At some time, everyone in an organization must take a leadership role if it is to become a world class, responsive and agile entity. In this light, how many of the following questions can you answer in the affirmative?
1. Am I the type of leader I admire in others?
2. Am I building a personal foundation of inspired leadership?
3. Am I aware of my personal leadership impact on others?
4. Am I clearly aligned with the direction and vision of the leadership of the company?
5. Do I clearly understand the company vision and take the responsibility to keep my understanding of the vision current as the conditions change?
6. Am I clear and open in my dialogue with others, setting aside any hidden agendas?
7. Do I take leadership risks, holding myself responsible and accountable toward meeting the customer’s needs?
8. Do I work to, and hold others to the highest standards of ethics, integrity and excellence?
In a traditional organization, followers look to, and expect, their leaders to set direction, lead change and in general have all the answers on how to run the organization. However, in many of our organizational tasks, the line between leader and follower is a blur because of the complexity of situations and the need for quick decisions.
In a team environment of highly talented professionals, leadership has become a distributed process where all individuals realize they must lead, inspire and influence others, in order to realize the collective vision of the team. In our complex and fast moving world, a customer problem may in fact demand that an ordinary person make an extraordinary leadership decision to satisfy that customer need. Or consider an opposite example. How will you act when the customer need is in direct conflict with the good of the organization? This is a situation that requires true inspired leadership!
With this in mind, no matter what role they play or position they hold, each individual in the organization must look at their own leadership capabilities. Author Ken Blanchard states, “The key to successful leadership today is influence not authority.” Realizing that certain individuals within the organization do play key roles in a leadership position with clear lines of authority, the organization must also recognize and encourage every employee to adopt a pioneering spirit, including displaying leadership capabilities that will influence positive outcomes for the organization and the client. Said another way, the organization must think of leadership as a distributed process and depend upon leadership behavior by every individual at every level rather than a single act reserved for a single individual. This is especially important in a service-based industry where front-line employees are in high contact with the customer.
This reasoning and approach puts a high demand upon people in key leadership roles. They must look at one of their responsibilities to be that of coaching others to become more effective leaders. It is not so much that everyone will find themselves in a traditional leadership or supervisory role, but rather that they understand the attributes and traits of an effective leader and can use good leadership skills when needed.
These attributes include the following; taking personal responsibility, embracing change, being a future thinker, taking risks, being a persistent problem solver and persuasive negotiator, doing what ever it takes to have impact, exhibiting resilience to setbacks, enjoying challenges, having a high need to achieve, and constantly acquiring new knowledge. Filling the pipeline with individuals with these types of competencies will ensure the organization has the inspired leadership it will need to stay competitive now and in the future.
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Roger M. Ingbretsen, Author, Speaker, Leadership Coach, Organizational and career developer For more information, visit www.ingbretsen.com or call 509 999 7008.
Eight Critical Leadership Questions - To learn more about this author, visit Roger Ingbretsen's Website.
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