DRINON'S LEADERSHIP EXPRESS

This article discusses leadership character, communication and competence and provides the reader with an introduction to the Drinon

Leadership Express (DLE) series. The DLE series promotes a practical four-point concept derived from extensive research in the areas of leadership and communication. This concept builds on four key competencies and provides a framework from which one can more effectively lead others towards desired results. These four key leadership competencies include:

• Building Relationships • Achieving Results • Navigating Change • Making Decisions

Examining Character

Despite your ability to achieve results you WILL be judged on character. The good news is…you can to stay on track by avoiding things that would derail your leadership career. Here are some traps that have led to more than one recent leadership train wreck:

• Lying, Cheating or Stealing• Substance Abuse or Addiction• Disqualification for Rule Infraction• Sexual Exploits• Weapons Violations• Murder or Harming Another • Abusive or Deviant Behavior• Being Misleading or Breaking Promises• Breaking the Law and Being Arrested

Leadership Character, Communication & Competence

© Copyright 2014 Rich Drinon, used with permission.

Questions of character usually revolve around ideals such as the following:

• Ethical Behavior• Honesty• Integrity• Credibility• Trust

The daily news is filled with examples of question-able character from among the ranks of those in business, politics, finance, society, sports, entertain-ment and other fields. This series offers a module on the subject of credibility and discusses ways you can practice ethical behavior, maintain your integrity and build greater trust with others.

Improving Communication

History and evolution suggest that verbal ability is the leader’s most important asset. Leadership depends on your ability to persuade others to follow and collaborate in pursuit of a worthwhile objective. Communication, the great ally of leadership, can be broken down into three key levels identified as strategy, approach and technique.

Strategy

It helps to know what strategy you plan to follow for any give type of interaction, be it customer service, negotiation, sales, lobbying or leadership.

By Rich Drinon, M.A.

Basic choices of strategy include:• Win/Win• Win/Lose• Lose/Win• Compromise• Lose/Lose

Approach

Approach involves communicating with people according to their personality or behavioral style. Once you learn to read another person’s style, you can better relate to that person and form the foundation for building a stronger relationship. The four behavioral styles examined in this series are:• Dominant • Inspiring or Interactive • Supportive • Cautious

More information about these four styles will be provided later in the article and expounded upon in the module on Recognizing & Relating to Four Behavioral Styles.

Technique

Great communicators often have a number of techniques they employ to enhance their relationships and results with others. Techniques can be used to accomplish many things, including:• Building Rapport• Remembering Names• Creating Agreement• Avoiding Arguments• Getting Feedback• Gaining Attention• Presenting Ideas• Persuading Others

This series will describe many techniques to enhance your leadership communication ability.

Developing Competence

As mentioned in the opening paragraph, the DLE series focuses on the four key competencies of building relationships, achieving results, navigating change and making decisions.

Building Relationships

Building Relationships can be examined as a three step process – connecting, communicating and collaborating with others. As you’ve probably figured out, it’s essential to truly connect with people in order to effectively communicate and successfully collaborate with them.

ConnectingConnecting includes recognizing and relating to another’s behavioral style. One of the more popular behavioral style assessment and training tools in America is DISC. This acronym stands for Dominant, Inspiring, Supportive and Cautious types (Personality Insights, 2003). • Dominant types are faster-paced, decisive and goal oriented. They prefer communication that is direct, to the point and focuses on the bottom line. • Inspiring types are faster-paced, spontaneous and people oriented. They connect easily with those who communicate in an outgoing, upbeat and engaging manner. • Supportive types are slower-paced, relaxed and relationship oriented. They respond to communication that is warm, candid and mutually supportive. • Cautious types are slower-paced, systematic and task oriented. They want facts, logic and less emotion in their interactions.

Whether someone is more Dominant, Inspiring, Supportive or Cautious you can learn how to better speak the “language” of each style in order to better connect with that individual.

CommunicatingCommunication can be likened to a Rubik’s’ Cube. The cube has multiple sides and colors which, although visible, are practically impossible for most people to align. Like the cube, communication is made up of multiple ingredients which can be difficult to synchronize for maximum exchange of information between leaders and followers. These ingredients include: sending a matched rather than mixed message, applying human relations skills, using persuasion, and conveying important information such as expectations, praise, correction and consequences. Unlike the Rubik’s puzzle, you can’t always see the many sides or the true colors of those with whom you’re dealing.

CollaboratingAs you improve your ability to connect and communicate with others you also increase your odds of creating a collaborative environment where the efforts of many synchronize to create

© Copyright 2014 Rich Drinon, used with permission.

more and better results than the individual can typically produce alone.

Achieving Results

One is usually promoted or hired into a leadership position with the expectation he or she will achieve favorable results for the organization. Getting results through others is a primary leadership objective. Coaching skills can help you maximize the talents of your team members. Learning to manage time and self contributes to your ability to get things done on a personal level.

Coaching SkillsBecoming an effective coach usually involves learning a number of skills including: • Conveying Expectations• Building Motivation• Giving Performance Feedback • Evaluation & Planning for Improvement

Managing Time & Self Many executives plan and act according to “old world” or intelligent time management principles. As the world changes, one should remain open to “new world” or intuitive modes of managing time, self and business. It helps to build a conceptual bridge between old and new, since what worked yesterday is passing away and how one will function in tomorrow’s world is not fully evident.

