Leaders need to influence, its pretty straight forward.  Some leaders are great influences while others have a difficult time to influence just the slightest bit.  Why is that exactly?  The truth is influencing can come natural to some and not so natural to others.  The other reason is that some will seek out the best ways they can influence through mentorships, books, trial and error, and so on.  Others may opt to do no such thing and simply become ineffective at influencing others, let alone themselves.  In this post I am going to show you 5 key ways in which you can fall victim to influencing ineffectively through a blog post from the Harvard Business Review, so keep on reading…

Influencing Ineffectively

Below is a portion of a blog post on HBR that details five ways that will lead you to influencing ineffectively.  See the five ways below:

Rationalizing: Rationalizing can be ineffective when it makes others feel overwhelmed, that their perspectives are not being heard, or that the influencer values data more than their feelings. This can happen when the influencer repeats the same factual argument, ignores value-based solutions, or fails to consider the emotions or feelings of others.

Asserting: Asserting generally won’t work when people feel pressured — especially when asserting statements start to feel like aggressive, heavy-handed, or unreasonable demands.

Negotiating: Negotiating is being used ineffectively when people become confused about the influencer’s key position. This can happen when the influencer negotiates too much, loses sight of the bigger picture, or gives up something that is seemingly critical to his or her long-term strategic interest.

Inspiring: Inspiring isn’t working when people feel misled, especially when there is a lack of trust at the start. This can happen when people are influenced toward a common ground only to discover there is none; others may assume that the influencer has a hidden agenda or an overall lack of transparency. All of this erodes trust, causes suspicion, and costs the influencer future credibility.

Bridging: Bridging is ineffective when the influencer uses what he or she knows about the stakeholders’ interests during the influencing process to the extent that they feel manipulated. Instead of connecting people to one’s position, the influencer may be making them suspicious about his or her motives.

Read the rest of the article with here –> When Your Influence Is Ineffective

Here is a video series I found on Youtube showing how you can influence effectively

Closing Thoughts On Influencing Ineffectively

As I said in the beginning, leaders need to influence.  For the most part, people are influenced differently.  A good leader will take the time to understand how each of the people or groups they lead are influenced.  One tactic is to tap into intrinsic motivators to help influence people in their passions and motivations.  If you are not sure how to influence, research options as well as use the trial and error method.  You don’t need to fall victim to influencing ineffectively.

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Leadership starts and stops with you.  You make the choice to lead yourself or not.  Within that choice is a whole complex range of emotions and logic that push you to make one choice over the next.  In order to truly lead anyone you first need to lead yourself, and it starts with individual leadership.  There are so many studies, books, surveys, and other resources available today under the leadership umbrella that it can be a bit much to know where to start.  Some may jump to tactics, some may jump to theories, and anything in between.  The simple truth is you need to start with yourself and figure out who you are through individual leadership.  I will unpack 5 key components of gaining strength in individual leadership in this post so keep on reading…

5 Key Components of Individual Leadership

Listed below are 5 key components when used together can make you into a strong, individual leader.  This is the starting point of  leadership, all successful and influential leaders learn how to lead themselves first before they lead anyone else.  These 5 components will help you lead yourself with more effectiveness.

#1 You Need To Make The Choice.  As noted in the beginning leading yourself starts with a choice.  A perfect example of this would be getting healthier through improving your nutrition and increasing your exercise frequency.  It starts with a choice.  It also starts with a choice to not exercise and eat well.  How you choose and think will form your reality.  You need to make the choice to lead first, then move on to the next component.

#2 Instilling Discipline. Once you have made the choice to lead you need to build a foundation of discipline to make sure you keep leading.  Using the get healthier example, it is easy to choose to eat better and exercise more for 1 week than it is to do it for 1 year.  If you don’t have discipline you will eventually stop leading and let your environment and others dictate your actions.

#3 Have An Aim.  The way to build your confidence in individual leadership is to have an aim to shoot for.  The most common aim is setting a goal and trying to achieve that goal.  Using the get healthier example, your aim or goal could be to lose 10 lbs  in one month through eating right and exercising three times per week.  Once you lead yourself to accomplishments you will want to find new ways to lead yourself then others.

