Author, Consultant, Executive Coach - Helping people and organizations grow into desired results

Thursday 30 July 2009

Does Charisma matter? Find your leadership style

Charisma is difficult to define, though it is often used to describe those with a personality that lends them the uncanny ability to lead, charm, persuade, inspire, and influence people. At base charisma, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder, which means that charismatic people's power is largely dependent on the perception of others.

It is also greatly influenced by situational factors, since what might seem charismatic in one setting can be abhorrent in another (e.g. Hitlerian charisma inspired hope for national renewal among desperate Germans in the tumultuous Weimar era, even as its evil messages of hate provoked fear and revulsion in more stable democracies).

Expressed practically, charisma manifests as a sense of attraction. And ultimately we are attracted to those leaders who - sometimes for better, sometimes worse - achieve results through the application of the best leadership style for the situation.


What's the "best" leadership style?

When it comes to leadership, "best" is what is perceived to be most effective as related both to the particular situation and to the desired outcome. Research* shows that the most effective leaders use a combination of distinct leadership styles - each in the right measure, at just the right time.

Each of us is inclined toward at least one (and often two) of the eight leadership styles described in detail below. The key to dramatically improved performance and interpersonal effectiveness is to incorporate all eight - if not in one person, then by ensuring they are all represented across the makeup of groups of people and are each consulted for input at the appropriate time.


Eight Leadership Styles

Leadership style - Mentoring

Two representatives of this style are British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and the character of William Wallace as portrayed in the film Braveheart.

What leadership traits could this unlikely duo possibly share?

A mentoring leadership style works best when change is driven by a moral crusade for justice and there is a need for integrity. It excels at setting a clear mission and creating a sense of urgency through effective motivation. What it looks like in practice is close and steady guidance to set high standards in the pursuit of excellence: in a phrase, "Do it again until you get it right." When well done, the style of these Explorer/Motivators encourages honest dealing with others and promotes a sense of commitment in the team culture.

When this leadership style is not present in the team there is no clear vision, no sense of purpose or common understanding, no honour and no team commitment. If a leader uses only the mentoring style, the overall impact on organizational climate will be medium positive - team members will have a clear sense of the mission, will interact honourably and with a clear sense of purpose, but will lack the advantages offered by a balance of this style with the other seven leadership styles as described below.

Leadership style - Coaching

Here it is helpful to think of "coaching" in its broadest sense. As examples, what US Vice-President Al Gore and motivational speaker Tony Robbins both do well exceedingly well is inspire and empower people, ensuring that people have the skills and information they will need for the future and fostering an environment in which they can excel and succeed. The style in a phrase is, "Try this!"

The coaching style works best when there is a need to help an employee improve performance or develop long-term strengths. To be clear, it is not about empowerment for empowerment's sake - it is paired with the need to develop vision and strategy for the future. It can also be confronting (as with alarming details of the environmental threat our planet is facing in Gore's documentary film An Inconvenient Truth) but with the intent of producing positive change.

Done well, the style of these Inspirational Coach/Facilitators encourages honest dealing with others and promotes a sense of hopefulness in the team culture. When this leadership style is not present in the team the physical environment and culture become hostile and the team loses hope as the future looks bleak, like a perpetual repetition of past disasters.

If a leader makes exclusive use of only the coaching style, the overall impact on organizational climate will be positive - team members will play to their strengths and be highly self-directed in an environment of hopefulness and empowerment but again will lack the advantages offered by a balance of this style with the other seven leadership styles.

Leadership style - Affliative

This leadership style is the one most often associated with "charismatic leadership" and there are abundant examples: US Presidents Barack Obama, Bill Clinton and John F. Kennedy, and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, to name just a few.

These leaders create harmony and build emotional bonds with a style that aims to put people first. The affiliative style works best to heal rifts in a team or motivate people during stressful circumstances, fostering espirt de corps and effectively communicating vision and strategy ("Yes we can") to promote team engagement. By embodying diplomacy and inclusiveness, the leader brings out tolerance in others and enables effective teamwork through the respectful negotiation of differences (of cultures, worldviews, politics, etc.).

Done well, the contribution of these Promoter/Strategists to the team culture is widespread confidence, cheerfulness, discipline, and a willingness to perform assigned tasks in the interest of the common/greater good. When this style is absent, team members become self-righteous, intolerant and blaming, which splits the team into factions.

