Leading Change

One of the books that I have read on leadership is called "Leading Change" by John P. Kotter. John Kotter is an expert on business leadership and is a frequent speaker at top management meetings around the world.

One of the parts of the book that I find interesting is how he talks about the importance of lifelong learning. He states " lifelong learners take risks. Much more than others, these men and women push themselves out of their comfort zones and try new ideas. While most of us become set in our ways, they keep experimenting" (Kotter, Leading Change, pg 182).

He talks about five mental habits that support lifelong learning. These traits are 1. Risk taking 2. Humble Self-reflection 3. Solicitation of opinions 4. Careful listening 5. Openness to new ideas. In his descriptions of lifelong learners it not only seems to be people that never stop learning, but people that actively seek out opinions and ideas from others, to keep growing. I think that the trait that I think is the most important to a lifelong learner, and a leader is Openness to new ideas. I think that not only do they seek out new ideas, they are OPEN to new ideas, which i feel is a big component in being a leader and seeing outside of the box. He also talks about how lifelong learners have the mental habit of being a risk taker, and also being humble with self reflection. When he talks about risk taking, I don't believe he means jumping out of a plane, but he means more they have to be willing to push themselves to do something that they normal wouldn't feel comfortable doing. When he says Humble self-reflection he is talking about the ability to realize when not only they succeed, but they realize when they fail and they Can honestly review that situation and learn from it. Another trait he says that lifelong learners have that make them good leaders is they Solicit opinion, they get information from others. They see what their followers want, and use this information, they don't just lead blindly. A final trait that he talked about was careful listening. We talked about this in class, and how to be a good listener. I definitely see how this is a trait that a leader would need to have.

After looking at the five traits that he described as habits of the lifelong learner, I see how these do relate to being a good leader and how they are important traits to have. Do you agree ? What of the five traits do you think is the most important?

Followers as Leaders

Barbara Kellerman, a Lecturer in public leadership at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government made the following comments about followers " while they may lack authority, at least in comparison with their superiors, followers do not lack power and influence."

The book MGMT by Chuck Williams, talks about how "as more organizations become flatter, or adopt less hierarchical organizational structures, it is becoming increasingly clear that leaders and followers are dependent on one another" (pg 256) It then goes on to discuss how their are five different types of followers, and how leaders need to understand what type of followers they have.

When I was growing up my dad use to to always tell me "don't be a follower, be a leader", as a 6 yr old I wasn't QUITE sure what this meant. My father taught this to me by showing me that instead of following what everybody else was doing, I could break away from the crowd and lead my own way. In High School and in College I was awarded with leadership awards, and participated in leadership camps. At every leadership event, it was seemed to believe that the group of us "chosen"leaders would lead and when we got back to our sports teams/clubs/school---they would follow us. However, I agree with the book that followers and leaders are dependent on each other. Followers are more outgoing, putting the idea out there, but if there is nobody following that idea, than really ...who are they leading? Same goes for followers, they need to have somebody that motivates them, that say something, or has a plan that they want to emulate.

I think there is a very close connection to followers and leaders...which type are you?

How to Define Leadership and Managment

"Historically, writers who have tried to define leadership as something different from management have focused on what it means to be in charge of a group"--Mitch McCrimmon Ph.D

Mitch McCrimmon has over 30 years experience in executive assessment and coaching, and he has written many articles on leadership. One of his articles "How to Define Leadership and Management" This article talks about the shift in definition of leadership and management and with how times are changing, the definitions are changing as well.

The new definition that Mitch creates is "we should say that management takes care of everything to do with execution, leaving leadership to promote new products and services, to challenge the status quo and advocate a better way."

I agree with this "new" definition of management and leadership, it is what we have talked about in the class and in the book, but it makes more of a defined line between the two. I think that this works in black and white situations, as in a company where there is a product you are selling and you need the leaders to get out and sell that and the managers to figure out how to sell it--however there isn't always a situation that is black and white like that. In some companies the manager IS the leader as well.

I do think though, giving the managers and leaders a solid definition it does help to better define them in the workplace and give them "roles" and goals to achieve

Famous Leadership Quotes

Some of my Favorite Leadership Quotes on leadership are below;

"Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it."

Dwight Eisenhower

"The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done, and self-restraint to keep from meddling with them while they do it."

Theodore Roosevelt

Managers vs Leaders

What are the difference between managers and leaders? Are they interchangeable or are they the same thing? Are all managers leaders or vice versa? I know that these seem like a lot of questions but for me it was something that I really wanted the answer to. Our school book talks about the difference between leaders and managers, and I also found an interesting article that delves deeper into the subject.

