Organizations often make the mistake of promoting very good sales or technical people to leadership positions without addressing the core issues of their leadership competencies. An excellent sales or operations officer will not necessarily become a great Sales Manager or Operations Director – as there is much more to being a leader than being competent at what you do. Organizations expect that when people arrive at positions of leadership, they will suddenly become leaders, but we all know it doesn’t work out that way. It is no surprise therefore that we often talk about a lot of technically competent people who are not very good at managing teams and leading people. A look around our organizations will reveal that a good number of our positional leaders have no business being in leadership positions at all, and a lot of time is spent by very senior leaders, human resources professionals and coaches to try to build leadership competencies in people who already occupy leadership positions but are already falling short of the expectations, at a huge cost and loss to the organization, and much to the detriment of the lives and careers of the people who they have to lead.
It is also interesting to hear people generally think of leadership training in terms of being focused on people in positions of leadership, rather than thinking about how to build leaders throughout the organization. I have even heard people argue that it is unwise to have too many leaders in an organization (what they must really mean is having too many positional leaders, as we will see below – can you ever have too much of a really good thing?). At the heart of this misnomer is the fact that most people are not clear about what leadership truly is, and how to measure it. On a personal note, my first experience in a leadership position was quite challenging, as I expect it would be for most 25 year olds given the responsibility of supervising 5 people who are all older than they are. I think I was really lucky to have soon learned what leadership really was and how to focus on that most important part of leadership. I didn’t become a leader when I became a Regional Manager, that actually only happened when I began the journey to becoming a person of influence, a journey which is continuous and will God-willing continue all through my life.
Leadership in the words of John Maxwell is Influence – nothing more and nothing less. The earlier we learn how to become a person of positive influence, the better we will be able to cope in leadership positions and grow progressively in our institutions. Forward thinking institutions and leaders must realize that influence skills need to be pervasive in the workplace for the organization to meet its objectives. Influence is about connecting with people, and getting them to achieve the organization’s goals. Influence matters and is applicable to entry level, senior, middle management, executives; as well as to sales people, middle-office or back-office employees. Influence is about making things happen in a broader organizational context – and that is exactly what real leaders do, irrespective of what position they occupy!
Quite an interesting number of organizations tout ‘leadership” as one of their core values or strategies but myopically think about it as something that people become when they attain a particular status or somewhere the organization gets to when it attains a position in its industry.
There needs to be a paradigm shift around what leadership means to individuals and organizations, and we all need to do a bit more to actually build influence throughout our organization and people, irrespective of their positions or titles. Early investments in leadership development and influence skills for younger professionals or even for students will go a long way in ensuring that when people do arrive in positions of leadership, they have already climbed up a few steps to higher levels of leadership. In fact, positional leadership is the most pedestrian level of leadership. Everyone occupies a leadership position – father, mother, husband, wife, teacher, trainer, director, manager, pastor, and priest – but how many of us are real leaders? Our people need to grow beyond their positions or lack thereof, and learn to lead by permission, production, people development and ultimately by personhood – the highest level of leadership where we sit at the height of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and allow our self actualization to reflect in all our relationships and interactions.
We have learnt that like life, leadership is a process, and not a series of events, and our commitment to building influence matters and needs to start earlier rather than later. So if you haven’t started, NOW is a great time!
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Saturday, August 28, 2010
Win With Yourself
People matter - it is no surprise therefore that at the heart of every significant success or woeful failure is a great relationship or a damaged one, respectively. Success therefore lies in your ability to win with people - your clients, prospects, colleagues, staff members, regulators, everyone and anyone. But before we start looking out to win with people, an important first step is to WIN with OURSELVES!
There are many common sayings that reflect the truism behind this thought - "you cannot give what you do not have", "love your neighbour as you love yourself" (you have to love yourself first). It's interesting but true - I watched a TV documentary the other day when a fireman asked the presenter - 'What do you think is the number one lesson you learn as a fireman?", and the presenter answered - "To save other people", "Wrong" responded the fireman, "you learn to save yourself". After all how can you save others if you haven't saved yourself? "Remove the speck in your eye before you talk about the log in others".
To win with you begins with four critical steps in self-discovery around your value. Think about a N500 note for a second, like the one crumpled and stashed away in the Sunday collection box, or twisted and curled up in the satchel around Mama Put's waist. Like it or not that N500 remains N500, no matter how rumpled and squeezed it is. Its value is not determined by its physical state or beauty, instead it is a function of what it is really worth, and what it can achieve. So too is the value of a human being, and indeed ourselves. We need to RECOGNIZE our value and see it beyond our physical looks, external appearances or material well-being. We must define our value based on who we truly are, what we represent, and what we can achieve.