#4 Have A System.  For individual leadership or any type of leadership you need to have a system that gets you there.  This is where your productivity and proactivity meet.  Without a sound system and strategy to achieve your aim or accomplish your development plan, you won’t learn how to effectively lead yourself, let alone others.

#5 Challenge Your Excuses.  Don’t let excuses win, beat them!  Individual leadership is about stripping your excuses away, owning up to failure, and seeking solutions instead of being flattened by excuses.  Take ownership of both your accomplishments and failures, and never make excuses for either.

Closing Thoughts On The Individual Leadership Components

Individual leadership has no expiration date.  Whether you lead only yourself or thousands, your focus on individual leadership needs to stay strong.  When leadership breaks down usually it is first at the individual leadership stage.  As mentioned earlier leadership starts and stops with you.  What are your thoughts on individual leadership?  Do you see any other major components that I missed when it comes to individual leadership?

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For some odd reason when people hear the term managing up they instantly think that it means sucking up to their boss.  This is a misconception and people who manage up effectively not only improve their work life, but also get more opportunities to show what they can do.  Managing up like many things takes effort, and an easy to follow strategy.  In this post I am going to cover six key tactics that you can use to start managing up to improve your relationship with your boss (parent) or anyone who you report to.  The better you get at managing up, the more opportunities you will have to show what you can achieve.

6 Tactics On Managing Up

There are many variations of tactics you can use to start managing up, I condensed the key ones in this post.  Managing up is not about manipulating to get what you want, rather it is a way to produce a win-win-win scenario according to Wayne Turk in his article The Art of Managing Up.  You win, your boss wins, and the project and/or organization wins.  Pretty bold claim from his end but it holds weight when you start to unpack it.  You can use these 6 tactics on managing up, for managing across, and managing down.  Part of leadership is knowing how to work with all levels of people whether they lead you, you are their peer, or you lead them.  Interdependence is abound, and if you treat tactics such as these in isolation you are not using them to their full effectiveness.  Let’s get into the 6 tactics of managing up:

1.  Communication.  It starts with two way communication.  You must be able to openly communicate with your boss both verbally and non verbally.  If there is no open line of communication there is no managing up.  If you have poor communication with your boss it is vital to change that in order to manage up.  A starting point would be to identify what your boss prefers as a communication style then utilizing that to open the communication line up.

2.  No Surprises.  The last thing your boss wants is to be surprised in a meeting or another situation and not know when something is either going well, or breaking.  If your boss feels out of the loop and is called on it by their boss you will feel the brunt of that in the end.  Be upfront with your boss and do not hide the fact when something is going bad or good.  If your boss leads with instilling fear you are less likely to bring up when things are going horribly wrong.  However, it is still better to bring it into the light rather than try and cover it up which will result in a worse situation in the end.

3.  Know Your Boss’s Strengths And Leadership Style.  Managing up is about knowing your boss and how to effectively operate and communicate with them.  If you do not know your boss’s strengths and preferred leadership style you are going to be stuck behind the eight ball.  Knowing what your boss is strong at and their preferred leadership style will help you craft your communication and actions to align with them.

4.  Give Solutions Not Problems. It’s okay if you don’t have the answer and are seeking advice and guidance from your boss.  However, you should at least come to the table with possible solutions and ask for help deciding which one is the best to pursue.   Managing up involves showing what you can do and how you operate.  If you only go to your boss with problems it shows that you are not using critical thinking to solve those problems.  Your boss may quickly run up the ladder of inference and conclude that you do not have the abilities to advance in your career and are at your ceiling.  Provide solutions, not unsolvable problems.

5.  Know Their Hot Buttons.  Stay away from triggering your boss’s hot buttons.  Hot buttons are the things that drive both you and your boss crazy.  They are probably different, but if you are unaware of your hot buttons and your boss’s hot buttons the chances are likely that they are getting pushed on a regular basis.  How do you find what your hot buttons are?  Try and find the 3-5 things that get under your skin and drive you crazy.  Those are your hot buttons.  Now simply ask your boss what his/her hot buttons are or watch and identify them.  Asking is the best way, don’t be afraid of doing so.  Managing up is also about reducing stressors and hot button activators for your boss.  A less stressed boss is always better than an over stressed boss.