This Article was on the Changing Minds website and it entitled Leadership vs. Managers . I found that many people can be both leaders and managers, but just because you are a manager does NOT mean that you are an automatic leader. Leaders have characteristics such as "they focus on vision, mission, goals and objectives" while managers" see themselves as preserves of the status quo" (Chuck Williams, MGMT, pg 253)

This article also talks about how managers have subordinates, while leaders have follows. With a manger, you don't choose who your manager is, you have to be their subordinate. However with a leader, they don't necessarily have to be "above you" in your job, they can be a co-worker that is at the same level as you, and they could still be a leader.

I have found through my different jobs, that the best managers I had were also natural leaders. I think that being a leader is very important in being a manager, do you agree?

Leadership Styles

While browsing the Internet I came across an article that talked about Four styles of leadership.
It talked about the four styles of leadership as being Autocratic, Bureaucratic, Laissez-faire, Democratic.

While reading about the different types of leadership it seems that Democratic Leadership is the best style of leadership, "The democratic leadership style is also called the participative style as it encourages employees to be a part of the decision making." I would think that this would appeal the most to employees, feeling as if they could make a difference in the company, that what they did mattered. Every employee wants to feel that they have a voice, unfortunately I don't think this always happens.

The type of leadership that is most similar to my current situation is Autocratic Leadership Style "This is often considered the classical approach. It is one in which the manager

retains as much power and decision-making authority as possible. The manager does not consult employees

, nor are they allowed to give any input. Employees are expected to obey orders without receiving any explanations." I feel that this leadership style does NOT lead to a good work environment. From personal experience, working in this type of environment makes it very hard to find motivation and to do the best you can at work. You feel that you have no say, and that nothing you do matters, so you lose the drive to work as hard as you can.

Bureaucratic leadership is defined as "where the manager manages “by the book¨ Everything must be done according to procedure or policy.

Laissez-faire leadership style is known as "the “hands-off¨ style. It is one in which the manager provides little or no direction and gives employees as much freedom as possible."

What type of leadership best reflects your job? Do you think it's a good type of leadership?

The Benefits of a Feminine Leadership Style

In my last post I talked about "judging a book by its cover", so while scanning the Internet, when I came across the WSJ article entitled "The Benfits of a Feminine Leadership Style" I knew I had to read it.

In this article Sung-Joo Kim, chairman and chief executive of luxury-goods company MCM Worldwide, talks about how women have an advantage in the corporate company, because they are more sensitive and can relate to employees. At the end of the article it asks us, as readers what we think, do we think about working for someone with this type of leadership style?

This got me to thinking about this, I think that it really depends on the type of industry and the level of manager that you are. This was a Top Manager that was saying this, and although that might work in her industry, and I think its always good to put yourself in your employees shoes--as a top manager you are responsible for change and commitment, and sometimes that means you have to make hard choices. I think that it is Important for first-line managers to be more sensitive since they are the managers that encourage, their employees and if they are more sensitive to their needs I think that they can relate to their employees better and be more available to them as a Manager.

What are your thoughts? Do you think sensitive leadership is good for managers to have?

Don't Judge a Book By It's Cover

At work I am the Leadership Specialist for our Volunteer leaders in our association. Because of this, I was interested in reading Chapter 13 in our MGMT book, about leadership.

One part that I read that I found interesting, was the excerpt on page 255 that was entitled " Don't judge a leader by her Chanel". This talked about how the findings of one study showed that female candidates tend to fare worse in elections then their male opponents not only because of gender, but because of how attractive they were. I definitely do not think this is fair, but if that is the way that people think, I think that is is even MORE important, especially for woman to learn good Leadership traits and behaviors so that people will focus on the skills that they have instead of focusing on what they are wearing.

One of the traits that I think is pretty obvious, but is also VERY important is the "desire to lead". The book talks about how successful leaders have a stronger desire to leave, and I feel this is true to the core.

If you don't WANT to be a leader, and are forced into that position for some reason, you will most likely not excel.

What are some traits that you feel are important to be a good leader?

Diversity

Although not dealing with leadership, I just wanted to share the clip that I was talking about last class about diversity from the movie Anchorman.

In this clip you see that the boss is having to add diversity to the work team, by adding a female co-anchor. You can see from the reaction of the news, that the workers are not aware of what diversity is.

Let me know what you think.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLuK-EBkcww