To help promote strong leaders, FlashPoint regularly facilitates The Leadership Challenge® Workshop. The developers of this popular program, Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner, built it around research they have conducted for more than 25 years. As part of their work, Kouzes and Posner questioned hundreds of thousands of subjects about their leadership skills. “By studying the times when leaders performed at their personal best,” they write, “we were able to identify five practices common to most extraordinary leadership achievements.”
During the workshop, we review in detail these Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership®, and participants explore how to apply them in their daily lives. To give a preview of the practices (and, we hope, to provide helpful advice even for those who don’t attend the workshop), we discuss here what they are and give examples of what they look like in action.
Regardless of context or situation, the five practices serve as helpful reminders for all leaders.
- Model the Way reminds us that our actions greatly influence others. I recently saw a mother yelling at her young son to “stop screaming.” How confusing this must have been to the little boy, as his mother was doing the very thing she was asking him to stop. Model the Way is about developing credibility and behaving in way that is consistent with our core values. Our influence as leaders grows as we take responsibility for the part we play and focus on how we show up in relation to situations and people in our lives.
What Model the Way looks like: You are faced with a challenging situation with a coworker. Rather than reacting emotionally, you respond from a place that reflects your values. You approach him with openness and honesty and share your thoughts, taking responsibility for your feelings.
- Inspire a Shared Vision reminds us that we are in control, creating our lives as we go. Are we living life by default, reacting to situations as they pop up throughout the day, or are we living life with intention, focused on where we are going and aligning our activities with the bigger picture? Notice the differences in these approaches. By working toward a vision, we inspire others to see meaning and help them become committed.
What Inspire a Shared Vision looks like: You have clear focus and know where you are going. You plan your monthly activities to ensure you devote time to bringing your vision to life. Each week you review your schedule to make sure that you balance your time appropriately to accomplish your goals. Each day you talk with team members about the future and make choices about how to spend your time based upon your vision.
- Challenge the Process reminds us that continual growth includes pushing ourselves out of our comfort zone and experimenting. If we keep doing what we’ve always done, we’ll continue to get what we’ve always had. Expansion includes taking risk and trying new things. Because the fear of failure so often holds us back, this practice area also reminds us that it is through our perceived “failures” that we learn the most.
What Challenge the Process looks like: I recently watched my seven year old in her first theater performance. We had practiced her part all week, and she had delivered it several times with confidence and enthusiasm. But as she took the stage for the performance, I could see her hands shaking and her lip quivering. She started to speak and appeared petrified, but she kept going. She fought through the fear and delivered the entire performance. Her courage brought cheers from the crowd, and I learned a valuable leadership lesson—growth comes by pushing yourself through discomfort. While it might not be pretty, the vulnerability and the courage greatly influence others.
- Enable Others to Act reminds us that we are not alone. All around us are brilliant, dynamic people who have enlightened ideas and opinions. We should seek them out and get them involved. We must empower them to step up and help us improve, providing them with challenging work that is within their ability.
What Enable Others to Act looks like: You regularly recognize the strengths of your team and provide opportunities for team members to demonstrate those strengths. You continually provide new challenges to stretch members and keep them engaged in their work, and yet you do not overload them. You pay attention to behaviors to ensure that individuals are balancing challenging activities with activities in which they have a lot of confidence.
- Encourage the Heart reminds us that each person has a unique and valuable perspective. We must recognize the contribution that each individual offers, encouraging him or her to support the team’s success. To sustain hard work and dedication, individuals must know in their hearts the value that they add, and to reach the hearts of others, our appreciation must be genuine and sincere. Of the five practice areas, this is the one we have the most control over, and it is the one that we often forget about.
What Encourage the Heart looks like: Your team is in the middle of a project with an incredibly aggressive timeline. Members are working long hours and putting in a lot of effort to accomplish the goals. The most important thing you can do is to lift them up, rewarding and recognizing their efforts personally. So you write a handwritten thank-you note and post it on one team member’s desk. You know that another enjoys a cup of coffee from the local coffee shop, so you beat her in one morning and have his coffee waiting for him. You order a fruit basket for an afternoon snack for all to enjoy. It’s these simple things that have the most impact.
Across all types of organizations—small or large, for-profit or nonprofit, local or international—effective leaders demonstrate these five practices. We encourage you to focus on them as well; reflect upon them, incorporate them, and share them with others. By making them a part of your life—both professionally and personally—you’ll follow a proven path toward leadership success.
Based on content from The Leadership Challenge® Workshop, 4th Edition, published by Pfeiffer, an imprint of John Wiley & Sons, Inc. © 2010 |
