Learning Moments for Evolving Leaders
Providing leaders and their colleagues with inspiration – or reminders –
regarding the critical role leaders play in the lives of employees.
Michael Holland
Leadership Learning Moments for the New & Maturing Leader
Copyright © © 2013 by Bishop House Consulting, Inc.
ISBN 978-0-9848893-3-4 (eBook)
All rights reserved. No part of this
book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any
manner whatsoever without written permission from the
author except in the case of brief quotation embodied in
critical articles and reviews.
If you prize wisdom, she will make you great.
Proverbs 4:8 (NLT)
Introduction
Great leaders leverage opportunities to create deep self-awareness of their personal leadership style and build cohesive teams through trusted relationships. The Leadership Learning Moments contained in this book will prompt leaders at all levels of maturity to think about their leadership style, their relationships, and the impact they could have within their organization. As you read through these pages, take the time to reflect on your core management behavior, and consider the tweaks you could make in your leadership habits that would make you more effective.
Enjoy!
Michael Holland
Founder/President, Bishop House Consulting, Inc.
Mike@BishopHouse.com
The Role of a Leader
Create Organizational Clarity
I imagine that most employees can recite the general wording of the mission statement or vision statement or whatever statement is posted around their work environment. In our own lives we all have statements we’ve memorized: the Pledge of Allegiance, scouting pledges, the Lord’s Prayer, the first few phrases of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, the 1975 McDonalds jingle “two all-beef patties special sauce . . .” But there’s a distinct difference between someone reciting a statement and someone living the essence and purpose behind that statement. Somehow, there is a deeper connection to the intent of the statement.
The psyche of successful teams and companies centers on the concept of all members knowing intimately the purpose and intent of the entity. The employees or team members know their individual roles and how those roles help to achieve success for the greater good. This intimate knowledge comes from leaders who work hard to create, sustain and protect organizational clarity, which according to author Patrick Lencioni “. . .
Your role as a leader is to work with your peers to create organizational clarity, allowing employees to really know why the team and organization exists, whom it serves and what is to be achieved, then to behave and lead in ways that amplify those fundamental concepts.
What Will I Do When. . .
As a leader, you may ultimately be faced with a situation that you never would have believed could happen. A leader is charged with so much responsibility and often has little training or wisdom to deal with the challenges that life can bring. The list below contains real situations I, or leaders I know, have faced.
- An employee with a terminal diagnosis.
- An employee showing visible signs of physical abuse.
- An employee informing you that his local family has just found out that he fathered 2 kids in a foreign country, whose mother now wants to bring those kids to the US.
- A peer manager committing suicide.
- An employee alerting you to the fact that her deranged and abusive husband is coming to the office with a weapon in a jealous rage over a perceived interoffice relationship.
- A boss announcing a pending marriage to their same sex partner.
- An employee losing a child to illness, a car accident, or suicide.
- An employee borrowing against his retirement account to send his teenager to an extremely expensive, specialized rehab center in an effort to save his child’s life.
- An employee losing her home to foreclosure.
The Gap in Leadership Capacity
The Gap in Leadership Capacity
The Gap in Leadership Capacity
Assessing the impact of an organization’s leadership reveals an odd, almost indescribable foggy, murky blob of an answer. We can plot out a nifty graph that shows the maturity of leaders based on facts about time in the role, education, depth and breadth of assignments, success of attaining metrics, employee retention, performance, etc. More difficult though is the calculation of leadership wisdom defined as what leaders gained from their experiences, which they in turn translate into better leadership in the future. Further, if we could accumulate the valuable buckets of leadership wisdom across the organization, would we then have a true measure of the real maturity of the leadership asset with the organization?
We believe, and studies have shown, there is this appreciating – or depreciating – asset of leadership. We also believe and know that wise leaders at any level in an organization have an amplified positive impact on employee engagement. Therefore, if we increase this wisdom, we likely increase the value of our asset and, conversely, if the wisdom decreases then the value of the asset likely decreases.
So, maybe the real concern should center on understanding the opportunity cost we incur with regard to the size of the leadership capacity gap. That gap would be the difference in value of the leadership asset today and the value at full capacity.
To Think About
What if we could leverage 8% or 10% more of the nebulous leadership capacity, resulting in leaders being wiser, thereby engaging employees more deeply who then passionately impact customers. How might your bottom line be impacted?
We believe, and studies have shown, there is this appreciating – or depreciating – asset of leadership. We also believe and know that wise leaders at any level in an organization have an amplified positive impact on employee engagement. Therefore, if we increase this wisdom, we likely increase the value of our asset and, conversely, if the wisdom decreases then the value of the asset likely decreases.
So, maybe the real concern should center on understanding the opportunity cost we incur with regard to the size of the leadership capacity gap. That gap would be the difference in value of the leadership asset today and the value at full capacity.
To Think About
What if we could leverage 8% or 10% more of the nebulous leadership capacity, resulting in leaders being wiser, thereby engaging employees more deeply who then passionately impact customers. How might your bottom line be impacted?