If a leader uses only the affiliative style, the overall impact on organizational climate will be positive - the team will act in a cohesive fashion, communication will be open and morale will be quite high, but again the team will lack the full advantages offered by a balance of this style with the other seven leadership styles.

Leadership style - Democratic

This style can be hard to spot because although it's all around us, it's a quieter and more self-controlled style. To get a sense of it, think of stories in which ordinary people do courageous, even heroic things in extreme circumstances - but who when interviewed afterwards say that it was nothing special and that it was obvious they should have done what they did.

Two well-known examples of the democratic style are Bruce Willis' character John McClane in the Die Hard movies and the character Samwise Gamgee in the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy.

These courageous individuals see what needs to happen to move a project forward and just get on with it, through ingenious broad-based action to produce the necessary short-term wins. In a team, they forge consensus through participation and will frequently ask, "What do you think...?"

The talent of these Practical Problem Solvers is to break down bureaucracy, fostering innovation and confidence while building buy-in and consensus by seeking valuable input from team members. When this style is not represented in the team, everything becomes bogged down at key bottlenecks, there is no courage, no heroes and no decisions.

If a leader uses only the democratic style, the overall impact on organizational climate will be positive - the team will act in a cohesive fashion and morale will be quite high as people feel enabled to act with courage to do what needs to be done, but again the team will lack the advantages offered by a balance of this style with the other seven leadership styles.

Leadership style - Pacesetting

The pacesetting leadership style, as the name suggests, is about getting quick results from a highly motivated and competent team. There is an expectation of competence and a keen eye for turning abstract theories into real and tangible outcomes.

US President Abraham Lincoln and South African President Nelson Mandela are both exemplars of this style, setting high standards for performance and leading by example: "Do as I do, and do it now."

In a team setting, these independent and capable Creative Change Agents excel at applying discernment in the review of systems and practices, as well as consolidating gains in order to produce more change. This process of effective strategic analysis helps to ensure that the changes that take place are based on suitable and sustainable systems and practices. When this style is absent, the leadership has no credibility and the team focuses on the wrong actions.

If a leader uses the pacesetting style exclusive of any other, the overall impact on organizational climate will actually be negative. This is the case because, although the team will benefit from tangible systems and practices, the style can be experienced as quite confronting.

Pacesetters are often described as having a highly-advanced "bullshit detector" and are not at all averse to pointing out incongruence and inconsistencies, particularly if they detect what they think are instances of incompetence. It is therefore particularly important that the pacesetting style be tempered by elements of the other seven leadership styles in order to afford a balanced environment for team members.

Leadership style - Authoritative/Visionary

The authoritative leadership style mobilizes people toward a final destination. Note, however, that the authoritative style is not autocratic or dictatorial. It is more like a ship's captain navigating a course through the ever-shifting seas of change and inviting the team: "Come with me."

New Zealander Sir Edmund Hillary and the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen embodied this style. Their vision and planning capacity enabled them to navigate a successful course even to what were the earth's most inaccessible realms at the time (Mount Everest's summit and the South Pole, respectively).

Authoritative leadership works best when changes require a new vision and a clear sense of direction in the pursuit of the vision's end goal. This leadership style manifests the quality of responsibility to creating certainty of cause, purpose and role:

"...we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender."
~ British Prime Minister Winston Churchill

"...today we honour the indigenous peoples of this land, the oldest continuing cultures in human history. [...] universal human decency demands that the nation now step forward to right an historical wrong. [...] The time has now come for the nation to turn a new page in Australia's history by righting the wrongs of the past and so moving forward with confidence to the future. ...for the indignity and degradation thus inflicted on a proud people and a proud culture, we say sorry."
~ Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd

Whether in pursuit of high-minded principles, seeking to protect their charges, or maintaining steady faith in achievement of the desired outcome, the leadership of these Visionary Planners fosters stability and security even in the face of widespread and disruptive change. In their absence, there is fear and uncertainty as everyone is out for him- or herself.

If a leader uses only the democratic style, the overall impact on organizational climate will be most strongly positive in that the team will possess a calm certainty about the ultimate aim of their actions and the secure confidence to handle the hardships and unexpected course changes that will be required along the way. Nevertheless, as with all these styles there are considerable advantages to be gained by balancing of this style with the other seven leadership styles.