6.  Seek Feedback.  Managing up is about giving and receiving feedback.  The more feedback that you can receive and give the better off everyone involved will be if the feedback is honest and not spiteful.  In order to have effective feedback an open line of communication and trust needs to be there.

Here is a resource for managing up –> Suddenly in Charge: Managing Up, Managing Down, Succeeding All Around that you can use to start effectively managing up.

Final Thoughts on Managing Up

Managing up, across, and down is essential for any leader.  Managing up is something that you have done since you were little.  Think about it, if you wanted a new toy or candy you probably figured out exactly how to ask for it, when it ask for it, and eventually got it.  Kids are great at managing up at times, and also great at pushing their parents hot buttons.  Managing up is important if you want to advance in your career and be able to show what you are truly capable of.  What are your experiences and thoughts on managing up?

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Perception is reality.  We learned in a previous post about the ladder of inference how easy it is to create our own reality whether it is true or false based on our perceptions.  The attribution error is another starting point at creating our perceptions.  The attribution error is in all parts of life, not just leadership.  It is extremely easy to apply the attribution error and also have it applied to you.  Before we get into what exactly the attribution error is I think it is worth a few words to talk about assumption versus fact.  I have seen multiple times how assumptions can negatively impact relationships of all kinds, as well as careers.  We all need to understand fact and evidence to verify assumptions.  With that said, let’s look and see if the attribution error is a help or hindrance.

What Is The Attribution Error?

Stanford Psychologist Lee Ross analyzed dozens of psychological studies and noticed a very interested thread of commonality.  This thread, as Ross discovered showed that people have a tendency to ignore the situational forces that shape people’s behavior.  He called this tendency the “Fundamental Attribution Error.”  In other words, we see a person’s behavior and immediately judge the person on their behavior and not try to understand the situation the person is in.  Here is an example, my wife and I love the TV show Parenthood.  In one of the shows “Max” a boy who has a form of Autism, got to ditch school with his dad “Adam” and go to an amusement park to ride a specific ride as many times as he wants.  When they are unable to ride the specific ride due to maintenance, Max essentially has a melt down, runs off yelling.  His dad chases him and tries to calm him down but Max keeps the “tantrum” going until his dad is able to hold him.  From an outside perspective it was be very easy to look at this situation and think the dad has an unruly kid and he is a bad parent.  However the reality is that Max, cannot cope with change and rule breaking due to his form of Autism.  It would be extremely easy to fall into the attribution error from an outsiders perspective.

Does Knowing The Attribution Error Help?

The short answer here is yes.  The longer answer is the more you can look into the situation and see why the person is behaving a certain way will help reduce assumptions and help get a fuller picture of reality.  If someone cuts you off in traffic you are likely to get annoyed and think that person is a bad driver.  However the situation could be they need to get to the hospital for the birth of their child, or another emergency has come up.  Would you do the same?  As a leader knowing the attribution error is a great strength to have.  You will enable yourself to look at the whole picture versus only behavior in situations.  Dr. Deming is known for telling a story about a company who uses flammable chemicals in its production process.  Fires consistently broke out in the plants and the leader of the company sent out a memo asking his employees to stop starting fires.  He only looked at the behavior, not at the situation in which flammable chemicals are being used frequently and an adjustment to the processes was needed to reduce fires.  If a leader only looks at the behavior of those that he/she leads and not the situation it can make for serious problem, especially if discipline is in order.

Is The Attribution Error A Hindrance?

Knowing the attribution error alone is not a hindrance.  However it can be if you or someone else starts trying to analyze the situation from an outside perspective (forming your own assumptions) and never talking with the people in the situation about their behavior.  In the example with Max and Ada, earlier, you can easily use the attribution error and say hmm that boy must have something wrong with him and leave it at that.  But you would still be applying the attribution error because you did not go up to Adam, ask why Max was acting that was and also about what triggered it.  Then you would have the full picture and reality to go off of.  The attribution error can be a hindrance if you don’t truly use it correctly.  Don’t let your perception warp the attribution error, seek to understand, then to be understood.

Closing Thoughts On The Attribution Error

Psychology is a major part in leadership and in everyday life.  Knowing what the attribution error is and how to make sure you are not causing it will only benefit you in the long run.  Looking at the whole picture (both behavior and situation) is vitally important to lead well and by example.  The attribution error can be a great tool for you to use with those that you lead, your friends and family, and allow you to be the person that people come to for advice and keen insight because you seek to understand the situation which spawned the behavior then give advice.

