The BEST LEADERS are flexible to Switch between Leadership Styles as the Circumstances Dictate.

The democratic leadership style is most effective when the leader needs the team to buy into or have ownership of a decision, plan, or goal, or if he or she is uncertain and needs fresh ideas from qualified teammates.

when people decide to respect you as a leader, they observe what you do so they can know who you really are.

People then use this observation to tell if you are an honorable and trusted leader, or a self-serving person who misuses authority.

A good leader has an honorable character that selflessly serves his/her organization. In your employees' eyes, your leadership is everything. Your activities affect the organization's objectives and their well-being.

1. According to Brad Sugars, a respected leader concentrates on three key areas:Be - what he/she is (beliefs and values),
2. Know - what he/she knows (job, tasks, human nature),
3. Do - what he/she does (implement, motivate, and provide direction).

What makes a person want to follow a leader? People want to be guided by people they respect and who have a clear sense of direction. To gain respect, they must be ethical. A sense of direction is achieved by conveying a strong vision of the future.

The Three Most Important Keys of Leadership:

Studies have shown that trust and confidence in top leadership is the single most reliable predictor of employee satisfaction in an organization.

Effective communication by leadership in three critical areas is the key to winning organizational trust and confidence, and involves:

1. Helping employees understand the company's overall business strategy.
2. Helping employees understand how they contribute to achieving key business objectives.
3. Sharing information with employees on both how the company is doing and how an employee's own division or department is doing - relative to strategic business objectives.

So basically, you must be trustworthy and you have to be able to communicate a vision of where you are going.

Brad Sugars' 10 Principles of Leadership:

1. Know yourself and seek self-improvement. In order to know yourself, you have to understand your "be", "know", and "do" attributes. This is possible by continually strengthening your attributes by reading and self-study.
2. Be technically proficient. As a leader, you must know your job and have a solid familiarity with your employees' jobs.
3. Seek responsibility and take responsibility for your actions. Search for ways to guide your organization to new heights. And when things go wrong, do not blame others.
4. Make sound and timely decisions. Use good problem solving, decision-making, and planning tools.
5. Set the example. Be a good role model for you employees. They will believe what they see - not what they hear.
6. Know your people and look out for their well-being. Know human nature and the importance of sincerely caring for your workers.
7. Keep your people informed. Know how to communicate with your people, seniors, and other key people within the organization.
8. Develop a sense of accountability, ownership and responsibility in your people. These traits will help them carry out their professional responsibilities.
9. Ensure tasks are understood, supervised, and accomplished. Communication is the key to this responsibility.
10. Train your people as a team. By developing team spirit, you will be able to employ your organization, department, section, etc. to its fullest capabilities.

The Process of Great Leadership:

1. Inspire a shared vision - Next, share you vision in words that can be understood by your followers.
2. Challenge the process - First, find a process you believe needs to be improved the most.
3. Enable others to act - Give them the tools, authority and methods to solve problems themselves.
4. Model the way - When the process gets tough, get your hands dirty. A boss tells others what to do; a leader shows it can be done.

Encourage the heart - Share the glory with your followers' heart, keep the pains in your heart - Human Relations:

• The six most important words: "I admit I made a mistake."
• The five most important words: "You did a good job."
• The four most important words: "What is your opinion?"
• The three most important words: "If you please."
• The two most important words: "Thank you,"
• The one most important word: "We"
• The least important word: "I"

While all small-business owners have their own particular method of inspiring employees, most use one or more of the following five leadership styles. Identifying how you lead can help you more effectively run your company. Which of the following leadership styles sounds most like you?

Participative

Also known as democratic leadership, the participative leadership style focuses on culling opinions from all employees in order to make a decision that reflects the majority’s opinion and desires. While the leader offers guidance and support, the decisions are primarily consensual among all involved, and the leader makes final decisions based on the majority’s vote.

The participative leadership style is particularly useful if the leader wishes to encourage participation and agreement among employees. This democratic method does not work well, however, if the leader must make a quick decision.

Authoritarian

Authoritative leaders inform employees of a common vision and goal for the company and detail employee responsibilities designed to make reaching that goal a reality. There is a clear division between employees and the employer, and the employees are clear on the desired result. They are often given guidelines but allowed to fulfill their obligations as they see fit.

The authoritarian style is particularly useful for those leaders who tend to know more than their employees, and it works best when there is no time for group decision-making. If employees are particularly talented and experienced in their own right, this leadership style can be limiting and stifling for them.

Laissez-Faire- Let it be

In French, the term laissez-faire means "let it be," which best describes this leadership style. Such a method involves leaders delegating decision-making and tasks. They keep abreast of what is occurring in the company and are available when advice and input are needed, but take a hands-off approach and let the employees work on their own.

