THE 3-LEGGED STOOL OF ORGANIZATIONAL LEADERSHIP

The sphere of leadership today seems to focus heavily on empathy and EQ. ???? Is leadership effectiveness only rely on this?

Like a 3 legged stool, it can't stand on only 1 or 2 legs. 3 legs are needed to make the stool stable and useful. Just focusing on empathy and care makes the employee happier but may be setting a leader up for disaster down the road.

To lead effectively in organization, one needs to embrace the 3 legs:

1) Care for the people

2) Focus on the result

3) Moving towards the future

Lets explore each leg...

LEG #1 - CARE FOR THE PEOPLE

This is the softer side of leadership. It recognizes that people drive the organization through innovation, strategy, business continuity and customer satisfaction.

Care can be seen from 2 aspect:

a) Care for the person

This deals with caring for the person as an individual. It is about respecting their them, their ambition and seeing how we can add value to their life beyond the organization. Get to know them for a start. Understand their plans. If they have no idea of what they want, be curious, share your personal journey and see if this resonate with them? Understanding takes time. It is not a one-off conversation.

While it feels good for your talent to want to be with you, at times you would need to be like the mother bird pushing the baby bird out of the nest because you know the reality of your workplace and, in some situation does not allow for them to achieve their goals.

To show genuine care, you need to continually develop more talent. This way, you are not tempted to hold them back just because there are no substitute.

b) Care for their performance

This deals with wanting them to succeed in the workplace. The reality is organization value and reward those who contribute towards the organization's success, and performance is defined in that direction. Make it clear to them what is expected of them, provide them feedback that relates to performance and develop them with performance in mind. In situations they can't meet the expected standards despite the various development intervention, help them explore other options. Why? From personal experience, being in a place where you feel stuck and not recognized, sucks.

A leader who cares will also want their talent to perform. A leader who lowers their expectation of their talent just because the talent can't perform usually does it because they are not comfortable having uncomfortable performance conversations. Lower performance and lower workload are 2 different matter.

LEG #2 - FOCUS ON THE RESULT

The harder side of leadership. It recognizes that measuring performance help the organization to be sustainable (e.g revenue and profit as resource to fund the organization's growth) and care for their people. (e.g reward, development, growth)

Too often we only see the link between profit and remuneration. We forget the benefit of measuring performance:

• Allow the organization to diagnose issues and challenges.
• Manage resources, specially when doing something new.
• Help talent evaluate their growth and performance blind spot.

LEG #3 - MOVING TOWARDS THE FUTURE

This is the strategic side of leadership. It recognizes the need to stay relevant in the space they are in.

There are 2 aspects here:

a) Refine the way forward

This is where engaging senior leaders to understand where the organization is heading is key. It involves understanding what's going on in the industry (PESTLE comes to mind), understanding the expectation of their customers, the business challenges the organization is facing (SWOT comes to mind).

An organization that does not look forward, will have leaders that guards their position and play politics because the present is all they have. When an organization only focuses on the present, leaders grow comfortable and unconsciously view their position as permanent. This is not a mindset issue, it is an environment issue.

b) Make the journey exciting

This is the softer side which focuses on exciting their people towards the future. While there are always challenges and obstacle, we recognize just like our bosses, our people want to know what we are going to be about it. One way to excite the people is by sharing where they organization is heading, why that direction is exciting, the challenges but most of all, the resolve the organization has in achieving it.

While problem solving is a leader's occupational hazard, leaders must remember that if their people don't hear about the future, it is only natural for them to think the organization is too engrossed in the present and therefore conclude the organization has no idea where it is heading.

THE BALANCING ACT

Back to the 3-legged stool. While all the legs are required, leadership loses balance when the legs are not coordinated. It is not enough just having 3 legs, where it is placed and how it works as one, matters.

On an flat floor, all 3 legs must be of equal length (same emphasis).

On a slanted floor, 2 legs must be of equal length, while 1 would be shorter (a greater emphasis on 2 area while not neglecting the 3rd area).

How well a juggle as a leader is often based on how people are experiencing the leader, not what the leader thinks they are doing well. Don't get me wrong. It is important for a leader to evaluate their actions but it is even more important to listen to their talent first before making their own conclusion.

FEEDBACK is a key skill for leaders to be better. While there is a strong urge to explain oneself when receiving feedback, remember the purpose of a feedback is to understand how they are experiencing you. So, spend more time understanding how they are experiencing you through your actions and work from there.