HOW TO “BE” A STAGE TWO LEADER

Do You Set Your Employees Up For Success?

“What if you had a job that tapped into your passion, a job in which your leaders became your servants – where they existed to personally or systematically helped you do your job? What if structures or systems were supportive, helpful, and were geared toward enabling, identifying, and releasing your potential? What if you were continually recognized and rewarded, and most importantly, felt the intrinsic satisfaction of contributing significantly to a cause you felt worthy of such heartfelt commitment?”

Steven Covey

I don’t believe I could describe a “Stage Two Leader” better. If you’re a new leader, seasoned leader, manager, of entrepreneur wanting to grow your leadership influence, take this paragraph to heart!  The challenge is, do you know of any leaders/business owners that see their position like this? If you do, please let me know, I’d love to write about them!

Your Leadership Will Stagnate if You Linger at This Stage

THE RELATIONAL STAGE For the New Leader, the Seasoned Leader, or Manager of a Company! (Without relationship, there is NO influence!)

At this stage the leader realizes that “PEOPLE” are the focal point and mission of their leadership. Because this is perceived as the “touchy feely” stage, many would like to avoid or skip it completely, but it will create a litany of problems if they do. It has to be about PEOPLE and PRODUCTIVITY for the leadership equation to work.“People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” Is the motto of this stage!

In the Relationship Stage:

• The leader has a growing understanding of their personal purpose and influence.

• The leader is growing into a “secure person” who isn’t out to prove anything, or “be” someone. They are comfortable in their own skin, not trying to impress anyone, or feed off of anyone’s approval or affirmation of them.

• The leader, at this stage, has learned that the must develop their most appreciable asset, PEOPLE!

• The influence of the leader is because they have established interdependent relationships.

• People feel the leader cares about them at this stage, their needs and dreams as an individual, as much as they care about the work they do.

• The agenda is to bring out the best in their employees, while assisting them to fulfill their mission and personal aspirations through their position.

• The leader knows the names and faces of their people, while continuing to discovering more about them each day.

• One can tell they’re at this stage because people contribute and participate willingly when it isn’t expected of them.

• There is an open door policy where communication is welcomed rather than squelched or avoided.

• The leader is open to new ideas, is flexible, and willing to change if it is a win-win for everyone.

• The leader knows how to tactfully deal with challenging people. They don’t avoid issues that need to be addressed, correcting problems and people before they escalate.

• The leader listens more than directs. And when he does speak, people listen intently.

• The leader is able to admit mistakes, taking ownership of his responsibility without blame shifting, cave dwelling (avoidance), or attacking.

• At this stage they can become overly confident in their influence, which may lead to egocentricity if they don’t advance to the next level soon enough.

THE CHALLENGE: If a leader stays on this level too long they wear out by trying to impress and please people. They will become frustrated because they are spread too thin. Therefore, they must learn to relinquish control and delegate, or they will burn out.

Can Leadership Expertise be Trained and Acquired? pt 1

In my effort to learn and participate in the social networking site, “LinkedIn”, the number 1 business social networking site, I asked a question to one of the 13 groups I’m part of, and received 15 responses from the “Executive Reform Movement” group.  I’ve answered this question as well as asked two from the group to be my guest bloggers today, and with their permission, I’ve posted their responses on pt. 2.  After reading them, let me know what you think.

I asked this because it is my passion to provide training, support, and coaching to those leaders that “fall” into the role of leadership, and find themselves ill equipped to handle the demands of the position. Something my husband and I faced over 30 years ago, while leading a growing segment of a non-profit organization. Given the position, we then received no training, it was trial and error, hit and miss, and a lot of prayer.  We failed, we excelled, we grew, and it was the beginning of my recognizing how many of us find ourselves in the same “titled” position.  Ta da, you’re now a “LEADER”!  But there’s no magic wand that infused us with the knowledge and skills we needed.  Hence, my reason for having this blog, dedicated to you who want to grow your competencies and be the leader others want to follow.

Now, it never fails to amaze me when I watch leadership transformation take place, that THE TWO most important competencies for growth are: 1.  A willing heart to try things and break out of their comfort zones, and 2. a teachable spirit. Through trial and error, with the support of coaching to re-engineer, train, apply assessments for self-discovery, while cheering the executive along, I’ve seen all kinds of change occur. I’ve observed leaders who were incompetent, ego centric, insecure, lacking motivation and vision, and those who were clueless as to what was needed, make complete transformations! And I can say, wholeheartedly, and emphatically YES – leadership expertise can be trained and acquired by anyone willing and teachable! The book that first revealed the necessary stages, and opened a whole new world to us was, Dr. John C. Maxwell’s book, “Developing the Leader Within You” still relevant today. Between this book and “Be a People Person”, by Dr. Maxwell, we began our assent into the realm of servant leadership, taking our eyes off of getting people to do what we wanted, and onto assisting, equipping, coaching, and motivating people to become all they could become as a new leader, seasoned leader, or manager. It is now an honor to work with the many gifted, highly qualified people who have touched many lives. It is with this motivation that I hope those I coach will find the same great reward. It’s worth the effort to acquire the right heart motivation, and in the end, the employees will continue to make their bosses rich in many ways!

Sue Porter “The Accidental Leader” CPLP, CMEC