Leadership Levers
Releasing the Power of Relationships for Exceptional Participation, Alignment, and Team Results
Diana Jones
- 180 pages
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
Leadership Levers
Releasing the Power of Relationships for Exceptional Participation, Alignment, and Team Results
Diana Jones
About This Book
There's an epidemic of leadership failureâwhether something as small as a meeting, or as large as implementing enterprise wide change. Leaders know that sinking feeling when a gap emerges between themselves and the groups they most need to engage with. Leaders and business schools are looking in the wrong places for the cause.
What holds most leaders back, as if their foot is always on the brake, is their failure to engage, and gain alignment. This book shows the reasons why.
Leaders rarely recognise that:
- Shaping group behavior is describable as a process, which they can learn. Instead, they unconsciously fall into relationship patterns influenced by early family experiences.
- Informal relationship patterns have a dramatic effect on results, which is why birds in flight manage to alter course without bumping into each other.
Leadership and collaboration are primarily a matter of principles and process, and not personality and content alone. If leaders master the process, they achieve consistent results.
This book reveals the leadership levers to release the power of relationships for exceptional participation, alignment and results in organizations. It enables leaders to mine the brilliance that often lies dormant and untapped within their organizations. Readers will have the principles and tools to go beyond the agenda, truly engage with those around them, and release untapped capacities within their organizations. These qualities and skills will inspire associates and employees.
Frequently asked questions
Information
1 Having the Top Job Doesnât Make You the Leader
- The leaderâs capacity to engender purposeful staff participation
- Their ability to gain alignment for successful implementation of their vision and direction
Looking for Eggs in a Shoe Shop
Early in my career, I was program manager, then course director, for the New Zealand College of Management. My function was to design (and at times lead) month-long leadership development programs.The Advanced Leadership Program emerged from war times at an administrative staff college in the 1950s. By the mid-1980s, the program was tiredâso much so that the retired CEOs who were the course directors were known to fall asleep during working sessions. Forty middle and senior executives would attend the month-long program and endure a series of presentations. Working groups met in the evenings and proceeded to run up horrendous bar bills.After enduring one of these programs, I implemented changes. First, I modified the welcome meeting to focus on building connections among participants. Each executive set personal learning goals. We formed and embedded peer groups of six to seven participants based on the criteria, With whom here would you choose to solve complex problems? The self-selection of peer group members was a critical success factor.Each session leader was invited to implement an interactive two- to three-day session using a variety of learning methods. During the final three days, I embedded a current case study with a nationwide organization, which concluded with a live report back to the CEO.Remarkably (but not unexpectedly), alcohol consumption dropped below 50% of previous programs. Evenings were largely working sessions and peer-group interactions. Life-long collegial friendships were formed.Over successive months, I introduced 360-degree feedback, two-day looking glass business simulation from the Center for Creative Leadership in North Carolina, and personalized coaching.These innovations in the 1980s dramatically expanded the Collegeâs reputation. I saw firsthand how the power of relationships among participants contributed directly to the development of these senior leaders, their participation in the program, and their subsequent professional contributions. Month-long intensive leadership development programs have long since disappeared but the lifelong collegial relationships made in those times did not.
Gillian Mylrea, veterinarian, Head of Standards Department at the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE), grappled with this. She was facilitating a three-day seminar with participants from 24 countries to ensure they took on:
- Understanding their responsibilities as a Member of the OIE
- Improved animal health and welfare worldwide
- Prevented the spread of pathogenic agents via international trade
- Enhanced access to global markets for animals and animal products
- Avoided unjustified sanitary barriers to trade
- Participated in the OIEâs standard-setting process
This was no mean feat. This particular session was held in Nairobi, Kenya. Gillian and I discussed her strategy. Having worked previously with me in New Zealand, she wanted participants to truly engage with one another as they grappled with their broad agenda. She had researched how adults learn and was convinced that her organization would have a stronger and more consistent uptake of new policies if delegates engaged with one another rather than merely absorbed information.Historically, the seminar format included many presentations and little time for interpersonal interactions. Gillian had noticed few people interacted in the breaks. We settled on a different approach.To begin the seminar, Gillianâs invitation was for participants to meet one another. They were invited to stand in a large circle and introduce themselves with their name, role, and country. Gillian then asked, Who has been to five or more of these events? Please step forward âŠ, then step back again. Then, Who has been to between two and four of these events? Please step forward âŠ, then back again. Finally, Who is here at their first OIE event? Immediately, everyone had a picture of the groupâs depth of experience with OIE events, and also who the newcomers were.Delegates were then invited to choo...