Character Strengths of the Leader — Are you developing yours?

Today we have a guest blog from Marty Vondrell:

Do you know somebody in a leadership role that you don’t enjoy working with because of how they are being at times? Do they speak to you in a way that makes you want to move away from them or even do something worse?

And for the people that must work for the leader - Do you think they want to follow this leader?  Do they give them full effort?  Or do they give them the least amount of discretionary effort they can without losing their job?  Or worse yet, do they actively work against the leader?

Could this be the reason that the leader is less successful than their potential? Are they derailing their business success because of how they are showing up as a leader? Do you know this person intimately?  Could this person be you?

We all need to develop our character strengths.  Nobody’s perfect.  The research results are clear that character traits or emotional intelligence are the key to leadership and success in business. 

Fortunately, character traits are developable.  Unlike other factors of your success, you can develop them with a little work.  The key is awareness.

Leadership character traits are made up of polarities.  Developing strength in each end of the polarity is crucial to become a conscious leader.  The first step is to become aware of the contradiction and balance it within yourself. 

For example, one dimension of a strong character trait is the ability to take bold action in the face of scrutiny and disagreement.  At times, a leader must be able to do this.

At the same time, a leader must be considerate of other views and let followers be heard.  If a leader never listens or considers others views, the leader will have no real followers.  The employees will be coerced into action.  This will not get the discretionary effort any good leader is looking for.

Do you see the power in the possibility of improving your leadership in this way? — If you are willing to put some conscious effort into developing your character traits, you will see amazing positive changes in how people relate to you and fight for you.

Where do you start? —

•      Become conscious and observant of your own presence. 

•      Utilize a leadership model to become aware. 

•      Play the witness role in some of your interpersonal interactions. 

•      Without judgment — observe yourself.  Be honest with yourself about how people are reacting to you and the results the interactions produce. 

Where could you improve? How are you “being” with people?  What do you like and what could get better?

The next step is to pick one thing.  Pick one trait that you want to improve.  Don’t work on more than one but only work on the one thing you choose to improve.  And work on it ferociously.  Stretch yourself. 

Push yourself to the extremes of that character trait, both over and under doing it at times, to see how people react.  This is the work that will make you conscious about your character traits.  And it will bring out the extraordinary leader in you.

Toughest part of leadership

Today we have a guest blog from Jim Hessler:

I surfed the ‘net today looking for answers to this question:

“What is the toughest aspect of leadership?”

Not surprisingly, I found a lot of answers.  Examples:

• Making decisions
• Looking at yourself honestly
• Dealing with conflict
• Building a culture
• Taking action when you “don’t know”
• Dealing with negative employees
• Letting go and delegating
• Being consistently positive

But here’s my favorite. It comes from a college basketball coach named Kevin Eastman:

• The hardest part of leadership is this:  you must be able to tell the truth.

Amen, Kevin. I agree wholeheartedly. The ability to speak the truth is a rare quality. It involves risk.  It invites conflict.  It often incites passionate response.  For all these reasons, it takes tremendous courage.

Like so many other aspects of leadership, telling the truth puts you “out there” in an exposed place – on the proverbial limb where all you can hang onto is a fierce belief in your instincts, your convictions, your intellect, and your openness to being influenced by the perspectives of others.

Telling the truth also creates tremendous potential for growth – for you, for your relationships, and for your organization.

As you go through the rest of your day today or tomorrow, monitor how aligned your words are with your convictions.  Are you couching?  Hedging?  Not being as straightforward as you could for fear of … what — not being able to tell the truth effectively?

Or, on the other hand, do you tell the truth too bluntly, not assessing how it’s landing on the recipient – not assessing whether the way they hear it motivates them in a positive way?

JIM HESSLER

… brings over 25 years of business management and executive leadership experience to Path Forward, which he founded in 2001.

Jim has been an award-winning salesman, sales manager, general manager, and executive. He has specialized in turning around underperforming operations, and in the mid 90’s he helped lead a massive national reorganization for a Fortune 150 company.

Jim’s experience in general management has resulted in broad and deep knowledge of nearly all aspects of a well-run business. From building and managing a sales organization, to managing complex inventories and delivery systems, to generating vision and trust in demoralized organizations, to leading complex restructuring efforts, Jim has earned a depth of knowledge and insight that serves his Path Forward clients exceedingly well, regardless of the leadership challenges they face.

Jim lives in Issaquah, Washington, and has been married for 32 years to Paula Weiss, a teacher in the Issaquah School District.