Leadership Style - Tactical

The tactical leadership style is one of acting dispassionately based on accurate, verifiable information; the style in a phrase is "Prove it to me." The style works best in highly technical and specialized situations requiring self-control and measured action - so think James Bond and, well, pretty much every character Clint Eastwood has ever played.

In a team setting the tactical leadership of these Auditor/Organizers promotes understanding through objective, rational inquiry and action. Their disciplined presence brings out calmness and clarity in others. In the absence of tactical leaders, the team will fail to keep adequate records of meetings and decisions and will lack an effective audit trail; group learning does not happen and ignorance prevails.

If a leader uses only the tactical style, the overall impact on organizational climate will be positive - the team will be clear on the learning captured from previous successes and will focus on the competent delivery of tasks and will act with objectivity, but will nevertheless lack the advantages offered by a balance of this style with the other seven leadership styles.

Leadership style - Commanding/Coercive

The coercive leadership style is best in a crisis, to kick start a turnaround, to capitalize quickly on entrepreneurial opportunities or to sort out "problem" employees. As the name suggests, the style demands immediate compliance: "Do what I tell you to do."

The two British entrepreneurs Sir Richard Branson and Sir Alan Sugar (of The Apprentice UK television fame) come readily to mind as examplars of this style.

What these Driver/Completer leaders enable is the application of vast amounts of energy to tackle large workloads and, at the end of the day, to celebrate successes in preparation for the next round of change and transformation. This "work hard, play hard" sense of drive taps into the passions of those around them and ultimately compels the team to engage in healthy debate in the pursuit of practical action. When this style is not present in the team, there is no energy or enthusiasm - everyone is exhausted and dispirited.

If a leader always and only uses only the coercive style, however, the overall impact on organizational climate will be negative. While the team will feel the pressure and drive to complete tasks, there is a risk they will ultimately feel alienated and uninvolved by the coercive leader's tendency to create the entire plan without any input from others, then expect others to follow and not ask questions. Here it is therefore particularly important that once the period of urgency and reinvention has passed, elements of the other seven leadership styles are reintroduced in order to afford a balanced environment for team members.


Eight Leadership Styles and you

Whether or not you agree with their ideology and beliefs, even whether they are real people or fictional characters, each of the people whose photos appear above are certainly leaders in their own way. What the Eight Leadership Styles model helps to make clear is that there are identifiably distinct leadership styles, each "charismatic" in its own way and in the right circumstance.

To find out more about how to identify your own preferred leadership style, as well as how to effectively interact with other styles and successfully cultivate a balance of all eight styles in your team or organization, send me an email.


*Daniel Goleman, "Leadership that gets results," Harvard Business Review (Mar-Apr 2000) pp 79-90; Peter Burow, NeuroPower handbook, edition 1.0.5 (2008); Dennis Turner & Michael Crawford, Change Power: Capabilities that Drive Corporate Renewal, (1998).

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Sunday 19 July 2009

Save-the-world Sunday: Al Gore's vision in Australia

This week's Save-the-world Sunday post highlights the story of former US Vice-President Al Gore's visit to Australia this week.

Gore's campaign to raise awareness of climate change, most notably with his award-winning documentary film An Inconvenient Truth, has garnered him global attention.

During his presentation in Melbourne he warned of the dangers posed to Australians by increasingly erratic weather patterns and record heat waves, like the one that worsened this year's bushfires in Victoria to devastating effect.

He also echoed Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's sentiment that acting to find renewable sources of energy is in Australia's best long-term interest for both environmental and economic reasons. It's an open question, however, as to whether the political will exists and if people are willing to make the changes necessary in the short-term for the sake of long-term benefits.

What's interesting is the same environmental message was delivered in strikingly different ways by the two leaders, each according to his characteristic style of leadership.

In my next blog post I'll discuss the nature of eight different of leadership styles and explore the thorny question of what role "charisma" plays - is it a necessary prerequisite? What does it look like? Can you learn it? And, if so, how? Watch this space!

Photo credits: AFP
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Saturday 11 July 2009

Support a worthwhile charity, get a complimentary coaching session

This week's Save-the-world Sunday post comes a day early, in order to bring you news of a special offer.

On August 9th I'll do my first City2Surf 14km race in Sydney, from Hyde Park to Bondi Beach. I want to raise as much money as I can for a cause that's dear to me, the World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA), in support of their efforts to help protect animals around the world from cruelty.

