Leadership Challenge

Head, Heart and Soul: Lessons from The Leadership Challenge Forum

It's been nearly 30 days since The Leadership Challenge Forum held in Chicago. By this point, we hope attendees have applied what they learned in addition to strengthening connections with others in their communities. 

It's difficult to describe the power of an experience such as The Leadership Challenge Forum. Year after year, its impact increases; not only for participants, but also for us. The Leadership Challenge and Student Leadership Challenge families continue to expand and we invite you to join us.

Remarkable lessons were shared from participants, keynote speakers and session leaders. Slides from keynotes and presenters are posted here. This year's Forum was designed to be learner-centered. Attendees contributed to our shared learning as much as the speakers. It's amazing to witness and be part of the outcomes when leaders come together to share, learn, and grow.

Our research over the past year regarding the Characteristics of Admired Leaders indicate what we've known from previous years: the number one characteristic people seek in leaders they would willingly follow is Honesty, which leads to our first law of leadership: If you don't believe the messenger, you won't believe the message. 

Do What You Say You Will Do (DWYSYWD) has evolved to DWWSWWD - Do What We Say We Will Do. Leadership is not about you - it's about us. Making leadership about us is dependent upon our credibility. Are we worthy of being followed?

To sustain credibility, a leader must follow six fundamentals: 

• Discover Yourself
• Appreciate Constituents
• Affirm Shared Values
• Develop Capacity
• Serve a Purpose
• Sustain Hope

Steve Dellaporta from the United States Department of Defense, Manpower Data Center, shared with us: "Without knowing who you are, you cannot lead with integrity." Do you know WHO you are? Can you articulate your personal values?

Who contributes to the organization's success? Appreciation is not just about successes, but also failures that become learning events. When you and your team can extract lessons learned from a failure, then it can lead to your next success. 

If you don't know your own values, how can your team develop shared values? Our research shows that shared values make a difference. When constituents align their values with shared values, they are more personally successful, more committed to organization and stakeholders, more willing to work harder and longer, and more clear about the alignment among their values and the organization's values. 

HOPE. One of our nation's greatest needs. What gives you hope? Our upcoming generations of leaders give us hope, which is why we've developed The Student Leadership Challenge. Today's students are tomorrow's leaders, and if we don't invest in them today, we won't have prepared them to lead us into the future. Many colleges and universities realize the importance of building the leadership needs of the next generation. 

Each of these fundamentals are explored in greater depth in our newly released second edition of Credibility: How Leaders Gain and Lose It, Why People Demand It. 

We leave you with the same powerful message we shared at the conclusion of the Forum:

Be careful of your thoughts, for your thoughts become your words.

Be careful of your words, for your words become your deeds.

Be careful of your deeds, for your deeds become your habits.

Be careful of your habits, for your habits become your character.

Be careful of your character, for your character becomes your destiny.

Be careful of your leadership,  for your leadership becomes your legacy. 

    

Credibility: It Still Matters

"You cannot follow someone who isn't credible, who doesn't truly believe in what they're doing -- and how they're doing it." - Gayle Hamilton, chief of staff for the senior vice president at Pacific Gas & Electric

Indulge us as we go back to one of our fundamental beliefs about leadership: leadership is a relationship between those who aspire to lead and those who choose to follow. As we took a deeper dive into the research we've conducted over the past 30 
years, we found the same crucial attributes year after year that people seek in leaders whom they would willingly follow: honest, forward-looking, inspiring, and competent. And these results hold true around the world. 

As we examine these characteristics one by one, each is a realistic attribute for a leader to possess. When viewed through a broader lens, the four descriptors combine to create a richer meaning as the foundation for leadership. 

Credit and credibility come from the same root word: credo, meaning "I trust or believe." In whom do you trust or believe? Who has earned credibility in your perspective, and why?

Credibility is not universally inherent; it must be earned over time. Some leaders earn it sooner than others based upon the quality of their relationships. Others must prove their worthiness to be deemed credible, perhaps based on previously broken promises or a lack of honesty, inspiration, or competence. Ultimately, credibility is determined by those who surround a leader. A leader who lacks the aforementioned crucial ingredients is one people are less likely to follow.

Credible leaders possess the ability to leave a long-lasting, postive impact on people's lives. Consider your answers to the questions above. Did the person who came to mind as a credible leader make an imprint on you? Have you made an imprint on others?

We cannot address credibility without referring to what we heard from Irwin Federman, venture capitalist and former CFO and CEO, when speaking to students at Santa Clara University:

"You don't love someone because of who they are, you love them because of the way they make you feel. This axiom applies equally to a company setting. It may seem inappropriate to use words such as love and affection in relation to business. Conventional wisdom has it that management is not a popularity contest... I contend, however, that all things being equal, we will work harder and more effectively for people we like. And we will like them in direct proportion to how they make us feel."

And just how do credible leaders make people feel? Our research of over a thousand case studies shows 10 descriptors used most often:

• Valued
• Motivated
• Enthusiastic
• Challenged
• Inspired
• Capable
• Supported
• Powerful
• Respected
• Proud

We leave you with this final thought: put yourself in the shoes of those you lead. How many of them would use these descriptors when sharing how you make them feel? What can you do to increase the frequency of leaving people feeling this way as a result of your leadership?

We'll have more to share about Credibility at The Leadership Challenge Forum, July 28-29 in Chicago. Hope to see you there. 

Until then, love 'em and lead 'em. 

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?