Want your org to rise to the top? Look to your leaders.

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Want your org to rise to the top? Look to your leaders.

Upscaling the organization for the VUCA world: Leadership Capability

*Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, Ambiguous


Think of your industry as a mountain.


Obviously, you want your organization to summit its highestpinnacle.


So why don’t we realize itreally sucks when it happens at work?

Heck, maybe even hit the stratosphere above it.


What’s stopping you?

Perhaps it’s your leaders’ ability to lead everyone there.


So why don’t we realize itreally sucks when it happens at work?

Because your organization rises onlyto the capability of your leaders, not beyond.


Yeah, we said that.(and we’re not alone)

“It was only when leaders' effectiveness at different levels was considered in

the aggregate that significant performance improvement occurred.”

“When we look at "enduring" organizations, (those who

transform themselves year after year), you find a continual

"process-based" investment in leadership.”

Leaders, good and bad, directly

affect the bottom line of

the organization.”2

1 O’Reilly, Caldwell, Chatman, Lapiz, and Self, 2,4 Zenger, Folkman, and Edinger, “How Extraordianry Leaders Double Profits: Decoding Leadership Trends to Discover the Patterns, 2013.3 Bersin, Deloitte, 2012

“In a study we were commissioned to do for a division of a Fortune 500

commercial bank, we discovered strong and compelling evidence of the dramatic impact that leadership effectiveness

has on net income.”4


The reality is that most leaders have the technical chops, but aren’t great at the people side of things.


This needs to be addressed at all levels:

individual leaders

leadership teams

across the enterprise level


Let’s start by talking about the four cornerstones of great leadership.

(these are the places leaders need to develop)


1) Self-awareness.We’re talking about leading others, but we start with self-awareness…? It’s not as odd as you

might think: if you don’t have an honest understanding of how you appear to others, or good

mindfulness of your strengths and weaknesses, you’re not going to be very successful when it

comes to trying to lead. In fact, this is one of the biggest limiters in how far a leader can go.

Tip: don’t forget that the most effective self-awareness learning comes through experiences, not direct coaching or

teaching. Build workshops that offer the opportunity for self-discovery.

A good leader understands how they

communicate best, and they use those skills to

their advantage.. They know the things that could

trip them up, and they know how to avoid those

pitfalls. They understand their own personal

style. And they have taken a good honest look at

their personal and organizational values. You can

help them get there with self-assessments,

coaching, and workshops.


2) Ability to understand others.Good leaders lead with intent. To do so, they must achieve a high level of clarity about how they

interact with the people around them, and how those people tick. This means a good instinct for

other people’s strengths and values, and an understanding of different conflict styles,

different cultural needs, and different ways of communicating.

This is important because today’s workplace is

Tip: the best leadership development doesn’t just deliver the ‘ah-ha!’ moments – as good as that feels. For real success,

make sure your trainees come away with practical and useful things they can do RIGHT AWAY. If they don’t leave with

something to practice, their new information is liable to sit on a shelf somewhere until it’s forgotten.

a melting pot of different generations, gender

identities, skillsets, world views, and cultures. It’s

no easy task to manage it all.

The real key is helping your leaders (through

personality assessments, coaching, training,

discovery workshops on diversity, etc.) build the

capability to effectively engage this

complexity so that they can get the most out of

their organization.


3) Building effective relationships.Not surprisingly, a good leader is able to leverage their self-awareness and their consciousness

of others into solid, effective relationships with the people around them. Leadership requires

a healthy interpersonal dynamic with one’s peers, employees and managers. Obvious, right?

But not so easy to do. Building healthy and

effective business partnerships is no different

than building personal relationships: they

both require understanding of how to

establish trust and set boundaries.

But a business relationship also means

knowing how to give a tough performance

message and still maintain the

relationship, how to correct dysfunction in a

healthy way, how to build effective teams

through trust and community, and how to

manage a vast array of conflict and

communications styles.


4) Developing and influencing networks.

In a world of incessant events for the purpose, we hardly need to convince you of the power

of networking. But for a leader, those networks — a larger group of people with varying

levels of closeness — are just as important within the organization as those in the greater

community. A good leader will extend their power and influence beyond their

immediate relationships by building networks throughout the organization.

This doesn’t just help the leader

influence their organization; as a vast

repository of experience, a great

network can help them manage their

own people better, too.

A good leader must learn how to

intentionally impact their network.

Further, they must learn to manage

through those networks to create

influence, even where they have no direct

authority.


Ready to plan your development

activities? Think of it as a cycle:

Tip: remember that to be truly successful, any leadership development program must be customized to the culture and

strategic goals of your organization. Take-’em-out-of-the-box leader training is rarely effective.

Strategy: Decide what outcomes you want to achieve for your leadersand your organization.

Assessment: Identify the gap in your leaders’ skills and the level of understanding and influence they’ll need to drive performance.

Build and Implement Your Solution: Design your leadership capability

program to fill those gaps.

Evaluate: Was your program effective? Are

you seeing improved communication and

connection?


Got it? Let’s review.

1) An organization will rise only to the leadership capability level of its leaders. This is particularly important in the new VUCA world.

2) Leadership ability applies to individual leaders, leadership teams, and the enterprise as a whole.

3) The four cornerstones of leadership are: self-awareness, understanding others, building effective relationships, and developing & influencing networks.

4) The cycle of leadership development goes something like: strategy, assessment, building and implementing solutions, evaluation, rinse, & repeat.

Your people will thank you.


your people = your success.

PeopleFirm is a consulting firm dedicated to achieving the

ultimate win-win: inspired people driving inspired performance.

We focus on effective tools, measurable outcomes, real results,

and getting your people out of their seats and engaged in your

company’s growth.

www.peoplefirm.com

thanks for reading.

Want your org to rise to the top? Look to your leaders.

Leadership & Management

Transcript of Want your org to rise to the top? Look to your leaders.