Part I
Introducing Leadership
In this part . . .
The chapters in this part help you to acquire an understanding of leadership and start to lay the foundations for you becoming the great leader you aspire to be. I introduce you to common language used in practising leadership and in management literature, and guide you to see the key differences between leading and managing. You can use these chapters to work on clarifying your expectations of yourself and others as leaders.
Chapter 1
Taking the Lead
In This Chapter
Appreciating the need for leaders Understanding why people turn to (and into) leaders Spotting opportunities to take the lead Implementing change and leading different types of teams Leadership is common sense; but unfortunately not always common practice. With the right information gleaned from my experience of working closely with thousands of managers, and some practice and thought on your part, leading can become as natural as riding a bike (even if you do experience a few wobbles along the way)!
If you couple your common sense to this book’s numerous tips, prompts, guidelines, memory joggers and even (dare I say it) pearls of wisdom, you can become the great leader you aspire to be. You can literally get your ducks in a row – just like on the front cover – reflected by your staff wanting to follow you without you having to look behind to check whether they’re still there. Carry out the exercises and implement the advice throughout the book, and you can turn effective leadership into your personal common practice.
In this chapter, I describe the importance of leaders, how and why you should step up to become a leader and how to lead different teams and implement workplace change successfully.
Appreciating Why the Work of Leaders Isn’t Easy
Why is effective leadership not more often put into practice? Well, too many managers don’t demonstrate great leadership because they don’t think enough about the situation that they and their people are in: they rush in and get things wrong or fail to act when people are looking for leadership. You’ve probably all too often experienced situations in which you get too much, too little or the wrong type of leadership.
Leaders can have too much or too little presence! In defence of leaders, although leadership is common sense, leading people isn’t easy. People are complex and have different needs, motives, abilities and expectations. Human flexibility and adaptability are great strengths, but people can also be unpredictable and changeable: their moods may alter, reflecting whether they’re happy, sad, enthusiastic, angry or depressed. People’s emotional states affect their approach to work and their performance at work.
Part of your role as a leader is to get the best from people who work for and with you; you have to consider all these issues in deciding how best to lead individuals and teams.
Leaders also have to champion and look after the needs of their organisation whether it’s a business, charity, public sector service or whatever. You have to enthuse about and promote the purpose and objectives of your organisation, department and/or team (depending on your position), the products or services you and your team provide, reconcile differences in priorities between your team and other teams, and so on.
Bearing these challenges in mind, leadership is difficult!
You may not know how to handle the leadership dilemmas that these and many other challenges throw up for you, and that’s probably why you bought this book! In this chapter, you find out more about the challenges and opportunities of being a leader – and discover insights into how to address the problems. I also provide directions to other relevant chapters that allow you to explore leadership in depth.
Looking for Leadership . . . and Leaders
Life in general, and especially in the workplace, seems to be becoming more uncertain and complex for most people. The old adage of ‘a job for life’ no longer applies to most people as private and public-sector organisations change, downsize and merge.
In such uncertain times people look for leadership and leaders, but don’t always find what they need. This section helps you to discover more about the typical situations being experienced by thousands if not millions of workers every day, and why people are looking for leadership and leaders.
Cooking the stew rather than being in one!
Many people become anxious or agitated when they experience workplace complexity and uncertainty: they are, as we say, ‘in a bit of a stew’. People can be mixed up, het up, cut up, or shut up when they’re in ...
