What are the leadership qualities that can build this congruity between your words and actions? You must start by understanding yourself; you must be able to demonstrate the qualities you expect others to emulate. You must practice focused leadership and fulfill the four objectives described in the Powerhouse Partner Model.
Knowing yourself—your strengths and weaknesses—in both interpersonal and technical competencies is the foundation of leadership. Being grounded in your values gives you a powerful voice of confidence and conviction. Understanding and being comfortable with who you are as a human being puts others at ease and makes you approachable. Leaders grounded in personal mastery lead by example, not by power or position. Leaders attain personal mastery by
Having an accurate understanding of personal strengths and weaknesses
Using an open, honest, direct, and candid communication style
Being receptive to positive and constructive feedback
Knowing inherent conflict styles and striving for win-win solutions
Building emotional security
Understanding personal technical capabilities
Being realistic about personal work habits
Building networks and partnerships
Knowing limitations both interpersonally and technically
Seeking input when problem solving
Keeping commitments
Seeking interaction with colleagues
Trusting that others have good intentions
Focusing on future events
Understanding personal need for control and boundaries
Being compassionate and expressing empathy for others
Working collaboratively with others
Being comfortable linking personal success with team success
Envisioning a future that is grander than self and having a noble cause that excites others are vital leadership goals. Being open to possibilities and aligning those opportunities with others who have a shared vision create commitment and lead to action. Trailblazing builds trust and inspiration, resulting in unlimited possibilities and growth. Leaders inspire vision by
Knowing their passion
Identifying a big theme
Expressing themselves in future-oriented language
Imagining possibilities
Communicating using future-focused imagery
Appealing to the senses
Using powerful and compelling language
Acting as if the future were today
Dreaming the big dream
Including others in the future
Appealing to the common interest
Looking outside the organization, industry, geographic area
Being bold
Exciting people to achieve more than they thought possible, aligning tasks in ways that deliver unexpected benefits, and opening the door to influence from others create momentum and a compelling case for action. Rewarding collaboration, fostering interdependence, and creating networks and information-sharing environments exponentially increase task output and quality. Being an active listener and embracing vulnerability and empathy endear you to others and ensure their commitment to achieving agreed-to results. Leaders motivate action by
Aligning activities with the strategic framework
Sharing information
Listening to and acting on input
Encouraging experimentation and innovation
Building trust
Removing fear
Sharing opportunities for everyone to benefit personally
Rewarding solutions-based behaviors
Removing obstacles
Providing resources
Giving visible support and reinforcement
Creating learning opportunities for self and others
Creating reasons for inclusion
Recognizing and expressing appreciation for others' work
Creating collaborative rewards
Recognizing successful teams
Being tenacious, setting high expectations, and communicating that goals are achievable deliver results. Exceptional leaders focus on achievements and learn from mistakes. They share power and information while letting go of control. They embolden people to take measured strategic risks and reward them regardless of the outcome. They build accountability into the organization using techniques that encourage individuals to take accountability, rather than subjecting them to a finger-pointing culture. Leaders achieve results by
Providing clear expectations
Setting high and achievable standards
Planning for and expecting success
Reinforcing shared benefits
Understanding and managing process excellence
Measuring and monitoring with passion
Turning the organization into a problem-solving powerhouse
Developing a culture of accountability
Starting with small, calculated steps
Using the external network as required
Establishing a learning center
Coaching and being coached
Recognizing, rewarding, and thanking others
Cheerleading
Leaders must demonstrate daily the partnering behaviors needed to create cultures that thrive on open, positive communication and win-win problem-solving and conflict resolution strategies—cultures that are future focused, adaptable, and interdependent. Leaders must walk the partnering talk. As a leader, you must demonstrate the Six Partnering Attributes:
Self-Disclosure and Feedback refers to providing others with information about yourself, addressing your needs, listening to others and their needs, and providing feedback to others on how their needs, actions, or behaviors affect you.
Win-Win Orientation refers to seeking a win-win outcome to problem solving and conflict resolution. It also reflects on your ability to manage your emotions, defer self-gratification for the good of others, and negotiate successful outcomes.
Ability to Trust refers to having confidence that you and others will do as promised and will behave in a straightforward manner. You can instill trust in others by having the capability to assess mistrust, address the issues, and rebuild trust between people.
Future Orientation refers to focusing on a vision of the future and setting your expectations with that vision in mind. It also requires you to be open and accepting of new ideas.
Comfort with Change refers to the extent to which you accept, adapt to, and even embrace change. A hallmark of effective leadership is the ability to introduce required change in the organization without alienating too many people.
Comfort with Interdependence refers to relying on others for your success. The level of information needed to operate an organization is too complex for any one individual acting alone. Leaders know how to delegate and hold others accountable for results.
Of course demonstrating the Six Partnering Attributes is a lot harder than merely talking about it. John's story illustrates the difficulty some leaders have with walking the talk.
In an organization with a long history, John, a division CEO, knew that the existing bureaucratic culture was preventing his division from getting where it needed to go. He would constantly bemoan the inefficiencies he and his staff endured due to the nature of the parent organization. John felt that he had no control or influence over the culture, but, as we examined with him the objectives of focused leadership described earlier, John had to acknowledge that he did not live up to the ideals to which he aspired. Part of the problem, according to John, was that while he intellectually understood what it took to be a great leader, he kept getting sucked into the political whorls of the larger culture. Since his was Just one of ten divisions, he felt it was impossible for him to make an impact on the larger culture, and so he stopped trying.
The reality was that John didn't want to challenge himself to be a great leader. He felt secure enough and at a high enough level within the organization to have a personal sense of accomplishment and satisfaction. He didn't want to rock the boat within the larger, politically sensitive organization and risk losing everything he had worked so hard to gain. He honestly believed he was a good leader and that people had confidence in him. But actually the only person he was fooling was himself. People within the division knew that John was a weak leader and one of the reasons the organization continued to stagnate and was beset with newsmaking mistakes and inquiries. In fact, John wanted to maintain the culture the way it was. Since there was no individual accountability, John never was concerned about being held accountable for his lack of leadership.
The story of John's reluctance to walk the partnering talk concludes the discussion of step 1 of the Powerhouse Partner Model, "Practice Focused Leadership." We now move on to step 2 of the model, "Build a Partnering Infrastructure," a task-intensive process that involves four distinct but interconnected objectives. We suggest in Chapter 5 an approach for creating a strategic framework and subsequently address the question of organization structure, the first two objectives of building a partnering infrastructure. In Chapter 6 we tackle the third challenge: how to hire people with partnering competencies. Then in Chapter 7 we complete step 2 of the Powerhouse Partner Model by offering suggestions for how leaders can keep and grow smart partners, the fourth objective of building a partnering infrastructure.