Leaders leading leaders

Leadership for Leaders 

 Using a screenshot from Google, we planned a trip!  How to get from one spot to another? How can we all travel the path successfully?  How to garner momentum and support to keep the group together while accomplishing our goals?  What if there are disagreements?  What if there are challenges?  What about mistakes?  What do we do as individuals?  What do we do as a team?

These are questions we were faced with during a leadership experience where leaders were given the task of leading! Do we lead by mandate?  Does dictating work?  Can we force others into submission?  Does a leader just say the word and expect others to follow?  Where does gaining trust and establishing relationships fit into the equation?

     Away from the challenges, we all sit and talk great things about leadership.  We ponder the impact of our actions.  We pose theories that seem to make perfect sense in our minds and even in speech, but then we have to actually lead!  Then what happens?   How do people persuade others and prompt them into action?

Lesson 1

Success is not always the best teacher.  Sometimes, in fact often, it seems we learn more from our mistakes and our failures.  We glean the most effective methods, means or techniques for specific situations. For instance, when we continued doing what was working, we continued with our success.   We tried something else and faced an even greater challenge.  Then, we learned more about how our earlier successes had components of luck or fortune!

Lesson 2

Another “take-away” from the experience came from watching leaders lead leaders.  Every one of the participants was an obvious leader, each with their own characteristics, traits and methods that resulted in vast teams of talents, abilities and experiences.  Noticeable by any casual or outside observer were the strengths and attributes brought by every person.  Like a who’s who, each person’s presence influenced the dynamic of the entire project contributing insights, perspectives and understandings unique and cherished by the remaining team.  This diversity and variety allowed teams to focus on goals, tasks and accomplishments while applying discernment and tolerance while working within the given parameters.  Success became both the work and the togetherness!  Working together!  A true understanding of working with others was a favorite unforeseen outcome.

Lesson 3

Those of us that struggle with something often times seem to have a better grasp of the learning process surrounding the concept.  Someone naturally talented has to exert effort to understand another that needs extra effort to master the same skill.  The ability to teach or share seems to rise out of the intimacy with struggles, battles and mastery.  The trite exclamation “those that can, do and those that can’t, teach” ignores the experiences, motives and desires of the master teacher.  It could proclaim, “those who can’t teach it, can only do it!”

Looking at only these three highlights leaves many other nuances left hidden with the actual participants.  Many lessons, insights and applications to real jobs back home were learned in the crucible of challenge.  These shallow descriptions are only rough bearings pointing in a casual direction.  Remembering the night activities, directions, phantom rules, lake, sunsets, group activities, initiatives, sacrifice, meals, pain, expressions, journals, camp fire stories and even fun are personal, individual and intimate to only a few others laying a foundation for future adventures and deeper influences or wasted opportunity.

Know yourself to know others! Try the Kolbe A profile.

This museum overlooking Los Angeles is aligned with both the mountains and the highway, deliberately. This wall and Hwy 405 in LA are laid parallel.  This structure was designed to complement the surroundings. As leaders, do we complement or work against our environment?

Learning about people never returns empty but always adds understanding and insights to their actions.  As workers in an organization, we should learn how our boss responds and how his motivation drives him.  We learn what he values, prioritized and could let go by the wayside.  We learn to try to make him happy with our efforts and productive.  To accomplish this, we pay attention to what he says and does.  If it the same as what we might do, there may be alignment .   If it is different, it may mean we have different Kolbe A Scales and extra attention is necessary for us to align with his perspective. It is not for us to change him, but for us as subordinates to understand his motivation.

Similarly, we learn about ourselves. We may discover hidden or unrecognized talents that need extra nurturing. These may have been areas of personal frustration but reveal themselves as areas of great potential. Understanding these qualities may require extra attention as well as the realization that we may not perform as proficiently as others is a huge relief.  The realization that we should focus where we are more inclined to  succeed may lead to greater success.  By delegating to others bent to the task fosters synergy, collaboration and larger influence.  Therefore, by acknowledging the differences, we are able focus on individual strengths, both in ourselves and others.

This focusing on others strengths allows us as leaders to build a better culture and climate for success.  Others that are continuously assigned tasks that go against their grain will struggle and burn out long before one operating in an area of power.  As leaders, the better we know our team, the better we can align the tasks.  The better we align tasks, the greater the contentment.  The greater the contentment, the greater the effort which leads to greater productivity, effectiveness and success.  Just as a tennis player gains advantage by hitting to the opponents weak side, a leadership concept is to serve to others areas of strength, not weakness.  Even if the leader can do the task better, quicker and more effectively, synergy and greater success happens when others grow and develop and are able to noticeably contribute to the final project!

All this stems from a better understanding of myself.  Sharing or redirecting the credit and taking the blame and responsibility become the driving MO of the leader.  It becomes the leaders responsibility to ensure success by ensuring the success of those around him, delegating, motivating and driving them to their highest levels, not by doing it for them.  Just as an effective parent relinquishes control to allow the child to gain confidence, the leader looks for ways to help others succeed.