Leadership Challenge

Leadership Lessons On-The-Go? We Have an App for That!

Piano players with a desire to improve their skills must practice. Actors who aspire to reach a higher level of performance must rehearse. Basketball players hoping to play in the state championship spend hours in the gym.

What about leaders? We’ve been espousing the merits of practice for years – the notion that it takes 10 years and 10,000 hours of deliberate practice to become an expert. If you strive to be a better leader, it’s critical that you find ways to work leadership practice into your daily lives.

 In our years of research and data-gathering through the Leadership Practices Inventory®, there is one specific behavioral statement that consistently ranks as the lowest behavior overall:  statement #16 – “I ask for feedback on how my actions affect other people’s performance.”

 THE LEADERSHIP CHALLENGE MOBILE LEADER TOOL, a new mobile app available for $4.99 through CNET or in the App Store for the Apple iPhone, iPad and iPod touch, offers a feedback request function to help leaders monitor the frequency of this and 29 other leadership behaviors. Enter your Leadership Practices Inventory® (LPI) scores, request regular feedback from your observers, and track the increased frequency of behaviors consistent with The Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership®.   

Whether you’ve studied the book, or are just becoming introduced to The Leadership Challenge®, the app offers practical features that get you started on becoming a better leader. Leaders at all levels benefit from ways to integrate deliberate practice routines into your daily work, be inspired by quotes of the day, and stay current on the latest news feed from The Leadership Challenge®.

 “I was very excited to learn about TLC Mobile Leader Tool, and my expectations were high,” says Kyle Taylor, Center for American Indians at Bacone College in Muskogee, Okla. “I was pleasantly surprised to find the tool very beneficial to research and writing in my graduate work in leadership."

"Because the sharing of knowledge is crucial to any leader and learner, the app allows me to quickly refresh my mind with specific knowledge I can use immediately. In my work with college students, we have implemented the app in our dining and discussion times as the learning component in our program. I have not been disappointed!”

 

The Best Leaders are the Best Learners

Leadership is not a one-time event, it's an ongoing process of growing, evolving and developing. One of the fundamental truths in The Truth About Leadership: "The Best Leaders are the Best Learners." We believe that we (and others) can learn to lead, and that we can become better leaders tomorrow, than we are today.

This statement seems fairly straightforward; and may be easier said than done. Many leadership development facilitators and coaches focus on developing and strengthening the leadership behaviors of others; it can be easy to lose sight of focusing on ourselves and our ongoing leadership learning.

In their Harvard Business Review article, "The Making of an Expert," K. Anders Ericsson, Michael J. Prietula and Edward T. Cokely say it takes 2.7 hours of practice per day to improve at a skill - whether playing tennis, honing your golf swing or learning keys on the piano. And not just routine practice - the article says "...you will need to invest that time wisely, by engaging in deliberate practice."

We found in our research that those leaders who engage more in learning are more effective as leaders. That is, their constituents see them as more effective. What does this look like?

• They spend more time in learning activities. Literally, they engage in learning by reading, talking with others, experimenting with new ways of doing things or reflecting on their own leadership behaviors.
• They ask more questions.
• They don't assume they know everything.
• They aren't afraid to admit mistakes.
• They ask for feedback, and when they get it they say "thank you" and accept it as a gift by taking it seriously, whether the feedback is positive or negative.
• They encourage others to experiment, take risks and accept failure by asking "What can we learn?"

How do you fit 2.7 hours of deliberate practice on your leadership skills every day? It's likely we do many of these learning activities already, yet we don't transfer learning from the activity into deliberate practice on leadership.

We invite and encourage you to invest in your leadership learning. Join us at The Leadership Challenge Forum, July 28-29 in Chicago, where we will explore "The Anatomy of a Leader."

Joining us as speakers will be Steven J. Stein on emotional intelligence, Ann Herrmann-Nehdi on the whole brain advantage, and The Chicago Comedy Company on creativity. In addition to learning from the line-up of speakers, you will learn by engaging in experiential activities with fellow members in The Leadership Challenge community. Take advantage of early-bird registration rates through April 30.

In what ways are you learning to lead? What activities do you do regularly to deliberately practice and improve your leadership skills?

 

The Leadership Challenge Coaching Workshop?

We are currently hard at work with Elaine Biech on book entitled The Coach's Guide to Developing Exemplary Leaders, due to release in Summer 2010. In conjunction with the release of the book, we are considering a TLC Coaching Workshop. Please let us know your thoughts on this exciting idea!