What are your thoughts about the attribution error?

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If your in a leadership position or strive to be you must ensure that delegating wisely is something that you practice.  Leaders need to empower those that they lead, and the best way to do that is through delegation.  Sure, we can all feel and think at times that in order to get something done the right way we best do it ourselves.  However, a leader who lacks delegating prowess runs a very high risk of alienating themselves and not eventually promoting distrust with those that they lead.  If you want to learn how delegating effectively works, then this post is for you.  I will cover 10 ways on how to use delegation to increase your leadership effectiveness.

Is Delegating That Important?

Delegating is important and critical for leaders if it is done right.  I have seen, coached, and experience poor delegating behaviors by leaders.  I have also seen highly effective delegating behaviors by leaders as well.  A company cannot and will not thrive without effective delegation.  If the leaders of the company, organization, or any other body of people never delegate then what are the “followers” there for?  If you want to lead effectively, make sure to save a copy of the 10 ways for delegating effectively below:

1.  Don’t just delegate the bad duties.  Inexperienced managers and leaders will quickly delegate what they no longer want to do once they have someone they can push those boring and annoying duties.  When delegating make sure that there is a balance between the bad duties and the more challenging and fun duties.  This may not always be easy, but those that you lead will be great full.

2.  Delegate to empower.  Don’t hoard your power and leadership.  Delegate it and spread it.  A leader is much more powerful if he/she let’s those around them take ownership of selected areas. Insecure leaders want to hold their influence and position close.  Experienced leaders want to open it up and spread it.

3.  Delegating for development.  One of the main reasons for delegating should be to develop those that are being delegated to.  If you only delegate the bad duties your followers will grow frustrated.  A strong leader will look for growth opportunities during delegating and make it a focal point to use it as a tool so that others will grow.

4.  When delegating, know your employees.  Delegate to their strengths rather than their weaknesses.  If you focus on things outside of their abilities and strengths you will have a greater risk of failure.  It is worth to note that sometimes this is needed to stretch a person, but if you don’t know your employees abilities that is another issue in itself.

5.  Be the backstop.  If you are delegating authority to someone and that authority gets put into question you need to be their backstop.  If you point the finger at them when failure arises it will dismantle trust.  Be there for them when times go great and not so great and coach/counsel as needed.

6.  Delegate with consistency.  If you are erratic in how and how much you delegate it only increases stress and anxiety.  Delegate consistently so those that are being delegated can at least sense when and how much delegation will occur over a certain period.

 7.  Delegate with clarity.  Make sure the person that you are delegating to knows your expectations and the aim of what is being delegated.  If you delegate without clarity you are not setting the person up for success.

8.  Allow for questions.  Make sure that when you delegate that you allow the person to ask questions so that they can be fully aware of your expectations.  It is one thing to delegate with clarity, but another to delegate with clarity and allow for questions.

9.  Know what to delegate.  You have three choices when it comes to getting a task/project done.  Do it, delegate it, or ditch it.  Do it if it is a must do or a high priority.  Delegate it if needed, or ditch it all together.  Don’t get caught up in things that you shouldn’t.

10.  Implement how Bill Gates delegates.  ”Develop your people to do their jobs better than you can.  Transfer your skills to them.  This is exciting but it can be threatening to a manager who worries that he is training his replacement.  Smart managers like to see their employees increase their responsibilities because it frees managers to tackle new or undone tasks.”  This is the sum of 1-9.

Closing Thoughts On Delegating

The more effective you are at delegating the more gets done and the more you will grow those around you.  Micromanagers have a very hard time delegating and allow those that they lead work in autonomy.  Delegation done right will increase the overall efficiency and effectiveness of the entire group and promote a culture of growth.  Take the 10 steps of delegating presented in this post and implement them wisely.  What are your thoughts on delegating?

