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Leaders ARE; Are you?
Identity Crisis It's not only the knowledge you carry around in your head. More important to your effectiveness as a leader is your character who you ARE. In an interview of Harvard Business School Professor, Scott A. Snook, conducted by, Harvard Business School, Working Knowledge Senior Editor Martha Lagace, they exposed a truth that will help you guide your leadership development program. The main thrust of this interview is how effective the Army has been in transforming the professional identity of its leaders after the end of the Cold War. Professor Snook explained what created the need for a transformation. The end of the Cold War brought about an "identity crisis" for the Army. It was no longer in a "bipolar world (that) had shaped a very strong and static sense of professional identity," he explained. "Such an identity crisis manifested itself in a variety of symptoms: low morale, high turnover, waning commitment, missed recruiting goals, and officer retention nightmares." Character: Most important AND Most Challenging to Develop One of the highlights of the research is that the character of a person is not only the most important "component of leader development," but also, "the most challenge(ing)." In order for the Army to re-align the professional identity of its leaders, and arguably solve the negative manifestations of the crises, the hard, high-payoff work had to be focused on leader character. The negative results of the identity crisis are challenges in the civilian sector also. We experience and fear low morale, high turnover and waning commitment. We fight with it every day, though leader identity is not typically cited as the cause. It goes without saying that leadership should be considered the source of all good and conversely the lack of it a factor in all negative. In order to increase the positive, which for corporate America comes in the form of higher profit margins and a more cohesive and pleasant work atmosphere, strong consideration needs to be given to Snook's suggestion. "Our contention (is) that the real leverage in developing leaders has to do with the BE component." The BE component is explained as the, "who you ARE." The paper uses BE and character interchangeably. This, of course, is our key area of focus for groups like Leading Concepts who get beyond the academic into the actual immersion experience of leader and team development. Snook went on to say, first, "we build our understandings of ourselves from our experiences. Second, we progress through a finite series of universal and progressively more complex stages in how we construct our understanding." Experience For Change As we dig into this idea of leader development and getting to the heart of it through a concentration on character, these two areas deserve more attention. It is interesting to see how our experiences have to be progressively more complex. It has been a trend, perhaps a plateau in civilian leadership development that has kept us from designing meaningfully complex learning vehicles. I believe that the reason is due to a concentration on the complexity instead of the experience. An experience is infinitely more complex than the most difficult concept. Simply add up the number of senses involved in a walk through the woods verses a day in a classroom. The properly designed and guided experiential leadership development course will go much farther to influencing the character of a person than will a stack of the most deeply researched papers. To acknowledge the order of accomplishment, the deeply researched papers must precede the properly designed and guided course. Professor Snook's "research has several implications for organizations and those interested in leadership development." "Adhering to a traditional learning model is fine if you are primarily interested in improving your employees' knowledge and skills. However, should you decide, as we did, that the leverage lies much deeper, in the BE component, be prepared to think differently about what development really means and how to go about measuring and influencing it." "I am currently studying how both life experiences and designed interventions contribute to our development as leaders. At this point it seems clear that it's not only the nature of the experience itself, but rather a complex interaction of an individual's readiness beforehand and sense-making afterwards that ultimately determines how much impact such events or programs will have on one's development." ROI The lessons of Professor Snook's research were taken from the success that he observed in over 10 years of the Army's transition from a Cold-War institution to a highly flexible, service-oriented and powerful organization ready for undetermined conflicts of the future. For everyone who downplays the power of this value (soft-skill) training, we have seen the ROI a thousand times over on our televisions over the past several years. Without this training and development in such a purposeful and planned way, the victories in Afghanistan and Iraq would not have been possible and the loss of life and resources would have been much greater. Soldiers have always been able to shoot straight. They've had the technical abilities, as do your workforce. The difference between success and failure comes in the ability of the leader to activate that ability in conjunction with others in the team towards a common goal. Crisis Free? Notice that the Army undertook this transformation a decade prior to their need. They were forward thinking enough to know that their need for this enhanced flexibility would be necessary during some future conflict. Granted, the Army always knows that there is a next crisis. Don't you?! Are you looking at today and thinking that everything is fine, or are you looking down the road to the next crisis? The Army was successful in transforming the professional identity of its members because it focused on character development through experiential training. Find the full interview "How the U.S. Army Develops Leaders" at http://www.hbswk.hbs.edu To learn more about how immersion team building and leadership training can help you visit: http://www.leadingconcepts.com Copyright 2005 Brace E. Barber Brace E. Barber works extensively with Leading Concepts, Inc. http://www.leadingconcepts.com in the field of immersion soft-skill training with a focus is on how to develop leaders, who are prepared for and can succeed under stressful circumstances. He is the author of the book No Excuse Leadership. http://www.noexcuseleadership.com