An interesting part of our humanity are our insecurities and foibles, the things we are not very good at, which often create negative thoughts around our self-worth. Despite these "issues" that life brings, we need to ACCEPT our value, and who we really are. Too many times we get distracted by our insecurities, rather than face them and get better at them. To Win with ourselves we need to move further and INCREASE our value by getting rid of the self-limiting beliefs that these insecurities bring. I have heard people say things like - I am just a secretary, I am not an oga; I don't like maths; I am afraid of speaking in public. Remember, you said it, not anyone else. These self limiting beliefs place a lid on yourself and constrain your ability to increase your value.
The final step is to BELIEVE in your value. Package it, refine it, sell it and get paid for it. Never sell yourself cheap or short. You have a unique value that you bring and it is critical to reflect this as you go on along the journey of life. I remember struggling earlier in my career with getting appointments to see Chief Executives of Government parastatals, and getting through their secretaries. I later learned to wear a smile, pray, and think well of myself, and the value that my bank and I were bringing to the parastatal. Once I did, and won the battle within myself, my value began to work for me, as I am sure it would for you.
There are many common sayings that reflect the truism behind this thought - "you cannot give what you do not have", "love your neighbour as you love yourself" (you have to love yourself first). It's interesting but true - I watched a TV documentary the other day when a fireman asked the presenter - 'What do you think is the number one lesson you learn as a fireman?", and the presenter answered - "To save other people", "Wrong" responded the fireman, "you learn to save yourself". After all how can you save others if you haven't saved yourself? "Remove the speck in your eye before you talk about the log in others".
To win with you begins with four critical steps in self-discovery around your value. Think about a N500 note for a second, like the one crumpled and stashed away in the Sunday collection box, or twisted and curled up in the satchel around Mama Put's waist. Like it or not that N500 remains N500, no matter how rumpled and squeezed it is. Its value is not determined by its physical state or beauty, instead it is a function of what it is really worth, and what it can achieve. So too is the value of a human being, and indeed ourselves. We need to RECOGNIZE our value and see it beyond our physical looks, external appearances or material well-being. We must define our value based on who we truly are, what we represent, and what we can achieve.
An interesting part of our humanity are our insecurities and foibles, the things we are not very good at, which often create negative thoughts around our self-worth. Despite these "issues" that life brings, we need to ACCEPT our value, and who we really are. Too many times we get distracted by our insecurities, rather than face them and get better at them. To Win with ourselves we need to move further and INCREASE our value by getting rid of the self-limiting beliefs that these insecurities bring. I have heard people say things like - I am just a secretary, I am not an oga; I don't like maths; I am afraid of speaking in public. Remember, you said it, not anyone else. These self limiting beliefs place a lid on yourself and constrain your ability to increase your value.
The final step is to BELIEVE in your value. Package it, refine it, sell it and get paid for it. Never sell yourself cheap or short. You have a unique value that you bring and it is critical to reflect this as you go on along the journey of life. I remember struggling earlier in my career with getting appointments to see Chief Executives of Government parastatals, and getting through their secretaries. I later learned to wear a smile, pray, and think well of myself, and the value that my bank and I were bringing to the parastatal. Once I did, and won the battle within myself, my value began to work for me, as I am sure it would for you.
Influence Brings Recognition, by NIKE Oni
"One is too small a number to achieve Greatness" John Maxwell
The entire concept of a "self-made man" is one of the greatest fallacies of life. Indeed, one is too small a number to achieve success, and if we think about it, all the greatly successful people we know worked with a team to achieve their success. Even as he sat alone in solitary confinement for a good part of his prison life, Mandela's success could not have been achieved without the "team" of ANC members inside and outside the prison, who he frequently communicated with using secret letters and messages. Even when the means of conveying these secret messages was truncated, the virtual team work continued, as the team understood each other so well.
In the workplace, we find many managers who supposedly lead a team, but in reality are lone rangers. It is no surprise therefore that they struggle to achieve success, and gain the recognition for all their toil and hard work. The problem isn't that they are not smart or hard working; it is rather that they are attempting to achieve success without involving their team. Like Mandela, great team leaders not only achieve success, but actually get most of the recognition and attention, which as hard as they try to share with the rest of the team; the world continues to give them the accolades.
