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Art of Leadership Blog

“The Leadership Challenge” Review 5

12/14/2011

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In “The Leadership Challenge” by Kouzes and Posner the fifth practice of exemplary leadership is to Encourage the Heart. Great leaders really bring people together, recognize contributions and celebrate community and relationship building.

Great leaders expect the best from their people and encourage them to step into their own. They also recognize people for their work and go out of their way to ensure that they provide reward and recognition that truly motivates that particular person. They tailor recognition to what that person would like because they take the time to get to know their people. They invest in building strong relationships with their teams and therefore can reward them with what that the employee will truly value.

Good leaders also invest in celebrations. They take the time to create rituals and events which honor progress and special events. They recognize that these are not frivolous events but truly create a spirit of community and demonstrate that they are personally involved.

The leaders recognize that they can work together, but if they can also have fun together then people will bond even more. The more the leader is involved in these celebrations the more that employees will feel engaged with the leader and truly feel connected to him/her. 

A great leader encourages the heart of the organization, of the people in the organization, of him/herself be involved in what is going on day to day. Often organizations or leaders don’t focus on the heart and therefore miss the connection. Kouzes and Posner, based upon their research, say otherwise. It is important to focus on the people, getting to know them, and building strong community as this will support a thriving work environment.

Do you invest in the heart of your organization and your people? If not, what can you do especially during this holiday season to change that?
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The Leadership Challenge” Review 4

12/7/2011

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As I continue to review “The Leadership Challenge” I will now discuss the fourth practice of exemplary leaders as outlined by the authors Kouzes and Posner: Enable Others to Act. As a leader a really important practice is developing your people and enabling them to learn under you, take chances, and eventually become a leader as well. 

Building trust as a leader is a key component of enabling others to act. It shows that you can let go of control, allow your employees to take some risks and develop their own talents, and thrive in your organization. As a leader you can show this trust by enabling increased collaboration among your team, encourage communication and team building, and enhance interactions by supporting in person meetings/events, etc. 

Leaders show that they can be trusted by leading by example by opening up first, and showing they support others. At the end of the day leaders have more power by giving power up to others.

The second way that leaders can enable others to act is to strengthen others by increasing their self-confidence through an enhancement of competence. Leaders can also strengthen others by giving them choices on how to do things, holding them accountable, and allowing them to determine for themselves the right course of action. Exemplary leaders take time to teach and coach their employees to eventually be leaders as well.

An old boss of mine used to tell me that I should always be developing the next person to take over my job. That stuck with me because it reminded me to invest in my team and build them up while it also encouraged me to build my skills so that I could move up to the next level as well.

What are you doing these days to enable others to act? Are you coaching and teaching your employees? Are you trusting them to take steps and build their skills? Are you giving them the freedom to fail and learn from their mistakes? If not what can you starting doing to enable others to act?
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Review of “Switch” 2

10/12/2011

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The next part of “Switch - How to Change Things When Change is Hard” by Chip and Dan Heath talks about the second component of making change happen in your organization, business, or life - motivating your Elephant.

The Elephant again is the emotional mind. It is one that is in touch with our feelings and emotions associated with the change. Oftentimes people are scared of the change - scared that they are not capable of achieving the change, withstanding the change, or making the change. So in order to truly motivate people the Heath brothers state that you need to make people believe they are capable of change by either “shrinking the change” or “growing the people.”

So how do you shrink the change? Well Strike says that you limit the investment that you ask for up front or you limit the amount of time that you ask for. Either way you are breaking up the change into bite size pieces so that you are providing small wins and therefore hope each time a small task is completed. As each step along the process is completed then your confidence builds that you can make the change happen and therefore your Elephant is growing.

The second way that you can help people believe that they are capable of change is to “grow the people.” That means that you can help people tie the change to a sense of pride, their identity or a vision of a better situation. As a result they have something that is guiding them towards a change and encouraging them to want to grow. It is shift in mindset to show them a vision of a better future and the benefits of that future. 

So in your organization how are you motivating your Elephant and those of your employees? Can you find ways to “shrink the change” or “grow the people” so that they are motivated to change or is their Elephant getting in the way?
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How to Handle Resistance to Change?

9/7/2011

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If you are going through a large scale change in your organization - be it a technology implementation, a change in strategy, or new legislation - there will inevitably be some resistance to from your employees. Why? Because each person reacts differently to a change, stress, or moving out of their comfort zone. There are some typical reasons, however, that employees resist change. Here are the top five:

1.They don’t know why the change is happening - if an employee does not understand why a change is happening and how it could be important for the organization as a whole they will often not accept or be resistant to the change. By making and communicating out a “case for change” employees can understand why the change is needed.

2.They don’t think that the “rewards” outweigh the “cost” - often people like to stay in their comfort zone. They want to keep doing what they are used to doing unless the benefits of the change can be made for them. With the case for change, leaders need to clearly state the benefits of the change and why the new change will be better than the old one. Then employees will begin to feel more comfortable with the change process.

3.There is not enough clarity around the change - often when there is change information is not provided as frequently or as well as is necessary. Openness and transparency are important when going through a change process. It is imperative to share information down from the leadership on why, when, and how the change is happening and keep employees informed about the progress of the change.

4.They don’t feel part of the change - If employees are not asked for feedback as part of the change process then they don’t feel part of the change, which can lead to resistance. Feedback is an integral pat in of creating buy-in and having employees feel like their input and feelings are being heard and integrated into the change process.

5.Past change efforts have failed - some employees can feel like this effort will be just like the others and therefore are not supportive of it. Communicating why this one is different and why and how it will be successful will go a long way to reassuring people as well as showing “wins” during the implementation time frame.

Are you seeing any of these behaviors exhibited from your employees during change efforts? What have you done to alleviate resistance to change in your organization?
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    Monica Thakrar

    Monica Thakrar has over 18 years experience in business focused mainly on strategy, change management, leadership development, training and coaching resulting in successful implementations of large scale transformation programs.  

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MTI Inc. is a woman-owned small business founded in 2008 | Monica Thakrar, CEO | DUNS #004654409 | NAICS Codes 541611, 541612, 611430 | Classification WOSB 

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