Do You Develop Character Or Competency?

Developing your character will develop your leadership. Developing your competency will develop your management.

There are many styles of leadership, and different leadership principles that I discuss throughout my website and my other materials. One thing I have learned over the years is, there is not one size fits all.

In other words, every individual and team is different. Every circumstance and situation is different. Just because one principle or style worked with one person, doesn’t mean it is guaranteed to work with the next person.

It takes hard work to understand our people, and how we can help them and add value to them.

I have worked with many leaders who said that they made a success of themselves in a previous leadership role. So, they came to work with us thinking they could behave, lead, and treat us in exactly the same way, and it would be another success.

How they were wrong. They didn’t understand that there was not one size leadership style fits all. They thought their new leadership role with us would be a breeze, when actually it was much, much harder than they thought.

Some of these leaders learned from their mistakes, and did their best to work hard with us, and help us. Others were too stubborn, and in the end were removed from their position because they were making things worse.

Organisations are far too focussed on results, when they should be focussing on their people and their culture. When organisations bring in new leaders, their main objective and priority is to improve the results.

I am not saying we shouldn’t focus on results, but they should not be the priority. The people should be the priority. Protecting the culture and living the company values should be another priority of the leaders.

Having respect for the people should be another priority. Without respect for the people, there is no way of protecting, or keeping the right culture and environment for the people to work and thrive.

Focussing on processes and results will damage the culture, will damage the environment, and most of all damage the relationship with the people.

The leaders who were stubborn were not willing to let go of what they had learned about leadership, unlearn it, and then relearn new leadership principles that would help them in their situation.

They were failing in their leadership of us and their other teams, but were not learning from their failings. To unlearn, and then relearn something new, that is the mindset of a highly effective leader.

You need a strong mindset, and be willing to accept and admit that you don’t know it all. We need to be learning every day. That is why highly effective leaders work on themselves every day.

The mindset of a highly effective leader is to be constantly improving. Their thinking is, if I improve myself, I am making myself more valuable to my team. By being more valuable to my team, I am in a great place to help them become more valuable too.

How valuable to your team are you right now? Do you feel that you are adding value to your people? Are you willing to challenge yourself, and work on yourself every day to become more valuable?

There are two principles I would like you to focus on when working on yourself:

1.      Continuous improvement

2.      Respect for your people

You should focus on continuous improvement 20% of the time, and focus on having respect for your people 80% of the time.

All the best,

Tom Lawrence (Highly Effective Leader)