Leadership Assessment

Leadership & Influence

READING RESOURCES 2

Section One: Getting Started “Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead

where there is no path and leave a trail”.

Welcome to the Leadership and Influence ! Are leaders

born or made? Or are they people who rise to an occasion

or situation?

Training Objectives By the end of this subject, participants will be

able to: • Understand what leadership means.

• Explain the Great Man Theory.

• Explain the Trait Theory.

• Understand Transformational Leadership.

• Understand how to adapt your leadership styles for the people you lead.

• Understand leading by Directing & Coaching

• Understand leading by Participating & Delegating

• Kouzes and Posner

• Conduct a personal inventory

• Create an action plan

• Establish personal goals

Section Two: How Leadership Evolved

As long as there have been leaders, there have been those who tried to

determine how and why they were successful.

What is Leadership

“The capacity to establish direction and to influence and align others toward a common goal, motivating and committing them to action and making them responsible for their performance.”

• Honest

• Competent

• Forward-looking

• Inspiring

• Intelligent

• Fair-minded

• Broad-minded

• Courageous

• Straightforward

• Imaginative

.

Leadership Characteristics

Leadership Principles • Be proficient

• Know yourself and seek self-improvement

• Seek and accept responsibility

• Lead by example

• Provide direction

• Know and care for your subordinates

• Develop the potential of your subordinates

• Make sound and timely decisions

• Build the team and challenge their abilities

• Communicate and keep your team informed

Leadership through the ages

The famous leaders of our past usually fall into one of three categories: Political, Military or Religious.

The Great Man

It assumes that leaders are born and not made. Great leaders will arise when there is a great need.

The Great Man Theory was abandoned in favour of the theories of behavioural science.

The Trait Theory

It has often been said, “Great leaders are born, not made.” Trait Theory takes this saying literally. If you had the ability to lead, you were born with it and there was nothing anyone could do to learn it. As Psychology grew in prominence, however, more and more studies were performed on leadership and social dynamics.

Transformational Leadership

Working for a Transformational Leader can be a wonderful and uplifting experience. They put passion and energy into everything. They care about you and want you to succeed.

• Develop the vision.

• Sell the vision.

• Find the way forward.

• Lead the charge.

Section Three: Situational Leadership

Situational Leadership is a leadership model developed by Hersey and Blanchard. In simple terms, a situational leader is one who can adopt different leadership styles depending on the situation.

Situational Leadership

In this module, we will discuss the different types of “Situational Leadership”:

• Telling

• Selling

• Participating

• Delegating

Situational Leadership: Telling

Telling is the lowest level of leadership style. Most new employees require direct instructions, so this is called the “Telling” or “Directing” style.

The leader must focus highly on tasks, rather than a relationship with the employee, as a relationship does not yet exist.

Situational Leadership: Selling

Selling addresses the follower who has developed some competence with an improved commitment.

The goal is to fully engage the follower so they can develop to the next level. There is less “telling” someone what to do and more “suggesting” and encouragement, acting as a coach.

Situational Leadership: Participating

Participating addresses the follower who is now competent at the job, but remains somewhat inconsistent and is not yet fully committed.

The leader must participate with and support the follower.

Situational Leadership: Delegating

Delegating is the ultimate goal: a follower who feels fully empowered and competent enough to take the ball and run with it, with minimal supervision. There is a low focus on tasks and a low focus on relationships

Section Four: A Personal Evaluation

What abilities are able to influence

followers and bring them to accept the

leader’s vision as their own?

Which of these qualities do you

possess?

Which of these qualities do you need to develop?.

Using a Productivity Journal

The results of the Kouzes/Posner study, with the most important quality at the top:

Honest Forward-looking

Competent Inspiring

Intelligent Fair-minded

Broad-minded Supportive

Straightforward Dependable

Cooperative Determined Imaginative Ambitious

Courageous Caring

Mature Loyal

Self-controlled Independent

Create an Action Plan

• Set Leadership Goals

• Address the Goals

• Seek Inspiration

• Choose a Role Model

• Seek Experience

• Create a Personal Mission Statement

Section Five: Modelling the Way

The best leaders are examples of what they want their followers to be.

Inspirational Role Model

• Once you have chosen your role model, study what qualities made them successful.

• Learn about the challenges and how they were met.

• Learn about the ideas and philosophies that drove them.

Influencing Others’ Perspectives

A few rules to help you influence others are:

• Approach people with friendliness and warmth

• Share your point of view frankly but neutrally

• Listen openly to others’ opinions

• Be willing to negotiate

• Express appreciation

Section Six: Inspiring a Shared Vision

Leaders passionately believe that they can make a difference. They envision the future, creating an ideal and unique image of what the organisation can become. Through their magnetism and quiet persuasion, leaders enlist others in their dreams.