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No matter where you are in your career having a leadership coach is vital to you reaching your truest potential as a leader.  There are plenty of mentors available today that you can have help guide you in your professional journey.  However, selecting a true leadership coach from my perspective is the route I have personally taken.  I am honored to have a great leadership coach and mentor to help guide me as I develop my leadership.  If you don’t currently have a leadership coach then this post is perfect for you.  I am going to cover six key attributes a leadership coach must have so keep on reading…

 Here Are The 6 Key Attributes Of A Leadership Coach

#1 – Teacher.  A leadership coach should be a strong teacher that can identify your learning style and apply that to how they teach you about leadership.  If a leadership coach can’t identify how to properly teach your development towards stronger leadership will be in jeopardy.  A good way to find out is by having your potential leadership coach teach you something you do not know.  If they can adapt to learn how you learn and apply that in their teaching that will be extremely fruitful.

#2 – Advocate.  You can have a great teacher but if they do not advocate for your development your leadership effectiveness will not reach its full potential.  The reason why is if your leadership coach does not advocate for you to stretch yourself and apply what you learn it stays as in-actionable knowledge.

#3 – Counselor.  I am not suggesting a leadership coach needs to be a traditional counselor.  What I am suggesting here instead is to counsel you through your growing pains as a leader.  They will over keen insight and help you work through when your leadership is effective and ineffective.

#4 – Motivator.  If your leadership coach teaches you right, advocates for you and helps counsel you through your growth but does not motivate you the likelihood of you sticking with growing as a leader diminishes.  A great leadership coach would create an environment that would ring with motivation.  We all need to be motivated from others, it is vital to sticking with it when times get hard.

#5 – Communicates Expectations.   You will have your own expectations for your leadership coach.  They should also have expectations for you.  Both sides need to understand each expectations and work together to ensure that they are being met on a regular basis.

#6 – Provides Perspective.  A leadership coach should have perspective that they can give you in the thick of your development.  They should have their own experiences to fall back on to help you see the perspective of what you are trying to achieve.  They should help you see the big picture and your goals.  This will help you see if what you are doing are help or hurt you to achieve the goals that have been set by both you and your leadership coach.

If you have a leadership coach already look through this list and see if they hit one or more of the attributes.  If they do that is great you have a great leadership coach.  If they don’t then the ones that are missing you need to create an expectation for them to adopt them.  I have had the great opportunity in my life to have several mentors that have helped my leadership growth and I am thankful for them each day.  But when I really took off as successful leader is when I found a leadership coach that was also a mentor.  Infused with both and having these six key attributes my coach is someone who I truly get motivated by simply from the relationship.  Dr. Deming is quoted as saying “a leader is a coach not a judge” and my coach ensure this to be true each time we meet.

Final Thoughts On A Leadership Coach

Don’t miss the opportunity of having a leadership coach.  There are plenty of coaches you can hire to help you become a better leader.  But the leadership coach that you want is one that has passion in coaching, who treats it as a true profession.  Passion could be a seventh attribute a leadership coach must have.  If a coach is not passionate about being a coach then that will have a direct impact on your development.  Find a leadership coach to help you reach your full potential as a leader.

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Improving a process may seem simple on the surface to some.  I have seen and coached many who think of improving a process and in the end actually made the process worse.  The truth of the matter is improving a process is a process within itself.  You must go into process improvement with that mindset.  Having a sound strategy on how to improve a process will set you up for success, however you also need to be flexible that your upfront method may not be the most sound method.  In this post I am going to cover a 7 step process improvement method in the book 4th Generation Management.  Improving a process or processes has been a strength of mine for the past several years and I believe everyone should have a go to method to improving a process.  So keep on reading to learn the 7 step method…

Improving a Process Starts With This…

Process improvement really hinges on a few fundamental pieces.  One of those pieces is having the keen insight to ask the right questions.  Right questions leads to making the right links.  Making the right links will ultimately lead you to get to the deep true causes of the problem or problems at hand.   Having a framework or a method will all but ensure that you will be able to ask those questions that lead into the other crucial questions in which will truly make a change for the better.  Here is the 7 step method:

Step #1 – Identify the purpose.  It always needs to start here.  If you don’t know what the aim or purpose is in your business, process, career, etc how can you improve the process around it?  The answer is you can’t.  Identifying the purpose of what you will do will allow you shape a narrow target which in turn will funnel into the other steps of improving a process.

