5 Leadership Practices to Enhance your Life!

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I work a lot with Kouzes and Posner's 5 leadership practices, taken from their book and website, "The Leadership Challenge". The reasons I like them are:


a) they've been researched right across the world, so they apply to all cultures



b) they're simple to apply in both work AND life



c) I love the word "practices" – it means that we can all practice them and get better at them!



 

The 5 practices are:


Model the Way - being the best role model you can be. Being someone to look up to; to respect; to admire; clearly demonstrating your own personal values and principles



Inspiring a Shared Vision - having a future goal, idea or vision which you're moving towards and inspiring others to join in with you/support you on the journey



Challenge the Process - having a healthy dissatisfaction with what is. Taking a risk, experimenting with something new, learning new things, moving away from your comfort blanket



Enabling Others to Act - collaborating with others; sharing your expertise and learning from others; giving people what they need in order to thrive



Encourage the Heart - showing belief, faith, trust and support in others, especially when the going is tough. Being an awesome cheerleader. Showing people they can win



As you read through that list, I know that there will have been at least one of the practices which you know is your strength, and I also know that as you were reading, one of them sprang out for you as an area you're currently not so "hot" in.

 

Ideas for Action

  • Identify which of the 5 practices you believe you're strongest in. What are three things you could do this week to capitalize on this strength and make a real, positive difference to yourself, or someone/thing else?

 

  • Identify which of the 5 practices you believe you need to work on the most. What are three things you could do this week (including one thing TODAY) that would make a real, positive difference in this area – and enable you to feel really proud of yourself when you've achieved them?

 

  • In the words of Nike – Just Do It!

 

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FREE Your Strengths!

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A recent survey asked managers and leaders in work, "How often do you feel really energized in work and by what you do?" 73% of people answered "Once a week."

None of us can win on "once a week" energy! This can lead to people feeling that they're in the wrong job or they've outgrown the role.

But actually, there is not a single job in the world that any of us would love to be doing every minute of our working hours. None of us, no matter how contented we are at work, loves our entire job, because our job doesn't consist of one single activity. It comprises many different activities – some of which stimulate us, some which we can take or leave, and others which completely drain us of our energy and motivation. Given this, holding out for that perfect "dream job" could be viewed as a fool's game.

So our challenge now is to dramatically increase how often we play to our strengths. We need to take our existing work and each week, reshape it around our strengths – even in the face of obstacles from the world around us. Put this discipline into practice each week and we'll gradually, degree by degree, tilt the playing field so that the best of our job becomes most of our job.


 

The following exercise is adapted from Marcus Buckingham's highly acclaimed book: "Now, Put your Strengths to Work”.

Think about the activities which make up your working week. Make a list of all the activities which you consider a strength; which motivate you; excite you; energize you; that make the time simply fly by!

Now you're going to start to look for ways to "FREE" your strengths. FREE stands for:

Focus - Identify how this specific strength helps you in your current role

Release - Find the missed opportunities in your current role

Educate - Learn new skills and techniques to build this strength

Expand - Build your job around this strength

FOCUS

Perhaps now, more than ever, is the time for you to clearly demonstrate – and shout up to those in authority – what your unique strengths are and how they positively contribute to the success of your role. Big yourself up!

RELEASE

Organizations are looking for people to do more with less; be more; contribute more. Whilst this can often feel overwhelming, what if you were to do more of the stuff that energizes and motivates you? How would that be? Take some time to identify where – however small – you could use more of your unique strengths, and if you did – what would the role/team/your boss/the business benefit as a result of you doing so? Sell the benefits!

EDUCATE

Where else can you learn to build this strength even further? Are there any books/websites you could research? Attend a training course? Get some high impact coaching? What could you do to make this strength even more robust – and enjoy doing so? Make your strength watertight!

EXPAND

Once you've developed your strength even further, look at how you could shape your job to better accommodate your strength. That way, you'll feel more motivated because you're doing more of what energizes you and the business benefits, because you're operating at your best and delivering your best, more of the time.

 

Every week, look for 1 or 2 actions that you could take, that will help strengthen your strength – and go do them!

Until next time, enjoy feeding your flame!

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Deadline; Delegate; Dump

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We've all been there – To Do lists that are becoming epic in their content; Outlook keeps "pinging" at us to remind us about outstanding tasks – and we just change the due date so it leaves us alone(!); meetings, phone calls, conference calls – life can sometimes consume us and leave us feeling overwhelmed and overloaded.

 

Feeling like that is only going to mean that jobs and tasks take longer, which only serve to overwhelm us yet further. But good news! You can do something to regain control. If you take 20 minutes to follow these steps, you will feel better, lighter, focused and re-energised. And if you think you couldn't possibly find 20 minutes, because you're just too busy – ask yourself this question. If your hero (sports star, film star, rock star, etc.) walked into your office right now, you'd find 20 minutes to speak to them, wouldn't you? Course you would! Okay – let's go :P

Step 1. Write down a long list of everything you have to do. Even if you've already got one, two or more different lists on the go, compile them onto ONE list of items that are really pressing.



Step 2. Write down the deadline for each item and the time you believe it will take you to complete it. DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE THE TIME HERE. Whatever you think it will take – add 10%, in order to cover interruptions, etc. If it takes you less time in the end – great. You've got some time back. But this list needs to be as realistic as we can make it at this stage.



Step 3. You're now going to go through each item on the list and apply the 3D's to each one – Deadline; Delegate; Dump.



DEADLINE - have a look through and see which items you could extend the deadline to. For example, you may have promised your boss that you'd get her some information by the end of the week. Is it honestly going to make a massive difference if she gets it by Wednesday of next week? The truth is – you don't know until you ask. So have a look at any tasks which you feel you could feasibly change the deadline to. Ask the people involved – and give them as much notice as possible. Telling them at the eleventh hour is unlikely to appeal to their best side. The more notice they have, the more likely they are to help you out.



DELEGATE – have a look through the remaining tasks. Which can you delegate out? Even some simple, small things that you can hand out will make you feel better that you don't have to think about them any more. Be creative - you may not actually have a team to delegate to. But you may have a boss, colleagues, family members, your partner, your children….could any of them help out with even one thing? Choose the things that don't need much explaining, but that you can quickly hand over. Making a phone call; finding out some information; collating other information into one place – anything you can delegate, do it.



DUMP – honestly, are there any things on your list for which the optimum time has simply run out? These might be things you planned to do a while ago and have been on your to do list for ages. Because of that – are they really still relevant? Will the world collapse if you don't do them? Identify at least one thing on your list which you can simply dump.



I guarantee this will not take any longer than 20 minutes, no matter how many things are on your list. Going through this process will help you to quickly see what you can to do to regain control of what you have to do. The truth of the matter is – more often than not, we all have more things to do than we have time for. However, it's not about what you've got to do, it's about how you feel about it. So if you want to feel better about what it is you have to do, give your list the 3D's treatment!

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Getting to Better

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There are so many messages we’re bombarded with on being #1, being the best, being the top of the tree. We become conditioned to strive for that perfection…..and then feel frustrated when we don’t always make the grade. It becomes an unreachable destination.
 
We take a different approach. We believe that wherever you are, whatever the situation, you might not always be able to completely solve it, but you can make it better. “Better” is something within your power and influence. Getting to Better is a reachable destination!
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