Styles of Leadership

Leadership in the 21st century Week4 Summary, 4/29/12

Another golden week of great learning that has helped me grow.

Here is my haul of takeaways this week.

1. Customer Service (Jack Welch video)
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For superior customer service, (a) over deliver and (b) treat people as you would like to be treated

2. Leadership that gets Results (Daniel Goldman, HBR Mar 2000)
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(i) Effective leadrs go above and beyond setting mission, strategy, motivation, building culture to get results
(ii) Leaders turn strategic, financial, organizational objectives to reality
(iii) Leadership experts base their advice on inference, experience and instinct - sometimes they are accurate and sometimes not
(iv) Leaders with best results do not rely on one leadership style - they use different styles seamlessly in different measures depending on business situation

(v) Emotional intelligence is the ability to manage self and relationships
Components of EI are self awareness, self management, social awareness, social skill

Self Awareness:
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Be self aware of emotions
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- read & understand emotions
- recognize impact of your emotions on work performance and relationships

Have an accurate self assessment
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have a realistic evaluation of strengths and weaknesses

Be Self confident
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have a strong and positive sense of self worth



Self Management
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Self control - Keep disruptive impulses and emotions under control
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Trust worthiness - Consistently display honesty, integrity
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Be Conscientious - Manage self and personal responsibilities
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Adaptability - Adjust to changing situations and overcome obstacles
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Achievement orientation - Drive to meet an internal standard of excellence
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Initiative - Readiness to seize opportunities
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Social Awareness
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Empathy
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Sense emotions of others; understand different perspectives and take active interest in their concerns

Organizational awareness
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Read the currents of the organizational life
Build decision networks
Navigate politics

Service orientation
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Recognize and meet customers' needs


Social Skills
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Visionary leadership - take charge and inspire with a compelling vision
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Influence - wield persuasive tactics
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Develop others - bolster others' abilities with guidance and feedback
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Communicate - listen, send clear, convincing, well-tuned messages
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Be a  change catalyst - initiate new ideas; lead people in new direction
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Conflict management - de-escalate disagreements; orchestrate resolutions
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Building Bonds - cultivate & build a web of relationships
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Teamwork, collaboration - Promote cooperation; Build Teams
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(vi) Six styles of leadership should be leveraged to drive Performance and get results depending on situation
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(a) Coercive leadership - "do what I tell you"
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Drive to achieve when immediate compliance is required;
works for a very short term only such as in crisis situations, with problem employees;
when quick culture change is required
(b) Pace setting leadership - "do as I do now"
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expect excellence and self direction
get quick results from a highly motivated team
cannot scale for larger tasks where a vision needs to be articulated and ownership has to be delegated and others need to be trusted
(b) Authoritative leadership - "come with me"
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to mobilize people toward a vision
Articulate vision that is customer centric and with a conceptual breakthrough
Provide a mission statement and use this for strategic planning as designated driver of growth
Let people know where they fit and how their work is furthering the vision
Make local managers know they are the key to success
Encourage innovation

(c) Affiliative leadership - "people come first"
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create emotional bonds and harmony
Value people above tasks and earn fierce loyalty
Beware of mediocrity

(d) Democratic leadership - "what do you think ?"
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build participatory consensus, get people's input, buy-in
build trust, respect, commitment
Generate fresh ideas
don't use this in crisis times

(e) Coaching leadership - "Try this"
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develop people for the future & long term
help employee improve performance

(vii) Organization's Climate affects a third of the Performance Results
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Flexibility - Freedom to innovate without much red tape
Responsibility - to the organization
Standards - level of performance set for the organization
Rewards - accuracy of performance feedback and how it ties to rewards
Clarity - of mission and values
Commitment - to common purpose

(viii) EI + Leadership Style = behaviors which affect climate and ultimately drive Performance
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Return on sales, Revenue growth, efficiency, profitability

(ix) Authoritative Leadership has the most positive impact on climate
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State the vision and end goal
Give people leeway - to innovate, take calculated risks - and get to results in their own way
Frame individual's task within the larger vision & Define standards that revolve around the vision
Communicate role clarity and get commitment
Help people understand why what they do matters
For feedback the singular criterion is - does the performance further the vision ?

(x) Give performance feedback that motivates rather than depress people
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Many managers are inept at this and end up creating fear and apathy
Inspire employees and tell them why their work matters

(xi) Business environment is continuously changing
Seamlessly adjust leadership style to get best results
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For best climate use a combo of styles - authoritative, democratic, affiliative, coaching at right time, measure
Use coercive and pace setting styles sparingly

(xii) Read DiSC styles in the team and speak the correct language that can get through to the member
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Dominance style
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tackles important problems & get results; want big goals and drive to achieve
Do not micromanage them

Influence style
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gets everyone involved and makes decisions based on instinct
Consider less optimistic scenarios and encourage fact based plans

Conscientious style
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Quiet efficiency; thorough well conceived solutions to important problems, albeit slow
Help them see the big picture and trade off risks

Steadiness style
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laidback; they want others to decide but can find solutions; encourage them to speed up

(xiii) Organizations have a style too
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D Style orgs
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Get things done; is under constant crisis and challenge; people are blunt
Rewards speed, status, independence, results
Weakness and carefulness are crushed here

i Style orgs
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exciting and fun to work; optimistic, relationship oriented ethos
lots of meetings and conversations
Creativity and passion are valued
Rules, Analysis, lone wolves are not valued

C style orgs
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Researchy; Details oriented; build systems of high quality and accuracy; formal
Mistakes, sloppiness and enthusiasm are not tolerated

S style orgs
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Stable, predictable, team work oriented
Pleasant and helpful people
Rewards cooperation and conformity
Punishes forcefulness, individualism and mean spiritedness

(xiv) To succeed in any environment
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Play to your strengths &
Help people play to their strengths

(xv) Develop a Team charter
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Icebreaker, laugh together, get contact info, write down mission statement, core values list, assign role and responsibility, clarify expectations, discuss conflict resolution method

(xvi) To deal with an ethics crisis like in Walmart Mexico case
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Be self aware and self regulated
Demonstrate integrity and honesty to earn trustworthiness
Steer clear of ethics violations in business transactions (obey FCPA rules)
When an ethics violation occurs, have the courage to place the facts on the table and confront perpetrators
Blow the whistle and do not cover up (there are no secrets)
Deal with the situation decisively

Amazed by the high level of insights gained from this Jack Welch MBA program
Dr DP