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!”