Leadership Impact

The 21st century is a steep mountain to climb for leadership – with the complexities of work, culture, and life-changing rapidly, the landscape is constantly changing.?To navigate this terrain, we need the right kind of leaders.?We want leaders that others want to follow!

Ronald Heifetz, a professor at Harvard University discusses the realities of overly challenging leadership in his work on adaptive leadership “It’s often thought that leaders are dominant within an organisation and want to use their strong personalities to impose their will.?This hierarchical top-down leadership style hasn’t worked for a long time.?It hinders the flow of information in companies, undermining cooperation and unity between teams and departments.”

With several leadership programs focusing on ‘changing’ the team, real change occurs when leaders are open to seeing which of their behavours need to be addressed to lead more effectively.?We need leadership that is centred on humility, self-awareness, and excellence.

'Leadership is the calibration of support and challenge in order to help those you lead achieve their objectives or tasks that help the team or organisation to win’ Jeremie Kubicek & Steve Cockram, The 100X Leader

Many of us can recall the domineering leader who provided mainly challenge and very little support.?However, both are required.?To become a leader worth following, it's vital that you first establish support, this helps build the relationship and gain trust within your team.??Your team is more likely to rise to your challenge when your relationship is built on trust and support.

Part of my certification as a GiANT Leadership Coach, involved doing a deep dive into GiANT’s incredible 50+ leadership tools.?Even after 20 years of coaching, I found these tools to be a real game-changer, not only for myself, but also when sharing them with my clients.

One of the first tools that I was introduced to is The Support Challenge Matrix.?It’s a simple, though powerful matrix.?With the vertical axis as support and the horizontal axis, challenge.?The 4 quadrants depict the 4 different types of leadership.?The top righthand quadrant is the ideal position - when we are operating in this quadrant we are offering high support as well as high challenge.?

We can all float around the various quadrants on most days.?However if we intentionally look to operate from the top right quadrant, striving to create a culture of empowerment and opportunity,?we and our teams will be more successful.

An interesting exercise is to ask yourself – how do I offer high support and challenge to myself?

Another interesting exercise is to ask your family or your team, where they would plot your leadership on this matrix!

An effective leader is a learned skill.?None of us were born ‘natural leaders’ and you will find one ‘easier’ than the other. Which do you find easier, supporting or offering challenge to your team??Which one did you have to learn?

?To maximise influence with your team, you must practice both support and challenge and then learn how to calibrate these with each different person on your team.

What is it like to be on the other side of your leadership?

Let’s look at the another great GiANT Leadership tool - ?5 Circles of Influence

Our Leadership influence can and does extend to more than our work environment.? Firstly, influence starts within.???It extends to our family, our work teams, our organisation and our community.??Is our leadership intentional or accidental!

Each month, I will share some GiANT Leadership Tools on Zoom, and you are invited to pop along.?The first session will take a look at how these two tools can impact your leadership influence.

To book your complimentary seat at this online Monthly Leadership Toolkit session, click on this link.

Your Platform Partner,

Karen