Choose Your Vision

What do you want to accomplish, and what do you need to do to get there? Determine attainable goals and focus on them. King Arthur sought the Holy Grail. Matthew Flinders circumnavigated and mapped much of Australia. NASA took us to the moon.

Communicate Your Vision

Communication is more than just the words you say or the memos you write. Remember, actions speak louder than words. Take every opportunity to communicate your vision in words and deeds. One of the best ways to communicate a vision is to sum it up in a simple catch phrase.

Identifying the Benefit for Others

• Answer the question, “What’s in it for me?” as if you were one of your own followers.

• If you can get your followers to accept your vision as their own, and excite them about being part of it, they will often excel beyond what you (or they) thought possible.

Section Seven: Challenging the Process

Leaders search for opportunities to change the status quo. They look for innovative ways to improve the organisation. In doing so, they experiment and take risks. And because leaders know that risk taking involves mistakes and failures, they accept the inevitable disappointments as learning opportunities..

Your Inner Innovator

• Innovation is more than just improvement on a process or procedure; it is a total redirection or restructuring based upon stated goals and research.

• Not all innovative strategies will be feasible or cost effective.

Room for Improvement

• A strong vision does not lend itself to mediocrity.

• A drive to excellence always seeks improvement.

• If you accept 95% efficiency as a goal, the efficiency will inevitably slip to 90%.

• A vision is a goal that is strived for.

Lobbying for Change

• You need to influence people and excite them to your vision.

• Do your research and never go into a meeting unprepared.

• Study and present in a short report, preferably with simple charts or graphs.

• Have the details ready but don’t overload people with facts.

• Show as clearly as possible how your plan will effect positive change.

Section Eight: Enabling Others to Act

• To be a true leader, you must enable others to act responsibly and not encourage bad worker habits by compensating for them or overlooking them.

• The goal of a leader is to empower others to work.

Encouraging Growth

As children we only learn to walk after we have fallen down many times. The lesson we learn from this isn’t the falling down, it’s the standing up again..

Creating Mutual Respect

Respect is a two way street, you will never be worthy of respect if you don’t give respect. Respect everyone at all levels unless they deliberately do something to lose that respect.?

The Importance of Trust

Keeping your commitments is paramount to building trust! When you make a commitment you build hope, and you build trust when you do it.

Section Nine: Encouraging the Heart

• To keep hope and determination alive, leaders recognise contributions that individuals make. In every winning team, the members need to share in the rewards of their efforts, so leaders celebrate accomplishments. They make people feel like heroes.

• It is important to always remember that your teams are made up of people, individuals in their own right, with emotions and feelings and should be treated as such.

Sharing Rewards

If your followers are going to share in the work, make certain they share in the rewards. If you are going to get a bonus for a successful task, share at least a portion of it with your followers.

Celebrating Accomplishments

• Set both personal and team goals and milestones.

• Nothing motivates someone like public recognition.

• Although some may seem somewhat embarrassed by a public display, inside they are proud they have been recognised.

Section Ten: Influencing Skills

If you tell people what to do, they may not listen to you and will probably resent you. You must get people to do what they want to do, while you influence their control over themselves.

Influencing is a successful technique because of the way in which your requests are presented. Remember the secret to getting what you want is the way you go about getting it.

The Art of Persuasion

• Aristotle identifies three important factors: ethos, pathos, and logos.

• Ethos (credibility) persuades people using character.

• Pathos (emotional) persuades people by appealing to their emotions.

• Logos (logical) persuades people by means persuading by appealing to their intellect.

The Principles of Influence

• Reciprocation

• Commitment

• Authority

• Social Validation

• Friendship

Section Eleven: Setting Goals

A vision without specific, targeted goals is just a wish or a hope. Without targeted goals, how will you ever know if your vision is being accomplished?

Create SMART Goals

Specific Measurable Attainable Realistic Timely

Long-Term Plans

• Also called ‘Strategic Planning’, the long-term plan is the road map that guides you to the ultimate realisation of your vision.

• A goal may be possible, but not attainable or realistic – at the moment.

• You may be missing a quality person for a key position or you may lack the funds or time to achieve the higher level goals, so lower level stepping stone goals must be planned.

Creating a Support System

• Once your goals are established, you need a way to ensure they are set into motion.

• Duties must be assigned and documentation must be established to support and track progress.

• Monitoring and oversight is key to achieving all goals.

Section Twelve: Wrapping Up

Words from the Wise

• Thucydides: The bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet notwithstanding, go out and meet it.

• And remember, you don’t know how far you can go, until you have gone too far.