|
|
|
5 Tips to Customizing your Resume
Gone are the days of the bland, generic one-page resume. Employers these days are more impressed by a resume that is customized and they tend to give jobs to interviewees that have a bit of knowledge about the company. By doing your research,...
Book Summary: Mind Your Own Business
This article is based on the following book:
Mind Your Own Business
A Maverick’s Guide to Business, Leadership and Life
Doubleday & Company, Inc., 2003
ISBN 0-385-50959-6
208 pages
A maverick is an independent person who will...
It's Still About Customer Service
My shopping experience lately has been amazing, and not in the good sense. Most of the time when I walk in a store one of four things happens: (1)I can tell who the salespeople are because they’re walking around with headsets on talking to one...
Lifetime Training
Lifetime Training By Arthur Cooper (c) Copyright 2005 Most companies agree on the need to keep up to date. Most companies agree on the need for an efficient workforce. Most companies agree on the need to train their staff. So why don’t most...
PRONTO ERP Selected by OTI for PoppaCorn
OTI, Optimization Technology Inc., located in Mississauga Canada, has been developing and implementing ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) systems since 1984. The Canadian VARs (Value Added Reseller) customer base appreciates the features built into...
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Leadership Like White Water Canoeing
PERMISSION TO REPUBLISH: This article may be republished in newsletters and on web sites provided attribution is provided to the author, and it appears with the included copyright, resource box and live web site link. Email notice of intent to publish is appreciated but not required: mail to: brent@actionleadership.com
Word count: 909
===========================================
Summary: Despite the fact that globalization has forced leaders to transform the way they do business, many of them are nonetheless engaged in outmoded methods of leadership. These methods are centered on the "order" way of leading, which relies on directing people to accomplish tasks. But because order-leadership requires hierarchical dynamics of command and communication, it founders in an environment of rapid change. New ways of leading must be developed to enable businesses to thrive in the today's storms of historic change. Such leadership involves not ordering people to do tasks but having those people "want to" do the task. Its when people "want to" that they become highly adaptive and competitive. Such leadership has three principle qualities. It is motivational, action-based, and results-driven. Filson examines these principles in this blue print for new leadership action.
===========================================
Leadership Like White-Water Canoeing
by Brent Filson
Although world business is undergoing historic changes, the prevailing view of what constitutes business leadership is stuck in the past. Generally, business leaders view leadership as an order-giving process. The word "leadership" itself comes from old Norse root meaning "to make go." Many leaders believe that they must "make" people go by ordering them to do things.
But today's new business realities are requiring new kinds of leadership, leadership that has very little to do with order giving. Organizations are more competitive when leaders don't make others go but instead have those others make themselves go — when employees are not ordered to do tasks but instead are in the frame of mind and heart that they want to do those tasks. That "want to" is the cutting edge of competitiveness.
Order-leadership in business has its roots in the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution. "Order" comes from a Latin root meaning to arrange threads in a weaving woof. The captains of the Revolution dealt with the relatively uneducated country people who flocked to their factories by ordering them where, how, and when to work. The most efficient and effective production methods resulted from workers being "ordered" or ranked like threads in the woof of production lines. Refined and empowered by the Victorian commercial culture, with its patriarchal power structure and strong links to Prussian military organization, the culture of the order-giver leader reached its zenith in the United States after World War II.
During the post-war years, many U.S. businesses were like ocean liners plowing through relatively calm seas, their leaders, like liner captains and mates, running things by getting orders from superiors, giving orders to subordinates and making sure that those orders were carried out.
But today, with competition increasing dramatically, with the volume and velocity of information multiplying, with the pyramidal structures of order-giving businesses flattening, leaders need skills not akin to ocean liner piloting but white-water canoeing. Order leadership founders where lines of authority are blurred, information proliferates, markets rapidly changing, and employees are highly skilled and educated.
A new kind of leadership, a new vision of leadership is needed — leadership based on the principle that the leader doesn't make others go by ordering them about but instead has them go by creating an organizational environment in which they prompt themselves to go.
This new leadership is: 1. Motivational. 2. Action-based. 3.
Results-driven.
Motivational: Leaders do nothing more important than get results. But leaders can't get results themselves. They need the people they lead to get results. And the best way for them to get results is not to order them but to motivate them to take action that produces results. However, the English language misconstrues motivation. English describes the act of motivation as something one person does to another person. Leaders can't motivate anybody to do anything. We communicate — the people themselves motivate. They motivate themselves. Only they can motivate themselves. The motivators and the "motivatees" are the same people. We engage in the new leadership when we recognize that we are motivating people to get results only when we set up an environment in which they are actively motivating themselves.
Action-based: A key aspect of the new leadership lies in the first two letters of the word motivation. Those letters — "mo" — are also found in the words "motion," "momentum," "motor," "mobile," etc. The words denote action — physical action. Motivation isn't what people think or feel but physically do. To engage in the new leadership, leaders must constantly be challenging others to take physical action that leads to results.
Results-oriented: Motivated people are useless to a business. People taking action are useless to a business. Only those people who get results are useful. The thing is that people who are motivated and taking action are more likely to get results. Leaders must have a passion to achieve results. Not just results — but more results, faster results. They must permeate the culture of their organization with a more results faster esprit.
