will never accomplish your full potential. Why? You will only have a small group of people over whom you have authority, while all around you are people you could lead with others means to engage in your cause and movement. I call it ten to one. For every one person you have authority over there are ten people you could influence with the right approach. To be an effective leader one must strive to learn and implement more approaches than just authority.
Principle 6. Leaders know two things, Who they are, (Identity) what their purpose is. They then help others learn their identity and purpose.
Lesson #1 Fundamental Leadership
The juice is worth the squeeze.
Principle 1. The juice is worth the squeeze. The first principle of leadership is that there is a greater benefit you will experience for every effort you put into improving your leadership ability. Leadership, when done correctly, will magnify your outcomes. Think of it this way. You have two choices, do the work yourself, or recruit people and have them help or do the work with you. One person or many people? The difference is leadership. With leadership, you can get more people involved. I heard this saying many years ago, “I would much rather have 1% of a hundred people’s efforts than 100% of 1 person’s efforts. The sum can be, and often is, greater than the individual parts. It is like a drop that hits the still surface of water. The energy that is released roles out to all corners in waves.
Principle 2. Leadership starts with me. In order to be a leader a person must choose to engage in this work. To do so they must have some fundamental skills. Think of a sports team or musical group. To be a member of the team one must be able to dribble a ball or play an instrument. After they have demonstrated proficiency, they are then put on the team or in the band where they learn their part. So step two is learn fundamentals.
Principle 3. Leadership is a team activity. Leadership requires interaction with people above, to the side and below the person leading. The shear act of leadership is to convince others to support and follow. Once a person has learned the fundamentals of leadership they then need to learn how the group works together to lead. This system of philosophies, tools and practices is called a Business Operating System (BOS), no pun intended. Great organizations have excellent business operating systems. Examples of systems and partial systems include the Studer Group’s, “Hardwiring Excellence”, Lean Six Sigma. All organizations have a BOS either intentionally or unintentionally created. High performing organizations have a better BOS than other companies.
Principle 4. Leadership has its own, intrinsic rewards. To choose to be a leader, and remain engaged in the responsibly, stress and pressure that come with leadership positions one must “see the end from the beginning” as Steven R Cover explains in his book “Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.” There are a few perks that come with leadership such as titles, offices, salaries and benefits. If you go into leadership for self serving purposes you most likely will burn out. When you see the difference you make and want to be apart of something greater than yourself then the rewards will be far greater than dollars and titles.
Principle 5. Leadership is far more than authority. If your plan for leadership is to use control, manipulation and maneuvering to accomplish your ends you will never accomplish your full potential. Why? You will only have a small group of people over whom you have authority, while all around you are people you could lead with others means to engage in your cause and movement. I call it ten to one. For every one person you have authority over there are ten people you could influence with the right approach. To be an effective leader one must strive to learn and implement more approaches than just authority.
Principle 6. Leaders know two things, Who they are, (Identity) what their purpose is. They then help others learn their identity and purpose.