Leaders - how to recognise and play to our strengths.
05 Dec 2007
Have you ever considered today's leaders in businesses or in other organisations and asked the questions - how did they get to be so effective and successful - how did they get to be where they are today?
I imagine that you have and when you did so you can come up with various answers relating to situational variables such as timing, luck, inheritance, being in the right place, sponsorhip etc. But you would probably also consider the personality, styles, intellect and drive that comes from within each leader. These characteristics and behaviours are packaged into the strengths that they deploy and use to become effective and successful.
You might also of course consider the flaws and deficiencies that they have that can limit or even derail them from their leadership task but we will consider these later and in today's article concentrate on those strengths.
Also we should consider that leaders largely become successful because of their concentration, focus on, use and development of their strengths rather than concentrating on their weaknesses.
So how does an emerging leader know that they have these strengths or are they just natural and used intuitively?
In some senses these strengths have often developed naturally as a person grows and matures and there is also an innate inherited link with some of them, particularly attitudes and behaviours which delineate our personalities.
But knowledge and skills can also be learned and acquired and therefore be developed and whilst part of this developemnt may be subconsciuosly learned, other aspects can be more consciously developed. It therefore follows that having a good self awareness and the focus and desire to learn and develop leadership skills, styles and behaviours will help emerging leaders become more effective and successful.
The sorts of processes in organisations that can help with this leadership developement and the conscious act of playing to our strengths are these:-
- having good role models to follow
- being well managed by your direct line manager
- being given good feedback & encouragement
- good leadership and management development courses
- assessment and development centres
- leadership competencies
- being given real leadership challenges
- mentoring and coaching
- formal feedback processes e g appraisals, 360 feedback surveys, opinion surveys etc
- personal development and career plans
- succesion planning
These are the sort of processes that can help with the conscious development of leaders and to encourage them to play to their strengths.
Later on this week I will go on to consider the flaws and weaknesses that can inhibit good leadership and potentially derail us.
Services
- Management Development and Training
- Leadership Development and Training
- Executive Coaching
- Performance Management and Accountability
- Team Building and Development
- Organisational Development and Change
- Customer Service and Customer Care
- Assessment and Development
- Human Resource Management
- Case Studies »
Training Courses
- Accountability
- Advocacy and Influencing Skills
- Appraisal Skills
- Assertiveness Skills
- Chairing Meetings Effectively
- Change Management Skills
- Coaching Skills for Managers
- Communication Fundamentals
- Conflict Management
- Creative Problem Solving
- Crucial Conversation Skills
- Customer Service Excellence
- Decision Making
- Facilitation Skills
- Finance for Non Financial Managers
- Giving and Receiving Feedback
- Improving Impact and Influence
- Interpersonal Skills
- Interviewing Skills
- Leadership Fundamentals
- Leading Remote Teams
- Managing Discipline
- Managing Diversity
- Managing Stress
- Negotiation Skills
- People Management Skills
- Performance Management
- Personal Effectiveness
- Presentation Skills
- Project Management
- Role of the Line Manager
- Stress Management
- Target Setting
- Team Briefing
- Team Working
- Time and Energy Management
- Time and Priority Management
- Train the Trainer
- What Makes People Tick?