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Coaching Heres The REAL Reason Bush Won: The Dark Night Of The Leadership Soul George Bush won the election because he was finally able to break out of the presidential bubble and give "leadership talks" on a consistent basis. Leadership Development and Jumping Out of Airships A German silent film melodrama depicts an airship bombing London during World War I. Lit up by searchlights and strafed by fighters, the crippled airship loses altitude as the captain frantically jettisons dispensable gear to lighten weight. Eventually, the only weight left is human. So the captain orders members of the crew overboard. A grisly scene unfolds as the airmen, one by one, without parachutes, step up to the hatch, salute the captain and the first mate, then jump to their deaths. Lightened, the airship returns safely to Germany. Character Traits of Extraordinary Leaders When people make a decision (either consciously or unconsciously) to follow your leadership, they do it primarily because of one of two things: Your Character or your Skills. They want to know if you are the kind of person they want to follow and if you have the skills to take them further. Yes, there are other variables but these are the bulk of the matter. This week we focus on the kind of character that causes people to follow your leadership. It's Not All About Cheese: The Missing Component in Employee Development (Part 1) Spencer Johnson really hit a nerve when he wrote Who Moved My Cheese? The book, a best seller still, is a wonderful allegory of the things that drive and motivate us. I personally loved the book, perhaps because I read it in one night. But, I was left wondering if the most important part of the cheese story was ever addressed profoundly enough. I am talking about the idea that it is not all about the cheese! Precious Moments There is too much learning out there that we earn drop by drop as we go through experiences in life. There is one of the experiences that I earned from a workshop on Leadership Skills and Management. Chris Top 7 Favorite Leadership Books 1. The West Point Way of Leadership. Leadership Training: The Bit They Didn't Tell You About Changing! A willingness to change first is one of the major pre requisites for leaders! Leadership Push vs. Pull? At your next staff meeting consider leading your team through the following discussion. What is Leadership? Leadership is what every organization needs and so few have in adequate supply. Part of leadership is what the first President Bush called "the vision thing". It's the ability to see what does not exist and then gather, mold and shape the resources needed to make it happen. A Whack Up Long Side The Head Of Human Resources: The Leadership Imperative When we perceive the simple center in the seemingly complex, we can change our world in powerful new ways. The Code of the Conference Leader Are your meetings generally a waste of time? Do you have trouble getting commitment on the decisions made? The following information is based on "Conference Leadership", an atypical Marine Corps publication that is no longer available to the public (as it has been incorporated into a sensitive and restricted document.)The publication details a method of achieving results from groups and meetings that was far ahead of its time, originally published in 1947. Veins of "stewardship," "dialogue" and "servant leadership" can be seen throughout, though not by those names. Leading In The Face Of Disaster The date was Saturday, April 11, 1970, the time 13:13 CST. The event to take place was to be one of NASA's finest hours; the launch of Apollo 13. Apollo 13 was supposed to land in the Fra Mauro area. However, an explosion on board forced the crew to circle the moon without landing. Leadership For Deep Results: Without Them Are You Wasting Your Leadership And Your Life? (Part One) I've challenged all leaders I have worked with during the past two decades to achieve "more results faster continually." The Four Laws Of Leadership (Part Two) In Part One, I described the laws of motivation. In Part Two, I'll examine the laws in more detail. What Every Manager Should Know About How to See the Talents of Effective Leaders An organization of any size, from the family to the department store, the neighborhood grocery store to the largest international corporations, is a reflection of its leadership. Develop a We Focus And Not a Me Focus ____________________________________________ The Seven Secrets to New Age Leadership Did you ever notice that In our American culture, we have the tendency to look outside of ourselves for leadership? That's a trap. Isn't it time we looked inside ourselves to see how we can be the leader we want and need to be in the 21st century? I certainly think so. Abe Lincoln: An Extraordinary Leader Perhaps noted as one of the greatest United States presidents of all time, Abraham Lincoln's early life may not have reflected his potential greatness. He failed in business. He lost election to the state legislature, Speaker of the House, nomination for Congress, appointment of land officer, U.S. Senate twice and nomination for Vice President. After those eight major failures, Lincoln was elected President of the United States. How many of us would have kept going like Lincoln did? Follow My Leader - To Effect Change, Leaders Must Walk the Talk! A leader's role The Compassion Paradox Effective leaders are comfortable with paradox. They can call on skills and work in ways that seem to be contradictory.
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