(1/2) 2019 in full flow, but fundamentals of leadership remain unchanged
The start of a new year signals the opportunity for taking on new challenges, and a chance to put those resolutions into practice. In business that might involve a promotion, taking responsibility for a larger team, or moving to a new role in a different company altogether.
Those who find themselves directly responsible for managing people will have plenty of questions about the right approach to the tasks required of the modern manager on a given day.
However, the fundamentals for great leadership remain as true today as ever.
After extensive research, a report from the Harvard Business Review in November 2018 highlighted the six fundamental leadership practices that all great leaders need for success:
Uniting people around an exciting, aspirational vision
Building a strategy for achieving the vision by making choices about what to do and what not to do
Attracting and developing the best possible talent to implement the strategy
Relentlessly focusing on results in the context of the strategy
Creating ongoing innovation that will help reinvent the vision and strategy
"Leading yourself”: knowing and growing yourself so that you can most effectively lead others and carry out these practices
I’ll dissect the first three leadership practices and how RL Performance tackles these with its clients. In my next blog, I'll discuss the others.
1. UNITING PEOPLE AROUND AN EXCITING, ASPIRATIONAL VISION
The practices aren’t listed in order of importance, but an aspirational vision can’t be overstated and I emphasise to my clients the need for one. Consistent over time and regularly communicated, the vision is really the element from which everything else flows. It’s within the vision that you get the “why” of the business. What is it that will excite people about being part of this team or organisation? In an age where people move roles quite freely, I sum this up as: of all the places I could work, why do I choose to work here?” This is about the articulation of a direction of travel; it’s absolutely not about operational tactics (an all too common mistake).
2. BUILDING A STRATEGY FOR ACHIEVING THE VISION BY MAKING CHOICES ABOUT WHAT TO DO AND WHAT NOT TO DO
This is about expressing how you’ll deliver the vision. Employees need to be able to see how the strategy rolls up to the vision. A strategy should be transparent throughout a team or organisation, and each member of the team should be able to clearly see how their own personal objectives are aligned with the company strategy.
RL Performance uses a framework pioneered by some of Silicon Valley’s most successful companies to help its clients formulate this. It helps to break down each piece of the puzzle in a straightforward way. I’ve been using it for years, and highly recommend it (see image below).
What I observe in teams who've applied intellectual rigour to their vision and strategy is that there's less fretting about the tactics. A strong vision and strategy become a filter through which the tactics pass, and team members will often ask themselves "is this piece of work I'm doing contributing to the vision?" If the answer is no, a high performing team will stop doing it and focus on something that does.
3. ATTRACTING AND DEVELOPING THE BEST POSSIBLE TALENT TO IMPLEMENT THE STRATEGY
Once the vision and strategy is in place, it’s important to think about your recruitment approach (both in terms of acquisition and retention). To begin, I talk about the “A Player” method with my clients. There’s plenty of literature out there on this topic, but I often begin with the following definition:
“A candidate who, in your judgement, has at least a 90 percent chance of achieving a set of outcomes that only the top 10 percent of possible candidates could achieve.”
This in itself is quite a statement. It's important to understand the characteristics of A players; what makes them tick, the feedback styles they respond best to, and what changes you might need to make to the team (e.g. the worst possible thing you can do to an A player is to put them in the same team as B or C players).
A great leader has a clear plan for team development. I'm an enthusiastic supporter of the GROW model (image below) to use for framing the conversation with each team member about what they want to achieve. In relation to skill development, a great leader will use various tools at their disposal for each member of their team, for example:
"Pushing the comfort zone"; presenting in front of group, attendance to a course they wouldn’t normally consider
The mentorship of junior colleagues across the business, or perhaps externally through their university/business school networks
Whatever options a leader chooses, a successful leader is aiming for the midpoint where the company vision (the company wants to go) meets with the individual's vision (the person wants to go).
I'll review the other three leadership practics in my next article. For more information, visit: rlperformance.org.
