subject: Leadership: Training and development-Again [print this page] Stars work smarter, not harderStars work smarter, not harder. Hence the famous invoice: to hitting machine with hammer $10; to knowing where to hit $1,000. The marketplace values outcomes: goals achieved, tournaments won, contracts signed. Think about it: what distinguishes the super salesperson from the talker, the winning golfer from the hacker, the high-return investor from the punter, the artist from the messy painter? It's not about doing more or tiring yourself out. As the author, Antoine de Saint Exupery, highlighted: perfection is not when there's nothing more to add but when there's nothing further to take away. So why does leadership training and development so often leave leaders still below par? Here are some thoughts.
Across your career, you've probably been exposed to workshops on technology, marketing, strategy, communications, time management, service benchmarking, waste reduction and so on. You will have learnt to analyse alternatives, work out solutions, do more with less and thus achieve your business goals. Yearly plans, their implementation and then post-mortems will have helped you hone those workshop-driven skills. But, what about leadership?
Too often this training remains at the level of concept, principle, case studies and war stories perhaps with some classroom role-playing. There's no analytical framework to find what's holding your people back and the leadership actions needed (from you) to build their commitment. Like many leaders, you've probably found your own approach, hoping it will work in most situations. But that's like hoping to market everything the same way without situation-specific analysis and planning. For example, I've known bosses assume the key is talking up the vision, energising everyone and building teamwork. Not realising perhaps their team is already onboard with these issues. But wants, say, input and modelling from their boss around sharpening service competitiveness and building customer relationships.
Leadership must be codified like other aspects of your work with a clear analytical and planning framework that leads to your situation-specific Leadership Action Plan. Defining what you, as the CEO or project leader, are going to do so others will want to follow and support you in giving effect to the business plan and what it requires from everyone.
Leadership is the great enabler. It's an opportunity across every business activity. But, for too many leaders, it remains a default, unthinking endeavour lacking even the magic that once came from examining animal entrails before a battle. People no longer believe in that sort of thing. However, if you've thought about all the market, technical, people and cultural issues and worked out what you must do to help and inspire your people, then you've got the beginnings of the most important organisational magic. It's called star leadership.