If you are struggling with success in your team at work, perhaps you should start asking; how much of a team player or team leader you really are? There are four clear reasons why many of us fail to leverage the full potential of our teams and by extension limit our success potential. Some of us are caught up in our ego. I once heard a CEO say to his management team that I am always right, I have all the ideas, all the solutions, and with or without you, I will be fine". It's no surprise that his team is not very creative, does not challenge his thinking, and that the company's potential is limited. There are other leaders who are just naïve about the limitations of their capabilities, and never tap into the potential and prospects of their teams. In their naivety, they find out way too late, that indeed the world does not revolve around them.
The worst case of this problem is with leaders who are insecure. Their greatest fear is that one of their team members will surpass their abilities. Leaders who are insecure are really lazy and incompetent, and are not willing to take up new challenges, or break new barriers. Even if your staffs tries to catch up with you because of what you have invested in them, you will always be on the lead yourself, because as you let go of smaller things, you will rise to greater ones.
Sometimes our natural temperament and disposition, do not allow us to get the best of our working with others in a team. A great example of someone who must have over-come this, is Mr Bill Gates himself, who is reputed to have Asperger syndrome, which is a condition that naturally limits social skills in people. Despite Asperger, Mr Gates has gone on to build perhaps the most potent team in the world by gathering people of diverse skills, and interests, buying out young innovators and integrating them into the Microsoft team.
Personally, I have had situations in my former place of work, where my temperament had not allowed me to connect with my team. Yes, I had it all within me, but found it quite difficult to relate ideas with my team because I always felt they were insignificant to the work in question, only to find out when it was too late that, just that 'little' could have made a great impact.
Dear Manager, struggling to achieve success all by yourself, even those with naturally mitigating factors like Bill Gates have conquered their temperament, and built great teams. I think it's time to link up and subdue your ego, rise above your naivety, and set aside your insecurity, to build your team, achieve the success that seems to elude you, and get the recognition that you desire.
The entire concept of a "self-made man" is one of the greatest fallacies of life. Indeed, one is too small a number to achieve success, and if we think about it, all the greatly successful people we know worked with a team to achieve their success. Even as he sat alone in solitary confinement for a good part of his prison life, Mandela's success could not have been achieved without the "team" of ANC members inside and outside the prison, who he frequently communicated with using secret letters and messages. Even when the means of conveying these secret messages was truncated, the virtual team work continued, as the team understood each other so well.
In the workplace, we find many managers who supposedly lead a team, but in reality are lone rangers. It is no surprise therefore that they struggle to achieve success, and gain the recognition for all their toil and hard work. The problem isn't that they are not smart or hard working; it is rather that they are attempting to achieve success without involving their team. Like Mandela, great team leaders not only achieve success, but actually get most of the recognition and attention, which as hard as they try to share with the rest of the team; the world continues to give them the accolades.
If you are struggling with success in your team at work, perhaps you should start asking; how much of a team player or team leader you really are? There are four clear reasons why many of us fail to leverage the full potential of our teams and by extension limit our success potential. Some of us are caught up in our ego. I once heard a CEO say to his management team that I am always right, I have all the ideas, all the solutions, and with or without you, I will be fine". It's no surprise that his team is not very creative, does not challenge his thinking, and that the company's potential is limited. There are other leaders who are just naïve about the limitations of their capabilities, and never tap into the potential and prospects of their teams. In their naivety, they find out way too late, that indeed the world does not revolve around them.
The worst case of this problem is with leaders who are insecure. Their greatest fear is that one of their team members will surpass their abilities. Leaders who are insecure are really lazy and incompetent, and are not willing to take up new challenges, or break new barriers. Even if your staffs tries to catch up with you because of what you have invested in them, you will always be on the lead yourself, because as you let go of smaller things, you will rise to greater ones.
Sometimes our natural temperament and disposition, do not allow us to get the best of our working with others in a team. A great example of someone who must have over-come this, is Mr Bill Gates himself, who is reputed to have Asperger syndrome, which is a condition that naturally limits social skills in people. Despite Asperger, Mr Gates has gone on to build perhaps the most potent team in the world by gathering people of diverse skills, and interests, buying out young innovators and integrating them into the Microsoft team.
Personally, I have had situations in my former place of work, where my temperament had not allowed me to connect with my team. Yes, I had it all within me, but found it quite difficult to relate ideas with my team because I always felt they were insignificant to the work in question, only to find out when it was too late that, just that 'little' could have made a great impact.
Dear Manager, struggling to achieve success all by yourself, even those with naturally mitigating factors like Bill Gates have conquered their temperament, and built great teams. I think it's time to link up and subdue your ego, rise above your naivety, and set aside your insecurity, to build your team, achieve the success that seems to elude you, and get the recognition that you desire.