Transformational

The transformational leadership style focuses on the leader that actively communicates with employees to motivate them to increase productivity and efficiency. The leader focuses on the big picture for the company, such as corporate goals—leaving the day-to-day details to management.

Transformational leaders are inspiring, because they expect the best from their employees and themselves, which leads to productive and positive working environments. For this type of leadership to work, it’s critical that there are also detail-oriented individuals on the team who can see to the more practical aspects of running a business.

Servant

As the name implies, servant leaders tend to stay out of the limelight, often leading from behind and allowing the focus to be on the employees. Such leaders make service a top priority and often highly value integrity and generosity. Decision-making tends to be a group effort in such environments.

The servant leadership model tends to work well for organizations such as nonprofits that are committed to a particular cause, because the mission becomes the center of attention. Such a leadership model does not work for all types of businesses—especially those with tight deadlines.

Given the benefits of the various leadership styles, it makes sense for small-business owners to adopt traits from each style. The best leaders keep their eye on the corporate vision and shape their leadership styles to their corporate culture.

Let's explore the five practices as they relate to all kinds of leaders.

• Model the Way. Leaders who model the way exhibit two key behaviors. ...
• Inspire a Shared Vision. ...
• Challenge the Process. ...
• Enable Others to Act. ...
• Encourage the Heart.

1. Model the Way

Leaders who model the way exhibit two key behaviors. They “Clarify Their Values” and “Set an Example.” Their actions are aligned with their values. When Jolie, one of the sexiest women in the world, announced she had a double mastectomy and wanted to use her experience as a teachable moment to help other women, it was a powerful example of modeling the way.

2. Inspire a Shared Vision

Kouzes and Posner identify “Envisioning the Way” and “Enlisting Others” as two ways leaders can inspire a shared vision. Bill and Melinda Gates immediately come to my mind. They’ve established for their foundation a clear vision focusing on five areas: Global Development, Global Health, U.S. Programs, Global Policy, and Advocacy. They’ve also convinced other wealthy people, such as Warren Buffet, to donate part of their fortune to their foundation.

3. Challenge the Process

How many of you reading this blog have an iPhone, iPad, or Apple computer? Or perhaps the devices you use are enabled by the technology Apple developed. The transformation in technology wouldn’t be available if Steve Jobs had not “Searched for Opportunities” and “Experimented and Taken Risks”—two behaviors of exemplary leaders.

4. Enable Others to Act

Nelson Mandela, the iconic South African leader, exemplifies this. By “Fostering Collaboration” and “Strengthening Others,” he was able to successfully lead South Africa through the dismantling of apartheid while encouraging racial reconciliation.

5. Encourage the Heart

Leaders encourage the heart by “Recognizing the Contributions of Others” and by “Celebrating the Use of Values and Victories.” When thinking about this practice, I glanced at the Mighty Mouse trophy I won during one of my favorite jobs. I have long forgotten the accomplishment we celebrated, but I clearly remember the spirit of community and appreciation I felt when I won the shield consecutively four times.

The 12 Toughest Challenges of Leadership:

1. Humility during success.
2. Confidence during setbacks.
3. Stepping back so others can step up.
4. Putting plans into action – Follow through. Experience shows up to 90 percent of strategic plans never achieve execution.
5. Leading change. Leaders don’t just do things, they change things.
6. Admitting mistakes. One contributor suggests that self-awareness and honesty are essential to saying, “I was wrong.”
7. Listening with the goal of learning.
8. Encouraging constructive dissent.
9. Learning from criticism.
10. Asking for feedback.
11. Maintaining focus on the future.
12. Building the team.

You not situations:

Leadership challenges always involve changing situations. You, however, are the common factor. Your ability to lead yourself is your greatest ability.

Situations come and go but you are always there.

Building the team:

Produce the most fruit by leading yourself to build the team. Success depends on your ability to attract, develop, and retain top talent.

How to spot top talent?

Top talent wants to:

1. Know where you are going so they can find alignment. Tell them the goal?
2. Develop plans with you. Once they align with the goal, don’t give them the plan, develop it with them. Top talent wants a hand in making plans.
3. Make meaningful contribution. They ask, “Where do I fit in?” They need meaningful contribution. Drifting isn’t enough for top talent.
4. Work with others. Lone Rangers have a place, but never on great teams.
5. Rise to challenges.

Management Challenge is a one-day leadership development experience in which your managers practice developing their employees. Your people put their managerial skills into action during this team-based simulation as they engage virtual employees in critical conversations and coaching.

• A leadership tool is a prescription for how to go about specific types of leadership work, using proven, step-by-step practices that are based on solid organization concepts helpful to more expediently address certain types of organization, leadership, and management issues.

