9 Things You Need to Know about Effective Leadership
30 second summary:
Regardless of sector, people are crying out for leaders they can trust – to speak the truth, to protect what we value and to create an environment in which we flourish.
This article visits 9 components that great leaders embrace to generate trust and deliver on promises.
Pulling it all together, people today are crying-out for leaders they can trust – trust to speak the truth, trust to protect what we value, and trust to create an environment where we flourish.
This applies in business, the 3rd sector, entertainment, sports and public life.
So we explored four things leaders must ‘know how’ to deliver, must be seen to be doing in relation to others to generate trust:
(1) show-up as visibly competent,
(2) show that you care (“show me you care and I’ll care about what you show me”),
(3) show that you take appropriate action, and
(4) show more interest in others than self-interest. [Dare I say how interesting it is that at least two of these four "savoir faire" are about how we show love and how we engage with others?]
Not that the above is easy – especially in today’s world. Our 24/7 social media context expects leaders to be perpetually ‘on show’. Concurrently, our celebrity culture expects leaders to inspire and excite. So we explored how leaders inspire (and sustain their capacity to deliver) by being true to self. "Savoir être" means being true to our unique blend of the following five personal characteristics:
(5) clear vision and values,
(6) authenticity,
(7) inclusivity,
(8) resilience and
(9) critical and free thinking.
A new nine-component leadership model thus emerges, The Leadership Iceberg. Think about it: each iceberg is unique with more to it than what is seen. Each leader is unique, with more to him/her than what shows up.
Therefore, to inspire followers AND sustain the four above-the-surface deliverables, leaders need to nurture their own unique blend of five below-the-surface characteristics. Leaders need to ask themselves:
“But that’s not all” I hear you cry. Of course! Feel free to add to this list! Yet the model’s nine components (touching almost equally on attention to ‘task’ versus ‘relationships’) are repeatedly called-out in social media, newscasts, broadsheets and reputable journals.
Could this be what the masses calling out “We need leadership!” are asking for? Do we dare to rate ourselves on a scale of 1 to 10:
Against each of these 9 components?
On what are we doing to develop these in ourselves – be they strengths or development areas?
Be assured, in all nine components we can grow, as individuals and as teams, authentically and sustainably.