Step #2 – What Is The Current Situation?  This step must allow brutal honesty.  When improving a process you must look at the current situation, but you also need to look at the history that brought you to current situation.  If the current situation is optimal, there is no need for improvement.  However when improving a process there have been actions and in-actions that led to a broken system.  Allowing for brutal honesty will open up the truth of the current situation and bring the truest reality into the light no matter how hard it may be.

Step #3 – Cause Analysis.  Cause analysis will help you verify the causes in which brought the current situation through reliable data.  This is where you find the evidence versus assumptions.  Chasing assumptions never really pans out effectively in the end.   however, getting reliable evidence around the causes and being able to be confident in the evidence is a must do here.  This step really helps you narrow your focus for improving a process.

Step #4 – Solutions.  After getting the cause(s) verified by data the next step is to look at the solutions that will help improve the process with sustainability.  This is where you will unpack the pros and cons of each solution, how you will test them to see which solutions have the most positive impact, and how to ramp up the best solutions to have the largest impact.

Step #5 – Results.  Step 5 is all about looking at the results from the solutions that were approved and implemented.  Once you have results that are returning positive impact you are on the right path.  If you simply implement solutions and never track their impact and results what good is it?  Improving a process does not happen unless there are results.

Step #6 – Standardization.  Now that there are positive results that are returning a positive impact you should seek to standardize the process.  This is all about sustainability, if you can’t standardize your processes how can improving a process over the long term happen?  In short, it won’t.  Having documentation, roles and responsibilities,  impact measurements, and so on will help the sustainability of the new process.  Standardize the process and lean it out as much as possible so there is little room for ambiguity.

Step #7 – Future Plans.  Improving a process takes having a vision.  You need to seek if there were any areas missed, key learning metrics, and how you can improve a process that was outside of this scope.  Ultimately, it should end in celebration of how you and the team went through improving a process and captured that very thing.

Closing Thoughts On Improving a Process

There are many different tactics, strategies, methods, and so on when improving a process.  Finding the one that fits well with your strengths and weaknesses is a must do.  Even with the diverse methods for improving a process they all have commonality between them.  All of them identify the purpose, seek to understand the current situation, look for evidence to corroborate their findings, and put a plan in place that will allow the process is run optimally.  Improving a process can be as simple as your morning routine, or as complex leaning out a company.  Leaders need to always be looking at how to improve processes.  If they don’t they run the risk of allowing broken systems and outdated practices to thrive.  How do you currently go about improving a process?

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We all should be striving to increase our effectiveness at all we do.  When we cease to do so then we are truly cutting ourselves short of reaching our potential and purpose in life.  If you are leader or interested in leadership, you should be measuring your leadership effectiveness.  But how exactly do you increase your leadership effectiveness? Moreover, what areas should you focus on to increase your effectiveness that will have the biggest impact?  A great example to use in this case is a football or basketball coach.  If they are not effective at producing wins the end result is usually them being fired.  They are perceived by many to be an ineffective coach.  However leadership effectiveness is not solely based around winning, losing, hitting sales numbers, etc.  In this post I am going to cover three ways in which you can increase your leadership effectiveness so keep on reading…

Increasing Your Leadership Effectiveness

There are many ways in which you can increase your leadership effectiveness but I am going to just cover three for the sole purpose of not muddying the waters.  Keeping things simple and straight forward especially when it comes to increasing effectiveness is the only way to do it.  If you throw non-descriptive vague steps or solutions at increasing leadership effectiveness the outcome will be just that, nondescript and vague.  So with that said let’s get into the three steps that you can use to increase your leadership effectiveness.

Step #1 - Vision and Values.  One of the most straight forward things you can do is take an objective and honest look at if your values are driving your vision.  They need to be interdependent, your values should be your compass pointing you to reaching your vision.  A vision without values is a weak one, one that is subjective to being changed or abandoned when times get hard.  Honestly ask yourself if your values are in tact, and if your vision is rooted in them.  If you are leading and you are unsure of your values and vision then you are not being effective due to the fact that you cannot measure your effectiveness on either of these.  Leaders need to have a vision, or in other words a purpose.  No purpose and no values equals one confused leader randomly walking in the woods bumping into trees.  How can you showcase leadership effectiveness if you keep running into tress?