Intelligent Time Management Practical, intelligent, “Old World” principles still play an important role in your ability to achieve results. Four primary intelligent habits of effective workers are setting goals, establishing priorities, monitoring or scheduling one’s time and being orderly and organized.

Intuitive Self Management Intuitive or “New World” practices can help one access and operate in states of zone, flow or optimal performance. You’ve probably seen a sporting event where an athlete goes into the “zone” and plays magnificently. Or, maybe you have witnessed a concert where a jazz musician plays “in the groove” and delivers a flawless, improvised performance. You have probably experienced a day when you had the “Midas touch” and everything came together easily and effortlessly for you. Discovering how to access your intuition and enter an optimal state of performance is invaluable in this fast paced, modern day and age of rapid change.

Today’s leader can combine both intelligent and intuitive practices in order to achieve his or her desired results in a careful yet creative manner.

Navigating Change

A simple but useful strategy for monitoring change includes awareness, alertness and action. This includes awareness of change globally, nationally, regionally, locally and personally. As you daily contemplate the movement of change, from global to personal, you become more alert to emerging opportunities and can prepare your organization to take action or advantage of the change. Change management involves predicting, planning and promoting.

PredictingAny leader who has attended a conference on change or innovation has probably seen an illustration of the Sigmoid, S or Change Curve. These curves represent the life cycle of new ideas, products, services and technology. Today’s change curves happen more quickly than ever, and there seem to be more of them everyday. As a result, you are always managing a cycle of changes, challenges and choices.

PlanningWhen planning for change, there are many questions to be answered in order to arrive at a decision on the next best steps to take. These questions usually focus on the positive or negative status of change, stakeholders involved in change, issues of control and influence, reasoning and emotional concerns behind a call for change, and expected outcomes of a recommended change.

PromotingWhen promoting change with followers or employees, you are likely to run into three types of resistance. Some won’t understand the change. Others won’t like the change. And some may thwart your efforts since they don’t like you (Maurer, R., 2010).

In order to meet these challenges a leader must become proficient in the art of persuasion. The philosopher Aristotle taught about three aspects of persuasion, those being Ethos, Logos and Pathos.

© Copyright 2014 Rich Drinon, used with permission.

essential to gather missing intelligence on the issue and apply a process that will insure the group makes the best possible decision. Having a third party facilitator conduct the meeting is part of the objective approach. A skilled facilitator can lead a group of well prepared participants through a process of framing a problem, encouraging open dialog and brainstorming, inducing discussion and debate when the time is right and leading the group to a collective decision and plan of action (Russo & Schoemaker, 1989).

IntuitiveIntuitive problem solving can include all of the strategies used in both subjective and objective approaches, but usually includes some quiet time away from the problem, allowing for a better answer or solution to emerge. Intuitive problem solving is a great approach for individual use when seeking answers to difficult questions. One can ask and seek answers to specific questions, make sure he has done his homework, consider the pros and cons and then wait for intuition to provide the best possible answer.

Summary: The Four Key Competencies

You can manage more effectively in this day and age by embracing this four point concept of building relationships, achieving results, navigating change and making decisions. This is an effective model for being a leader, as well as for managing your life in this global, complex, technological era of change.

Author’s Note

In each of the “magazine” articles making up this leadership series books are recommended that I’ve found helpful in my own development. Several of those are cited below. Each of these ranks highly in my choices for interesting, practical and, in most cases books that are well researched or pass the test of time, and that can help you develop as a person and leader.

Resources & Recommended Reading

• Carnegie, D. (1984). Problem solving and decision making. How to stop worrying and start living (pp. 15-16-26). New York, NY: Pocket Books. • Maurer, R. (2010). Beyond the wall of resistance. Bard Press: Austin, TX• Personality Insights (2003). Adult profile assessment. Atlanta, GA: Personality Insights, Inc. • Russo, J., & Schoemaker, P. (1989). Decision traps (First Edition ed.). New York, NY: Doubleday.

© Copyright 2014 Rich Drinon, used with permission.

• Ethos speaks to your credibility with any particular audience and answers the question, “Why should I go along with you?” Even if some followers don’t like you, they will follow if you have some credibility and the new objective is in their best interest.

• Logos provides the logic to your argument when promoting change and addresses those who don’t understand the change. When making a case for change your idea must make sense to people. Some followers need more information so they can get the picture.

• Pathos addresses the emotional needs of those who don’t like the change. This part of your argument addresses people’s fears and concerns through empathy, or gets them excited or motivated through inspiration.

The ability to promote change and persuade others to follow -- rather than manipulating or coercing them – is on of the most power talents a leader can possess.

Making Decisions

Being decisive is essential for leaders. But leaders come in all shapes, sizes and styles. Some, who are quick to act, seem to have a knack for seeing what needs to be done and making the call. Others, who prefer to be more thorough, want to research, analyze and make calculated decisions.

During their tenure as leaders, the quick starts usually learn lessons from acting rashly, while those who take longer to process decisions experience the drawbacks of analysis paralysis. Understanding and utilizing subjective, objective and intuitive means of solving problems and making decisions can support you in making faster and more thorough choices.

Subjective Subjective problem solving simply means working out an issue using information that is readily available to you or the participating group. This approach usually involves identifying the true problem, examining contributing factors, considering potential solutions to the issue and, finally, deciding on a fitting solution and course of action (Carnegie, D., 1984).

ObjectiveWhen practicing objective decision making with groups, it’s