Main Tasks of Business
Leaders |
-
To establish a clear, compelling purpose, direction,
and set of
goals
-
To define a competitive
strategy and ensure its
execution and adoption
-
To secure and develop resources: people, knowledge,
technology, and
finance
-
To architect organization structures and process that
are aligned with purpose, strategy, resources, and capability
-
To act as an emotional guide - to drive the collective
emotions in a positive direction and clear the smog created by toxic
emotions13
-
To lead organizational
learning and
change
|
Practices and Behaviors of Effective
Managerial Leaders5 |
|
"Personal best" leadership experience:
leading via encouragement,
celebration, the envisioning of an uplifting future, positive
recognition, and optimism in the face of failure are most powerful
practices. |
Twelve Major Causes of
Failure in Leadership4 |
-
Inability to organize detail, thus
admitting inability to do the job effectively
-
Unwillingness to do what they would ask
another to do, when occasion demands
-
Expectation of pay for what they know
instead of what they do
-
Fear of competition from others,
trying to hold people below you rather than build them up
-
Lack of creative thinking in
setting goals and creating plans
-
The "I" syndrome - claiming all
the honors for the team achievements
-
Over-indulgence, destroying
endurance and vitality
-
Disloyalty to colleagues,
resulting in loss of respect
-
Emphasis on the 'authority of leadership',
leading by instilling fear instead of encouraging
-
Emphasis of title instead of
knowledge and expertise
-
Lack of understanding of the destructive effects of a
negative environment
-
Lack of common sense, being
heavenly minded and ultra positive, but no earthly good
|
|
The Essence of Managerial Leadership
The genuine leader is someone who can express a vision and
then get people to carry it out, said
Jack Welch, the legendary former CEO of
General Electric.
Leadership versus Management
Leadership is more than just having the authority of a
management or supervisory position. Authority (or position power) gets you
compliance. Leadership (or
influence power)
gets you commitment. "When you influence others to follow, they do so
because they like you, admire you, stand in awe of you (referent power). Or
because they believe you have special expertise to support their efforts
(expert power)."7
Establishing a Purpose, Direction, and a Set of Goals
"Regardless of how intensely or frequently
knowledge workers might question the direction chosen, it remains the
leader's job to define that direction and convey how it supports the
fundamental purpose of the unit or organization2".
Emotional Task of the Business Leader
The best leaders have found effective ways to understand and
improve the way they handle their own and their followers' emotions.
Understanding the powerful role of emotions in the workspace will enable you
to achieve better both tangible results such as higher profits and the
retention of talents, and intangible ones, such as higher morale,
motivation, and commitment.
Integrity
While
leadership is always important to corporate performance, there is a growing
realization that effective leaders with
integrity are absolutely crucial to successfully navigating the New
Economy of the 21st Century. In addition there is also a growing
realization that the characteristics of the Leader of the 21st
century are dramatically different than the leader of the past, even the
recent past...More
Building Sustainable Competitive Advantage
You must focus your firms resources on what it does best and
what creates sustainable competitive advantage.
Continuously assess, redefine, and then secure core competencies that your
firm must have to compete. The following are three main characteristics of
your core competences:
-
They should make a disproportional contribution to stakeholder value
-
They should open the door to other opportunities
-
They should represent such a unique blend of
tacit and explicit
knowledge that it cannot be copied by others
Case in Point:
25
Lessons from Jack Welch
While boosting productivity and getting results were of paramount importance
to
Jack Welch, the legendary former CEO of General Electric,
how someone got a team to perform
mattered more. He looked for managers who he felt had
the four E's of leadership8:
-
Energy. Leaders with tremendous
personal energy.
-
Energize. Those who
energize teams,
and don't intimidate them.
-
Edge. Someone with a competitive
edge and a will to win.
-
Execution. Those leaders who have a
track record of
getting results.
|