Step #2 Strategy.  Is there a sound strategy that is enabling you to reach your vision that is in line with your values?  Strategies can be put into motion without an aim but the end result is a broken system.  If your strategy does indeed align with your values and is getting closer to you reaching your vision/goal/aim/purpose whatever you want to call it then you are showing leadership effectiveness in this area.  However with any strategy and operations a leader should always ask “how can we do this better”?  That simple question will help you and those that you lead increase how effective your strategy and leadership effectiveness are.

Step #3 People.  Are the people that you are leading better off with your leadership?  Are they growing and thriving in what they are doing?  Are they empowered to make changes, to seek better ways to do things, and be part of the vision that has been cast?  A shared vision is far more powerful then a isolated one.  If you have a vision that is rooted in your values and have a sound strategy to get you there but the people that you lead are suffering then you are not being effective.  In fact, if you miss this step your leadership effectiveness will only be as effective as those perceiving it.  Therefore if those that work for you perceive that you are not advocating and investing in them they will not believe you are showcasing leadership effectiveness.

 Closing Thoughts On Leadership Effectiveness

I hope that by reading this post on leadership effectiveness you asked yourself the questions that I put in this post.  I also hope that you are thinking of other ways to increase your leadership effectiveness that I did not cover in this post and will put those in the comments below.  You need to be effective in what you do, and the more effective that you are the more people will want to follow you.  Same is true if you are ineffective in all that you do, people will not want to follow you because they simply do not trust your abilities as a leader.  Leadership effectiveness needs to be in the forefront of a leader’s mind.  They also need to ask those that they lead, their peers, and their leaders if their leadership effectiveness meets their expectations.  Honest feedback is crucial to increase leadership effectiveness so don’t stuff it away.

What steps would you take to increase your leadership effectiveness?

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John Maxwell, the well known leadership guru released his latest book called the 5 levels of leadership.  I bought it and read through it rather quickly like most of his books.  Maxwell does a great job infusing stories, real life examples, and usable content for readers who are seeking to become stronger leaders.  The 5 levels of leadership is also found in at least one other book he has written.  In this post I am going to cover the 5 levels of leadership according to John Maxwell and give my own thoughts on the 5 levels of leadership.  So keep on reading to see the main points of the 5 levels of leadership and if you agree with them or not.

Here Are The 5 Levels of Leadership

Level 1 – Position.  Position is the entry level of leadership.  The main influence a leader has in this position is their job title, thus people follow level 1 leaders because they have to.  Essentially anyone can reach level one and have a hard time working with people who are not under their direct control.

Level 2 –  Permission.  Level 2 is based on relationships.  People follow you because they want to, not because they must.  This is the start of building influence and developing deeper bonds with those that you lead.  Level two leaders concentrate most of their time establishing strong relationships which builds credibility for them as a leader and trust for those that follow them.  This concentration however can keep the leader at level two without progressing to level three.

Level 3 – Production.  Level three is about producing results and getting things done.  People follow level three leaders because of what they have accomplished and the results that they produce.  Leaders will gain more influence, increase credibility and trust at level three.  Motivation is also a strong aspect of level three leaders.  A leader can lose sight on building relationships in level three, thus they must both be productive and keep building relationships which both increase momentum.

Level 4 – People Development.  Level four leaders use their leadership position to invest in their followers and develop them until those followers become leaders in their own right.  At level four team work will dramatically increase as well as over all performance.  Developing others is the main goal here and using what they have learned from levels 1-3 is key in doing so.

Level 5 – Pinnacle.  The goal of level five leaders is to reproduce level four leaders.  Maxwell argues that the only naturally gifted leaders will reach level five.  Level five leaders build legacy through of who they are, what they have achieved, and what they represent.  Developing leaders to develop leaders will be a sustainable foundation for any organization.

My Thoughts on The 5 Levels of Leadership

I think Maxwell does a good job showing how one can climb the 5 levels of leadership.  However there I believe he is missing a level.  The first level in my mind should be individual leadership.  If you can’t lead yourself effectively, you won’t be able to lead anyone else.  Moreover, you won’t reach level 1 unless you show and prove you can lead yourself first.  The 5 levels of leadership follow a traditional method of how a leader progresses, but it is not set in stone.

