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integrity

Inspirational leadership: This you can’t pretend

November 22, 2016 by Jan Leave a Comment

Admiration. Emulation. Stories told about great challenge, well-met.

Does your leadership inspire this type of respect?

It can.

Leadership that inspires respect is one of the top ten characteristics of great leaders.

Not everyone wants the pressure and responsibility of a high-profile leadership role.

Leadership of all types – some more than others – brings with it a very bright spotlight.

If you’re in a leadership position, people watch you very closely to see if you mean what you say, and and if you hold yourself to the same standards that you hold others to.

What your employees or team members discover about your honesty and integrity has a lot to do with their decision about whether or not to throw their full effort and loyalty your way.

For example, imagine a leader who says he values customer input.

He gets a vigorous complaint from a frustrated customer about the failure of his company’s flagship product or service (and perhaps, as a “bonus,” feedback about his leadership, as the head of the company that created the failed product or service).

What’s his next action? Does he:

1. Use the complaint for positive action, perhaps leading to process improvements that make the product better, reduce rework and the need for customer relationship repair, ultimately improving profitability?

If this leader views customer complaints as valuable – customer research he didn’t seek but now has, and can use to good effect – this response is a winning one.

2. Or does he ignore it, laugh it off, or in other ways try to get rid of the feedback? Or worse, does he belittle the customer who made the complaint, especially in front of employees?

That action, however fleeting, speaks volumes in a very negative sense. And it emboldens others in the company to act in an equally disrespectful way toward customers, and perhaps each other, as well.

Sooner or later, this insidious behavior is likely to drive customers away.

Leaders who inspire respect do these things, among others:

1. Make tough calls with an eye to the future, as well to the demands of the moment.

2. Know their values – what they stand for and what they are against.

They make decisions and take actions based on their values and those of their company or team.

3. Set high standards and lead by meeting those standards themselves.

Leaders who inspire others don’t just assert or expect certain actions from others. They also act in ways that create positive examples for others to follow.

4. Set clear boundaries for what’s acceptable behavior and what’s out of bounds.

5. Treat others, both inside and outside the company, with respect.

6. Incite positive, powerful action. Especially during difficult times, they shine in this aspect of leadership. Top leaders can shift a team’s focus from “We can’t,” “I’m afraid,” or “This isn’t really important,” to “We can, we will, here’s why it’s important,” and “Here’s how we’ll get things done. Let’s get moving.”

7. Expect success, and create the work systems and support that make it possible, no matter what they’re faced with at the moment.

8. Communicate well. They seek, process, and provide information effectively.

Integrity, and being an inspiration to others cannot be “faked,” dictated, or added at the last minute, like a fresh coat of paint.

I’ll provide ideas in future posts about things you can do to increase your skills as an inspirational leader.

Filed Under: Change management, Leadership, Teams and teamwork Tagged With: inspiration, integrity, leading by example, legendary leadership

Leadership strength includes more than you think

November 17, 2016 by Jan Leave a Comment

Leadership strength is much more than what most people think it is.

One of the top ten characteristics of great leaders, leadership strength certainly incorporates the classic signs and skills needed for effective use of leadership power. Many of these characteristics are covered in other posts on this blog.

Among these skills and inclinations are initiative, the ability to engage people in a vision of the future and to motivate them to move forward.

Leadership strength also includes persistence, or the ability to push through barriers that would discourage people with far less fortitude.

In addition, leadership strength includes – yes – sensitivity and humility.

Excellent leaders are able to listen to, observe and learn from the many people who are involved in creating success.

The groups an excellent leader needs to be well-tuned into include direct reports, managers, peers, as well as customers, of course.

Leadership strength also includes humility. It means being able to say, “I don’t know the answer to that question,” or “We made a mistake and we are doing everything we can to correct it. Here’s how…”

That’s because honesty and integrity are very significant parts of a leader’s strength and power.

The people around a leader know if he or she is being honest, and it definitely affects that person’s ability to lead, in many ways.

When I asked professional colleagues for examples of strong leaders, the following are just a few of the people they cited, along with their descriptions of the strengths they saw in these individuals:

Alvin Ailey was an American choreographer who started a dance company in New York that bears his name.

Said the person who suggested him as a strong and effective leader, “He’s been gone for 20 years, yet his dancers still feel like it’s his company. He was nurturing, creative, generous, ambitious, kind, appreciative.”

Golda Meir was the Israeli prime minister in the early 70’s.

She was noted by one person because, “She was strong, reassuring, straight-talking, determined.”

Mahatma Gandhi was an Indian political and spiritual leader who led through non-violence.

The colleague who suggested Gandhi as a powerful example of strong leader said, “He had the willingness to take on huge goals and then work persistently to find allies and to communicate his key points not only in words but in actions.”

“He was also able to admit mistakes (“though not always,” she added) and then to look for a better way to accomplish goals. Most of all I admire his insistence that there are no short cuts to the goal, that the path taken is also the goal, itself.“

Filed Under: Leadership Tagged With: humility, integrity, leadership strength

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