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Connecting Creates Influence
“If I went back to college, I’d concentrate on three areas – learning to write and learning to speak to an audience”, US President Gerald Ford
Even a former US President Gerald Ford understood the importance of impactful communication and the difference it would have made on his political career. Many professionals struggle through their careers with similar handicaps. Few however ever realize that there is a much deeper perspective to communication than writing or speaking well. The real essence is in making connections.
I recall while on a shuttle-bus ride from the Hotel to the Johannesburg Airport, how a gentleman joined us on the board and completely turned the foul mood in a bus full of passengers who had missed their connecting flights from the previous night. As he walked into the moving bus, he wore a warm and friendly smile, shouted out a confident “Hello”, and began to chat with the passenger next to him. He turned around, greeted us all with a thumbs-up gesture, and it almost began to feel like we had met before. He immediately connected with us, and before we could say – “Jack Robins’, we were all laughing (or at least smiling) and being more positive about our dilemma. We learned during our ensuing conversations that he was a staff of the very same airline that had put us in that mess, and quite honestly, after connecting with him in this way, I didn’t feel like I was angry at the airline any longer, and so did a good number of us on the bus. I learned valuable lessons on connecting on this day, and I will share some of them as follows:
• Connecting creates influence, and is important in winning with people and achieving success (like the gentleman did)
• You can change a bad situation to a great one by being deliberate about connecting with the people involved.(like he changed our situation)
• Communication is beyond listening, speaking or writing – it is really about connecting (it wasn’t about how eloquent or how correct, it was about how well he connected)
• A positive attitude always ensures that you connect (positivity is infectious, that gentleman infected us quickly)
• Your attitude is conveyed in your body language, eye contact and your tone, and not much in your words or writings (The thumbs up, smile and confident tone did it all)
• Body language, eye contact and tonality are a reflection of your interest in others, if you are not interested in people, you cannot connect (he was definitely interested in cheering up his stranded customers)
• A great many academics, politicians, scholars (for example) are good at writing and speaking, but how many of them actually connect (he was just a lay man)
Four simple things we can remember as we learn to connect, and embark on our journey of positive influence are:
1. To connect, we must truly value people and connect with them;
2. Once we do, our body language, tonality and eye contact will reflect this;
3. When we write and speak, we must focus on the audience, and attempt to establish a real “connection”; and
4. We can achieve these and much more by being deliberate and focused about connecting.
Even as I share these words, I am focused on a number of friends and colleagues that I have seen struggle with communicating and connecting, and my sincere desire is to have made a connection with you, and by so doing influenced you to make better CONNECTIONS!
Even a former US President Gerald Ford understood the importance of impactful communication and the difference it would have made on his political career. Many professionals struggle through their careers with similar handicaps. Few however ever realize that there is a much deeper perspective to communication than writing or speaking well. The real essence is in making connections.
I recall while on a shuttle-bus ride from the Hotel to the Johannesburg Airport, how a gentleman joined us on the board and completely turned the foul mood in a bus full of passengers who had missed their connecting flights from the previous night. As he walked into the moving bus, he wore a warm and friendly smile, shouted out a confident “Hello”, and began to chat with the passenger next to him. He turned around, greeted us all with a thumbs-up gesture, and it almost began to feel like we had met before. He immediately connected with us, and before we could say – “Jack Robins’, we were all laughing (or at least smiling) and being more positive about our dilemma. We learned during our ensuing conversations that he was a staff of the very same airline that had put us in that mess, and quite honestly, after connecting with him in this way, I didn’t feel like I was angry at the airline any longer, and so did a good number of us on the bus. I learned valuable lessons on connecting on this day, and I will share some of them as follows:
• Connecting creates influence, and is important in winning with people and achieving success (like the gentleman did)
• You can change a bad situation to a great one by being deliberate about connecting with the people involved.(like he changed our situation)
• Communication is beyond listening, speaking or writing – it is really about connecting (it wasn’t about how eloquent or how correct, it was about how well he connected)
• A positive attitude always ensures that you connect (positivity is infectious, that gentleman infected us quickly)
• Your attitude is conveyed in your body language, eye contact and your tone, and not much in your words or writings (The thumbs up, smile and confident tone did it all)
• Body language, eye contact and tonality are a reflection of your interest in others, if you are not interested in people, you cannot connect (he was definitely interested in cheering up his stranded customers)
• A great many academics, politicians, scholars (for example) are good at writing and speaking, but how many of them actually connect (he was just a lay man)
Four simple things we can remember as we learn to connect, and embark on our journey of positive influence are:
1. To connect, we must truly value people and connect with them;
2. Once we do, our body language, tonality and eye contact will reflect this;
3. When we write and speak, we must focus on the audience, and attempt to establish a real “connection”; and
4. We can achieve these and much more by being deliberate and focused about connecting.
Even as I share these words, I am focused on a number of friends and colleagues that I have seen struggle with communicating and connecting, and my sincere desire is to have made a connection with you, and by so doing influenced you to make better CONNECTIONS!