A leadership tool is a prescription for how to go about specific types of leadership work, using proven, step-by-step practices that are based on solid organization concepts helpful to more expediently address certain types of organization, leadership, and management issues. The tools are helpful for strategic thinking, communications planning, working through highly multifaceted issues, and the execution of complex objectives.

The systematic use of tools contributes to a developmental process that helps a leader move individuals, teams, and whole organizations toward success, which helps leaders help others achieve the organization’s strategic goals. And that helps everyone learn how to learn.

It’s the sequence of applications that help leaders manage focus and time, helps people think strategically, builds cross-organizational alliances, and addresses issues for which there are no easy answers. (See the table below for a classification for the types of work and tasks for which tools are used.)

Table 1: Types of Organization Work, Related Tasks, and Examples of Tools Employed

Organizing people and tasks Concepts, models, frameworks to better understand what is taking place

• Glenda Oyong: Chaos theory
• Michael Porter: Strategy
• Chris Argyris: Interpersonal dynamics
• Barry Oshry: Functioning in hierarchy
• Clay Christianson: Innovation
• Ronald Heifetz: Leadership work

Leadership work

Set goals, build framework for change, develop organizational capacity to implement the change, execute the plan

• Scenario planning
• Polarity mapping
• Story telling
• Six communications questions
• Core organization competencies
• RAPID decision making
• Six A’s for learning

Management work

Hire/fire, allocate resources, address short term problems, provide performance feedback

• Budgets for department/division objective setting, performance management
• LEAN/Six Sigma
• Time management tools

Developing individual leader capabilities

Assess and improve critical individual leader skills

• Individual assessments
• Personality assessments
• Coaching
• Individual development planning

 Leadership tool example

There are hundreds of thousands of books, studies, and articles that provide leadership advice and insight. Yet, in practical terms, the vast majority of organizations continue to struggle in planning, improving organization competence, and the execution of change.

Just as manufacturing and service organizations have learned to use LEAN and Six Sigma methods to facilitate product quality, we believe leaders can similarly use leadership tools to more easily manage risk, improve communication efficiency and effectiveness, and improve the speed of strategic execution.

One example of a strategic leadership tool is “The Leader’s Map,” which demonstrates how leadership can be practiced as a describable, teachable, repeatable, measurable, and institutional process. Rather than seeing change as a unique event or based on the competencies of a few leaders, change can be understood as an almost predictable, recurring set of circumstances that can be anticipated, described, and thus easily executed across internal and external organizational boundaries.

The tool is scalable, and can be used by senior leaders, as well as first line supervisors. The use of standard practical leadership language and process provided by the tool offers a structure to do the full range of leadership work. It increases collaboration, embeds the change within the cultural fabric of the organization, and provides a vehicle for action learning to take place.

Using The Leaders Map facilitates the implementation of change because the impetus no longer needs to reside with senior leaders alone. It now can become a more significant competency that resides within middle management. This frees senior leaders to more effectively concentrate on the true strategic issues. The competence of middle managers to do this work leads to higher levels of employee engagement and the ability of managers to achieve the organization’s longer term financial and strategic objectives. The tool gives middle managers and senior leadership a common language and structure for executing change. 

The Leader’s Map

The Leader’s Map helps leaders understand that:

• There are five universal challenges that must be addressed in every strategic initiative: 1) reframing the future, 2) developing commitment, 3) teaching and learning, 4) building community, and 5) balancing paradoxes.
• There are three outputs of leadership (direction, competence, implementation) that can be used to evaluate leadership effectiveness.
• To be successful, change must be addressed in a specific order.
• Leadership requires high levels of collaboration across organizational boundaries.
• There are additional tools that can help people work through the five challenges. 

Difference between management tools and leadership tools

Management work is about creating stability, to ensure the organization achieves its stated goals. Examples of management tools are steps in how to complete a performance appraisal, how to provide individual coaching, and how to interview job candidates. Most organizations have effective programs in place that help people develop the kinds of skills needed to adequately perform management work.

Leadership tools help people think strategically, more effectively work across organization boundaries and competing priorities, plan and monitor complex execution, and address challenges for which there are no easy answers. It is in this area that most internal training initiatives have failed to adequately prepare mid to senior level leaders to address the challenges before them. 

1. Lead by example. Any attempt to rule with an iron fist will go down like a lead balloon – after all, your coworkers don't report to you. ...
2. Talk less, listen more. ...
3. Don't play favorites. ...
4. Do your fair share. ...
5. Be yourself. ...
6. Take responsibility. ...
7. Develop your leadership chops.

Leadership Principles. This principle of leadership should be developed by the use of leadership traits. Evaluate yourself by using the leadership traits and determine your strengths and weaknesses. ... Ask your friends and seniors for an honest evaluation of your leadership ability.