Who hasn’t seen leaders struggle with the people side of their business? This leadership deficiency can be attributed to basically 3 issues:
1. Leaders are frequently identified and promoted for their technical competence
2. Leadership Development Initiatives do not stress the importance of skills that continuously develop and engage employees
3. Lack of some leader’s skillsets and/or comfort levels in in dealing with the emotional sides of their own personality.
CMI defines Organizational Balance as the blend of technical and human skills practiced by an organization’s leadership. An organization that overly stresses a technical approach to leadership while leaving the human side of engaging and developing workers underdeveloped, leaves the organization out of balance. This leadership skill is crucial for establishing the relationships (involvement / inclusion) which leaders need to engage and ultimately build the trust with their workers which is required for organizational balance.
As a result of these underdeveloped relationship building leadership skills, chronic non-productive behaviors may be allowed to germinate, grow unidentified and continue to exist in an organization. When trying to recover from chronic non-productive behavior issues, corrective actions are usually put in place to deal with the impact rather than identifying and addressing the root cause of the behaviors, which is a technical approach to human issues and still leaves the organization unbalanced. Compared to the cost of a recovery, the return on investment (ROI) from having balanced leaders is huge!
Untrained technical leaders rarely try to identify and partner with managers that have the successful relationship skills necessary to engage their workers or seek the help to do so. Covering a weakness with another’s strength is an action that can help provide organizational balance (Technical and Human). Also, many leaders are not comfortable with a skill that requires a significant change from what they have always done. However, learning the proper steps and regular practice with the tools reduces the fear of using the new process.
We also recognize that it takes a lot of foresight and courage to take on the type of change necessary to achieve success especially when most leaders are rewarded for quick fixes. We at CMI believe that Corporate America has some of the most brilliant leaders in the world. Yet, approximately three quarters of a typical organization’s employees are not fully engaged due primarily to the non-productive chronic behaviors that are not corrected. We believe that the following five steps can help leaders re-balance their organization; (1) Willingness to Change, (2) Self Awareness, (3) Understanding Impact of Their Behaviors, (4) Demonstrated Caring, (5) Continuous Management.
(1) Willingness to Change:
If a piece of equipment is faulty, broken, or not performing, leaders typically have no problem admitting that they need to obtain the necessary expertise to get it fixed. However, when there is a chronic behavior problem, leaders may not seek help in dealing with that behavior, even if they do not have the expertise to deal with the problem, because admitting their deficiency may not be viewed positively. This can lead to putting corrective actions in place that have been tried before and were unsuccessful, with the hope or expectation that this time the outcome will be different.
We at CMI believe that change starts with recognizing there is a problem and, if applicable, each leader admitting that he or she may not know how to deal with or correct the issue involving non-productive behaviors. When problems are allowed to escalate to the point where there is enough pain to change, the escalation has grown to a level where any change may be too late.
(2) Self-Awareness
To be an effective leader, each individual must have a thorough understanding of his or her own preferences, needs, motivation, strengths, weaknesses and blind spots. The leader that truly understands him or herself can leverage his or her strengths and work on developing any weaknesses. This understanding can lead to lifelong learning and development.
(3) Leader’s Understanding Impact of His or Her Behaviors
A leader that has a grasp on his or her preferences and behaviors can identify how those behaviors affect others. Many of us do not anticipate or understand the impact of our behaviors on our subordinates. Many may believe that employees should do as I say, not as I do—this belief can lead to disastrous outcomes such as lack of employee engagement, lack of motivation, and high turnover.
(4) Demonstrated Caring
Leaders who demonstrate that they care about their employees build trust, motivation, and loyalty in their employees. If these outcomes were translated into dollar amounts, the total would be staggering. Employees will outperform those whose leader is uninvolved in supporting and developing his or her employees. John Kennedy once said, “ask not what your country can do for you but ask what you can do for your country.” The same can be true of an effective leader who asks, not what my employees can do for me but rather what can I do for my employees. Subservient leadership is very powerful.
(5) Continuous Management
Effective Leaders are continually involved with their employees. They interact with employees so that they know about enough about their lives to hold personal conversations with them. Effective leaders continually communicate with their employees. Instead of looking for “planned events” where they talk to employees, they change their daily work routines to where they are interacting with employees. One simple change is to identify the way a leader gets to his or her workplace. By walking through the areas where employees work, valuable communication opportunities are readily available.
Effective leaders ensure employees understand his or her expectations, provide timely feedback, rewards/recognition and/or corrective actions. Corrective actions are not necessarily negative but rather can be opportunities to identify and provide development activities. This is continuous management.
Dr. Vivian Marshall and Tallman Whitler
Principles at Continuous Management Institute (CMI)
[email protected]
http://cmileader.com
Our mission at CMI I to help leaders acquire the critical skills and knowledge to implement the five things previously discussed in this article to make a large step change in its performance thus positively impacting the bottom line.