Thursday, August 5, 2010
Leadership determines Success
Most leaders will agree that the root cause of almost every business challenge can be traced to the quality of leadership. Discussions at EXCO, MANCO or Board Meetings often dovetail to something that “leadership could have done better”. It’s either the leaders are not communicating effectively, they are not giving proper direction, or that leadership is not motivating the people, managing performance or creating the appropriate incentives for the followers. It is therefore not far-fetched to agree with John C Maxwell when he says – “everything rises and falls on leadership”.
In reality, organizations and individuals are quite in tune with this. For example when a soccer team fails to impress or a corporate scandal occurs, the first casualties are usually the Coach/Team Manager or the CEO, and the entire C-Suite respectively. Waiting till the team loses or the bank collapses to decapitate its positional leaders, may amount to leaving things till it’s too late. Rather, we must focus on raising our chances of success by lifting the lid on individual and organizational leadership, while we can.
Looking back for example at the recent scandal around the Nigerian banking industry, the banks’ leaders could have saved their banks well before Mallam Sanusi’s clamp down, if they had imbibed some principles of values-based leadership. Even at their lowest ebb, authentic leaders could have made personal sacrifices, and shown courage in confronting the issues bedevilling their banks. It is these values amongst other leadership principles and qualities that we all need to imbibe if we are truly to achieve success. From the nature of the scandals, it is clear to see that the banks’ leaders tried albeit unsuccessfully to achieve success without values-based leadership.
Trying to achieve success without focusing on leadership is an effort in futility. No matter how hard a man works, a lack of visionary leadership, people development and positive influence (the hallmarks of leadership) will limit your success potential. At the height of success, the story of Nigeria’s Super Eagles in 1994 was all about the inspirational leadership of the Coach, Clemens Westerhoof. His leadership must have made the difference, as it was still the same set of players whose performances in the years to come dwindled significantly under less-potent leadership.
Think about the most sustainably successful individuals, families, organizations and societies today and you will clearly see visionary and influential leadership. Behind every success story, is quality leadership – nothing more, nothing less!
The first step in your leadership journey should begin with this awareness of the impact of leadership on your personal/organizational success. A next step will be to support your awareness with a fervent desire to become a better leader and achieve your success potential. We all have a God given ability to lead, so all that will be left for our journey will be the appropriate tools and resources, and creating an environment to hone and practice our leadership skills.
In reality, organizations and individuals are quite in tune with this. For example when a soccer team fails to impress or a corporate scandal occurs, the first casualties are usually the Coach/Team Manager or the CEO, and the entire C-Suite respectively. Waiting till the team loses or the bank collapses to decapitate its positional leaders, may amount to leaving things till it’s too late. Rather, we must focus on raising our chances of success by lifting the lid on individual and organizational leadership, while we can.
Looking back for example at the recent scandal around the Nigerian banking industry, the banks’ leaders could have saved their banks well before Mallam Sanusi’s clamp down, if they had imbibed some principles of values-based leadership. Even at their lowest ebb, authentic leaders could have made personal sacrifices, and shown courage in confronting the issues bedevilling their banks. It is these values amongst other leadership principles and qualities that we all need to imbibe if we are truly to achieve success. From the nature of the scandals, it is clear to see that the banks’ leaders tried albeit unsuccessfully to achieve success without values-based leadership.
Trying to achieve success without focusing on leadership is an effort in futility. No matter how hard a man works, a lack of visionary leadership, people development and positive influence (the hallmarks of leadership) will limit your success potential. At the height of success, the story of Nigeria’s Super Eagles in 1994 was all about the inspirational leadership of the Coach, Clemens Westerhoof. His leadership must have made the difference, as it was still the same set of players whose performances in the years to come dwindled significantly under less-potent leadership.
Think about the most sustainably successful individuals, families, organizations and societies today and you will clearly see visionary and influential leadership. Behind every success story, is quality leadership – nothing more, nothing less!
The first step in your leadership journey should begin with this awareness of the impact of leadership on your personal/organizational success. A next step will be to support your awareness with a fervent desire to become a better leader and achieve your success potential. We all have a God given ability to lead, so all that will be left for our journey will be the appropriate tools and resources, and creating an environment to hone and practice our leadership skills.
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