From my perspective you can be naturally gifted at one or more of the levels.  For instance you can be great at leaning out process and productivity but lack relationship building.  You can be natural at being a coach and relationships builder but stink at producing results.  I also believe that if you go into level one with a level one mindset you will stay there.  But if you go into level one with a level five mindset you at the very beginning start to develop relationships, produce results, develop others, and get those who you lead to develop other leaders.  The 5 levels of leadership is a guide into what a potential leadership growth plan would be.

Closing Thoughts on The 5 Levels of Leadership

The 5 levels of leadership is a good book and he does do a good job of giving the pros and cons of each of the 5 levels of leadership and how one can get stuck in each level.  I don’t agree however that reach level 5 of the 5 levels of leadership demands natural ability to lead.  Leadership from my perspective is a profession, one that takes consistent developing and learning.  I would recommend the 5 levels of leadership to anyone who is interested in becoming a leader.  Maxwell puts great content out there, and the 5 levels of leadership is no exception.

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Much things in life are interdependent of each other.  We need to breathe to live, we need to eat to fuel our bodies, we need to work to make an income, peanut butter and jelly are a married combination.  Vision and leadership must always be interdependent, like a well orchestrated symphony.  A leader needs to have vision and a tactical plan on how to reach that vision.  A vision needs a leader to allow the vision to become reality.  Vision and leadership are a mandate for all of us to hold strong and true.  In this post I am going to give 5 key reasons why vision and leadership need to by in unison and why the must coexist and not be in isolation.   I also pose a few questions for you to consider in terms of vision and leadership that are worth the time to answer, so keep on reading…

The 5 Reasons Why Vision And Leadership Must Coexist

#1 – Vision and leadership must coexist because if a leader does not have a vision then essentially they will be running in circles.  Dr. Deming is quoted as saying ” a system without an aim is not a system.”  What this means is without an aim or vision, a leader cannot create a strategy or system to help achieve that vision.  Think of multiple arrows going in multiple different directions.  This describes in Deming’s words a system with no aim.  Now think of multiple arrows all pointing in one direction in unison.  This is a system with an aim, or a leader with a vision.  Vision and leadership must coexist so that resources and strategy point in one direction.

#2 – Vision and leadership start and stop with you.  It does not matter if you are a leader of yourself or many, in order to lead effectively you need a vision, and in order to achieve a vision you need leadership.  If you choose to have no vision or choose to have a vision without leadership you will not achieve your vision and purpose.  It takes effort to keep vision and leadership in line with each other.  Often leaders are great at leading but lack vision or vice versa.

#3 – Vision and leadership together bring both clarity and purpose for those that you lead or are involved with you reaching your vision.  Clarity and purpose are two key components for anyone, especially a leader. Without a purpose there is no vision and without clarity you have multiple arrows going in multiple directions which will quickly dissolve your leadership credibility.

#4 – Both vision and leadership will challenge and stretch you.  They can both do so in isolation, but they will stretch you far greater if they are in tandem.  Vision and leadership are two things that take a focused effort to achieve on a daily basis.  You may fully reach your vision at one point, but you can always keep learning and growing in how to be a better leader.  You can also seek to keep your vision and live and make sure that it thrives once you reach it.

#5 – Vision and leadership are downright fun if you let them be.  They both require work, they both require your strengths and abilities, they both should tap in to your intrinsic motivators, they both are a journey, and they both can have a lasting impact on those that are impacted by it.

[ A good quick video with Jack Welch about vision and leadership]

Questions To Ponder

1. How are you leveraging vision and leadership today?
2. Do you have a vision without leadership, or leadership without a vision?
3. What is your purpose / vision and how to you plan to achieve it?  (The arrows aligning in one direction)
4. What leaders can you think of that had a strong vision backed by strong leadership?
5. In what ways can you make sure your vision and leadership stay interdependent of each other?

Final Thoughts On Vision And Leadership

As you progress in in life your vision and leadership more than likely will change.  Once you have solidified you vision whatever it may be your leadership abilities and strengths will help you achieve that vision if you put in the time and effort to do so.  For me personally I started to develop my leadership qualities early on without having a solidified vision, thus I was spinning in circles a bit.  Now that I have a clear vision backed with an ongoing thirst to achieve that vision through leadership my journey has taken me to some high points and low points but all in the direction achieving my vision.  Let vision and leadership work in your favor by keeping them in balance, not in isolation.

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