Duke Locked-On Teams

A Leader's Guide to High Performing Team Behavior
1. Auflage 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5439-7957-2
Verlag: BookBaby
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 206 Seiten

The culmination of more than a decade of diligent research and careful organization, Locked-On Teams: A Leader's Guide to High-Performing Team Behavior provides leaders at all levels, from front-line supervisors to senior executives, holistic guidance to leading in the complex and volatile twenty-first century. Structured around 28 guidelines, this book outlines the principles of modern leadership, backs them up with the latest in the cognitive and social sciences, and prescribes 86 activities that leaders can implement immediately to develop a high-performing team and organization.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Duke, William

Leseproben

L – LEADERSHIP “Leadership is an art that is made comprehensible by process.” - Christopher Kolenda, Leadership: The Warrior’s Art This book circumvents the age-old argument about whether leadership can be taught. Its assumption is that leadership is both art and science—that leadership and management are two sides of the same coin. On one side are the complicated knowledge and ‘hard’ skills of managing and on the other, the complex ‘soft’ skills of leading. At heart, this book is about the intersection of leadership and management, a place where processes and rules of thumb can be articulated and taught to generate and sustain high-performing teams. Leading requires an understanding of human emotions and motivations. To be a good leader, you must be emotionally intelligent. You must master the ‘soft’ skills which many managers find to be the hardest thing to do. Emotional intelligence is not easy to teach. Developing your emotional intelligence—or EQ—requires experience and the practice of compassion.2 Furthermore, quality leadership is also distinguished by its ethical dimension. Human history is filled with tales of great leaders who engaged multitudes to pursue wicked ends. Those leaders were effective at engaging emotions, but they led others to catastrophe. There is a single quote that stands above all others about the ethics of leadership that serves as a guide. It comes from Rear Admiral Grace M. Hopper, USN (1906—1992), a computer science pioneer. She made the ethical responsibility of leadership clear when she said that, “You manage things; you lead people.” Things are objects to be used. People, however, are subjects to be respected. They are things-in-themselves with their own purpose. They should not be used as objects or things. This division between things and people is a fundamental historical shift that happened in the 20th Century. Western-style democracies began to respect individuals as subjects rather than objects. Before this shift we used words like management and labor to distinguish between knowledge workers and hired help. This is the 21st Century. Everyone contributes their knowledge and experience to getting the job done. We are all knowledge workers. Leaders must treat everyone with respect and value them for the contribution they make. Leaders must make sure that everyone is engaged in shared success. This first section of the LOCKED-On Teams guide concerns the most “soft” and complex skills leaders should master with respect to the ethics of leadership. People, whoever they are and whatever role they play in an organization, expect fair and just treatment. They expect their voice to be heard. They also expect their leaders to guide them toward a better future or a compelling goal, or both. Leaders who can act ethically and cultivate ethical behavior throughout their organization create a tremendous advantage for themselves and others. It doesn’t guarantee success, but it certainly removes barriers. There are aspects of leadership that are unquestionably artistic. These aspects defy simple description or explanation. However, there are techniques and behaviors that experience—and in some circumstances even science—tells us are quite straightforward and therefore teachable. Leaders can execute some actions and activities that directly improve our team’s performance. This “L” section of the guidelines is the largest section of the book because of the complexity of the notion of leadership. But the eight guidelines and subsequent actions detailed for each will help advance anyone further down the road to mastering the art of leadership. L1 – Take Responsibility “Our response-ability is a direct expression of our consciousness and free will. To be an effective leader, in fact to become fully human, you need to become fully response-able.” – Fred Kofman Take Responsibility is the first item in the LOCKED-On Teams guide. It is also the most important. Without it, the rest of this guide is useless to you. You must own it. You must commit to being a leader rather than just occupying a title. If you cannot make that commitment, then put this book down. Give it to someone who can commit. For the sake of those you have been positioned to lead, it is this author’s hope that you will also lay down the responsibility of leadership and defer to someone else with the necessary commitment to being a good leader. If you can commit to taking responsibility, you are ready to begin becoming a better leader. These two words—take responsibility—are chosen carefully. You must take it. It can’t be given to you. Leadership is an act of will. But to be a great leader you must do more than just take responsibility. You must expand the scope of responsibility from the limit of your personal self to the actions and performance of your team. That’s an idea best described by former U.S. Navy SEALs and authors Jocko Willink and Leif Babin. They call it extreme ownership and describe it as the bedrock principle of great leadership in their book of the same name.3 Can you be a leader and fail to take responsibility? Of course! History is filled with stories of irresponsible leadership. Not all leadership is good leadership. Leadership is value neutral. At the expense of making a trite comparison, Adolph Hitler led others into a cataclysm. The reverse could be said of George Washington. It begs the question – what is leadership? Is responsibility an inseparable quality of leadership? I argue that it is not. If someone holds a gun to your head and commands you to do something you don’t want to do, especially something immoral, unethical or contrary to your personal values or the espoused values of the organization you serve, that is not leadership. That’s coercion. This is an important distinction for any student of leadership: leaders influence others to act. Coercion or control is not leadership. It takes followers for there to be a leader. If you influence no one, then you are not a leader however hard you may try. But, if you do influence others to act or think in emulation of your example, then you are leading – for good or ill. If you accept that influence without force is an essential quality of leadership, then you must also realize that power, whether through force or social position, is not. Anyone may be handed the position and power to control or coerce others (and that should be a bit unsettling). Good leaders understand that taking responsibility for how they lead and what they both consciously and unconsciously do to influence others is what defines their character. Good leaders are mindful of what they say and do and act responsibly for the consequences of those actions. Here is a simple experiment that demonstrates how leadership is in its crudest form a capacity to influence others. In the next business meeting (preferably one where participants are seated around a table) take a moment to stare at the ceiling. What did others do? How many people in the meeting, seeing what you did, looked up at the ceiling? We are social animals. We respond to behavioral cues. We unconsciously mimic each other. As you have probably known since you were a child, yawns are contagious. As this book goes to print, Derek Sivers’ TED Talk titled “How to Start a Movement” has over 7 million views. In it, he uses a video of a “dancer” to demonstrate how “a lone nut” (as Sivers describes him) can influence a crowd to join him in what is little more than an alcohol-induced flip and flail. Within minutes a huge crowd gathers around the dancer and imitates his performance. Is this an example of leadership? In terms of influence it is important to recognize that we as a species are highly sensitive to what Charles Mackay illustrated over a century and a half ago in his classic work “Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds”. We humans are highly susceptible to developing a herd mentality. One of the central tenets of this book is that leaders bear a responsibility to leading rationally and with responsibility. Perhaps glancing at the ceiling or dancing wildly in a public place isn’t burdened with ethical considerations. But, there is no clear delineation between imitation as innocent fun and a harmful, viral movement. Good leaders bear a responsibility for speaking and acting appropriately. Anyone can lead by influence. Only good leaders wield the power of influence with responsibility and with purpose. Good leaders do not hide their motives. Good leaders are not manipulative. They do not use falsehoods or rely solely upon misguided emotions to influence a group to action.4 Instead, they define a purposeful vision, represent it clearly, use reason to articulate its value, and recruit others to join them. They endeavor to lead honestly and with eyes wide open to the consequences of the effort they lead. They are mindful of the immediate and long-term results of both success and failure. Furthermore, good leaders take responsibility for the actions of their followers. That is the idea behind a captain’s...