Clearly, many order leaders have a passion for results. But as to the new leadership, how people get results is as important as their getting those results. To get more-results-faster, the order leader demands that people run faster in the organizational gerbil wheel. But there is a limit to how fast and hard people can work before they burn out. The new leader, however, recognizes that to achieve more results faster on a continuous basis that people can't simply speed up, work harder, and be straight-jacketed by tight controls. They must replenish their spirit and energies. They must slow down to develop and employ powerful processes, and they must challenge others to lead for results. The new leader's effectiveness is not measured so much by his/her actions but by the effectiveness of the leadership activities he/she challenges others to engage in.
The recent emergence of interlocking global markets has stimulated a new vision of world commerce, a vision of a single global playing field. Leaders must match their business activities to the demands of that vision. But a corresponding new vision of leadership has not emerged.
Stuck with an outmoded vision of order leadership, today's leaders are not seizing the full array of opportunities before them. When they begin to establish leadership that is not order-driven but is instead motivational, action-based and results-oriented, the world might not beat a path to their door but more importantly, they will beat paths to the doorsteps of the world.
=============================
2005 © The Filson Leadership Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
About the author:
The author of 23 books, Brent Filson's recent books are, THE LEADERSHIP TALK: THE GREATEST LEADERSHIP TOOL and 101 WAYS TO GIVE GREAT LEADERSHIP TALKS. He is founder and president of The Filson Leadership Group, Inc. – and has worked with thousands of leaders worldwide during the past 20 years helping them achieve sizable increases in hard, measured results. Sign up for his free leadership ezine and get a free guide, "49 Ways To Turn Action Into Results," at www.actionleadership.com
|
|
|
|
|
| The Art and Science of Leadership |
| The very essence of leadership is that you have to have a vision. ... Leadership Development Outline - contains the leadership guide listed to the right, ... |
| www.skagit.com |
|
| LeadershipJournal.net | Church Leaders & Leadership Training |
| Leadership's award-winning and relevent editorial provides timely insights on critical issues facing today's pastors and church leaders. |
| www.christianitytoday.com |
|
| Leadership - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia |
| Leadership can come from an individual, a collective group of leaders, ... Though advocates of the "big man" school of visionary leadership would have us ... |
| en.wikipedia.org |
|
| Leadership - Forbes.com. |
| Careers, Jobs, Management, Money, Compensation, Salary, Bonuses, Corporate Citizenship, Corporate Responsibility, Corporate Social Responsibility, ... |
| www.forbes.com |
|
| LeadershipNow - Leadership Development - Main Page |
| A source for free articles and shopping for leadership resources. |
| www.leadershipnow.com |
|
| Leadership University |
| Collection of articles in PDF format for distribution to classes, leadership teams, or outreach audiences. Sponsored by Campus Crusade. |
| www.leaderu.com |
|
| Center for Creative leadership: leadership at CCL.org, leadership ... |
| leadership at CCL.org. Specializing in leadership development, leadership training, executive coaching at CCL. |
| www.ccl.org |
|
| U.S. Senate: Senators Home > Senate Leadership |
| It shows the Senate's relationship to other branches of the Federal government and provides a quick view of Senate leadership, officers, and committee ... |
| www.senate.gov |
|
| Leadership |
| Quick Search This Journal:. Leadership. Sign up for SAGE Email Alerts today! Select an Issue from the Archive February 2005—November 2006 ... |
| lea.sagepub.com |
|
| Leadership |
| Describes programs, products, and services of the Covey Leadership Center, The goal of which is to help solve personal, professional, and organizational ... |
| www.ncrel.org |
|
| Academic Leadership |
| Articles and Essays for those in academic leadership roles - from unit coordinators to university presidents. |
| www.academicleadership.org |
|
| United States House of Representatives, 109th Congress, 2nd ... |
| Leadership Offices. Office of the Speaker · Office of the Majority Leader · Office of the Democratic Leader · House Majority Whip · Democratic Whip ... |
| www.house.gov |
|
| Amazon.com: Leadership: Books: Rudolph W. Giuliani,Ken Kurson |
| Amazon.com: Leadership: Books: Rudolph W. Giuliani,Ken Kurson by Rudolph W. Giuliani,Ken Kurson. |
| www.amazon.com |
|
| Leadership.com |
| Welcome to Leadership.com: Shaping the leaders of the Internet era ... Leadership.com offers several modules that empower leaders to build more effective ... |
| www.leadership.com |
|
| Leadership Network |
| Identifies and connects innovative senior pastors in the US and Canada through Leadership Communities and other events. |
| www.leadnet.org |
|
| Educational Leadership |
| Selected responses will be included in either the print or online versions of Educational Leadership. The deadline for this special section is December 8, ... |
| www.ascd.org |
|
| The Leadership Trust - Excellence in Leadership Development |
| The Leadership Trust has launched a new leadership development programme specifically ... The Leadership Trust recently welcomed The John Smith Fellowship ... |
| www.leadership.co.uk |
|
| Progressive Policy Institute: Defining the Third Way |
| Progressive Policy Institute, Democratic Leadership Council Home ... It is time for progressives to fill the leadership void on energy policy by offering a ... |
| www.ppionline.org |
|
| Business Leadership Skills - Leadership Development Training ... |
| Inc.com's Leadership Resource Center covering topics such as leadership development training, business leadership training, and business leadership skills. |
| www.inc.com |
|
| Leadership |
| These pages aim to expand the readers knowledge and understanding of the continuing debate in management studies about the role of leadership in the ... |
| www.ee.ed.ac.uk |
|
|