“The Leadership Challenge” by Kouzes and Posner is a guide to leadership development based on years of research. It is a practical guide which discusses five practices of exemplary leadership. Each of the next five blog posts will discuss one of these leadership practices.

The first leadership practice is called Model the Way. The authors say that exemplary leaders know who they are, have a voice, and communicate their beliefs out to others. They truly stand for something and are willing to fight for the beliefs that they espouse. They have values that they hold dear, which they have explored and tested to ensure they truly believe in them. Exemplary leaders also are able to share those values and create agreements and common understanding around them.

Exemplary leaders also Model the Way by setting an example. They follow through on what they say they are going to do, personify the shared values of the group, and spend their time living the values that they espouse. They also teach others to live by these values by confronting critical incidents (e.g. - unexpected events) and reinforcing good behavior.

In the research in their book people chose Martin Luther King Jr. and Abraham Lincoln as examples of exemplary leaders because they had strong beliefs that they followed through on in order to Model the Way for others.

What values do you espouse? Are you living those values? Are you creating an agreement around those values with others in your organization?  Are you modeling the way in your organization?

The last section of “Breaking Away: How Great Leaders Create Innovation That Drives Sustainable Growth - And Why Others Fail” talks about how to activate growth in your people, in the marketplace, and in yourself as a leader. The authors say that the culture of the organization needs to be open to innovation and the customers of the product/service need to be receptive to it in order for innovation to truly take hold.

In an organizational culture where innovation can thrive the authors say many of the following traits exist: people feel valued, there is a collaborative environment, there is a solution orientation as well as trust, honesty, open communication, a celebration of learning from success and failure, an embracing of diversity, a drive to provide value to customers, and a culture of empowerment. Overall the culture is accepting and open for people to thrive and grow and take risks to achieve their vision. 

From an activating the market perspective the authors say that innovation really comes down to understanding what customers want or need and why they want it.  A product or services needs to fill a desire that the customer either knows or may not even know they had. Once you find the right combination to really entice your customers to buy then the authors say it is about communicating with them and getting early adopters who will advocate for your product or service. Finally it ends with getting continuous feedback and making updates to the product/service as a result.

Finally as a leader it is getting yourself activated by creating a vision, setting metrics/benchmarks, doing a gap analysis and then taking the steps to fill the gap. 

It takes courage to innovate as well as good conditions within your organization as well as with your customers in order for a product/service to be successful. Having the ability to take risks personally as well as an organization is going to be dependent how safe and secure you feel in yourself and your organization to take those risks.

How willing are you to activate your innovative skills? How in tune is your organization with customers? How willing are to create the right culture in your organization to allow for innovation to thrive?

In the second part of “Breaking Away” the authors Jane Stevenson and Bilal Kaafarani say that without leadership there is no innovation. They say that innovation can be an inspiration, but leadership is the way that it becomes reality or a commercial success.

The authors say that true leaders create an environment in their organizations to allow innovation to prosper as well as become successful. It shields the innovation from the quarterly financial mindset of many organizations and creates an atmosphere that encourages employees to try things and fail. Innovation leadership also inspires people to take risks and reach their potential.

They define innovative leaders in four ways: 

1.Have certain capabilities and characteristics such as confidence, intuitive, good listening skills, genuine, courageous, humble, and tenacious as well as the ability to dream big and have others follow that dream

2.Have a large network and affiliations outside of just their organization in order to broaden their thinking and learn and grow from others

3.Whole thinking or being able to balance both right brain (creative, intuitive) and left-brain (logical, analytical) thinking

4.Sustainability through living in a balanced way (e.g. - having interests outside of work, having downtime, etc)

They then break down these innovative leaders into personality types described below: 

1.Transformational leader - bold, visionary, independent, see things in a way that few other people can, want to change the world

2.Category leader - a builder and thrives on growth opportunities, entrepreneurial, comfortable with risk, like to be in a collaborative environment

3.Marketplace leader - know the game plan and what their role is, in tune with other’s moods, emotions, politically savvy, and good at motivating

4.Operational leader - organized, detail oriented, risk averse, need for safety and predictability

Each of these types of personalities can be present in an organization at different times in order to help a company or business go to another level. In a previous company I worked for the leader to took the company public was a category leader, but then the leader who was brought in to stabilize and eventually sell the company was more of an operational leader. Each leader brought in different types of skills and yet were needed at that particular time in the growth of the company.

What type of personality are you as a leader or are the leaders in your organizations? Do you have the characteristics of an innovative leader? How can you develop or hone some of the characteristics of this type of leader?

This is a review of the first part of “Switch - How to Change Things When Change is Hard” by Chip Heath and Dan Heath. This book describes three major ways to make change happen in any part of your business, organization, or life. They describe the three methods - as directing the Rider (your rational mind), motivating the Elephant (your emotions), and shaping the path (providing guidance on how to get there).

This post will focus on the directing the Rider. The Rider is the rational mind and can often get stuck in “analysis paralysis” when a change is occurring. The Rider might not know how to change or what to do or it could be exhausted from trying so hard to change (and moving past the emotional Elephant) that it loses steam. The rational mind can also get stuck in choosing the short term gain versus the longer term view of things (e.g. - eating chocolate now or losing weight in the long term).

So what do Chip Heath and Dan Heath say about directing the Rider? They say first that you need to find some bright spots or positive examples of when this change has successfully happened in the past. For example when have you been able to implement a successful process or technology change? What were the key components of making that successful? The Heath brothers argue that if you or someone in your organization has been able to do it before then you can do it again. It is like Tony Robbins always says: “Success leaves signs.”

The second way that Chip and Dan Heath say that you can direct the Rider is to give it direction. They say that the best way to get of the analysis of the mind is to envision a future where the change already exists. Lay it that vision in detail and know what that long term looks like and feels like. Then they say to script out the critical moves to get there. If the new vision is a new process change then script out what the old process is, what the new process could be, the gaps, and then first 5-10 ten steps on how to achieve that new process. Then your employees will know exactly what to do in bite size pieces so that they can start to make the change without the rational mind getting in the way.

So what bright spots can you identify in your organization to help you with your current change process? Or what vision are you trying to achieve in your life? And how can you map out the critical steps that you can use to start getting there today?