THE ASK: I'm seeking sponsorships of my race-for-charity. Any amount is gratefully accepted - even $10 donations add up - and you can donate from wherever you are in the world by credit card at the fundraising page.

THE OFFER: if you choose to donate AUD$50* or more, tmc will offer you a complimentary 1-hour coaching session. No further obligation is required - just make a donation and we'll book you a coaching session at your convenience. That's it!
*that's about £25 / €28 / SEK310 / HK$300 / S$57 / CAD$45 / US$40


So...with just one donation, you get four things at once:
  1. A chance to try out coaching, if you've not done so before, at a knock-down rate
  2. Feel-goods as you help a deserving global charity to improve animal welfare
  3. The one-on-one attention of an experienced coach to address an issue that's real for you today - and walk away with practical actions to do right away
  4. And as a charitable contribution, it's tax deductable!

Why coaching?


Coaching will benefit anyone who wants something and has not yet been able to get it. It is a structured way to renew your focus, better tackle your challenges and identify how you can make the best use of your efforts and resources to get sustained results over a period of time.
Todd asks great questions - pertinent and provocative. Then makes sure you work through to a good answer. ~ Paul Z. Jackson, Owner, The Solutions Focus
In the same way that top athletes have coaches to help them realize their full potential and improve their performance, coaching helps you to be your best. Far from being a remedial step or an admission of weakness, having a coach is a useful way to head off potential issues before they impede your performance, drawing on your existing strengths to get results.

At the outset of a new project it is also invaluable in setting the right course so that when storms blow up along the way, you will already have the means in place to handle them and not get blown off course or overwhelmed.
GETTING THINGS DONE
Coaching...gave me real clarity and focus, which was just what I was needing at the time. After just one coaching conversation, I found that I was better organised, and managing my time much more effectively. Over time, I have found that the tools I gained have stayed with me, even if my method has changed. ~ Linnet Good, writer and entrepreneur, Goodscribble

How does coaching work?

You will draw on your own experiences as you “think out loud,” with the added benefit of an impartial outside point of view for fresh perspective. Through skilled work as both a sounding board and source of positive support, a coach can help uncover your own hidden insights and ideas. An ongoing coaching dialogue also makes it more likely that you will follow through on your commitment to do the actions you know need to be done.

A coaching session gives you that all-important pause to get clarity on a course of action, identify useful and practical ways forward, and follow up on those actions to get the maximum possible learning benefit from them.
ACHIEVING BREAKTHROUGH INSIGHTS
I've found Todd's coaching consistently excellent, in one session helping me reach a goal I'd been striving towards for 15 years...in a field with which he had no previous experience! He is very creative, and generous with his time, energy and ideas. He is both very professional and excellent company. Time spent with Todd is time very well spent. ~ Sakya Kumara, Training Manager and Coach, windhorse:evolution

Some practical examples

Coaching can help if you’d like to develop your skills in any of these areas:
  • assertiveness in business and personal situations
  • negotiation to get the outcomes you want
  • having difficult conversations with co-workers or partners
  • using effective persuasion and influencing skills
  • leadership development
  • becoming a better manager
  • coaching others to help their performance/business focus
  • time management and priority-setting to get things done
  • business planning
  • strategy execution to turn your plans into reality
  • decisiveness in knowing what you want and how to get it
  • cross-cultural (or other) communication challenges
  • presentation skills to deliver your message with maximum effect
And if you want to:
  • get “unstuck” from current dramas
  • achieve breakthrough insights
  • handle conflict in a no-dramas way
  • interact more effectively with other people
  • set a course that’s right for you and stick to it
  • get your business in shape to achieve its full potential

For more details about how coaching works and who it's right for, read more about solution-focused coaching.
LEARN TO FIND YOUR OWN WAY FORWARD
I write to sincerely thank you for the coaching...invaluable help in that I've realised it is not what you can do for me, rather how you enable me to do it for myself. When I talked with you this afternoon, on more than one occasion I answered my own question. That fact alone speaks volumes for your skills. ~ Tom Pattinson, Operations Manager, British Nuclear Group

What to do next

Please make your donation at the fundraising page and then to contact me directly to schedule your coaching conversation. Also: encourage your friends, colleagues and anyone else you can think of who could put this offer to good use - to make a donation as well.
ASKING THE RIGHT QUESTIONS
A talented communications professional who understands the importance of smart questions, thoughtful listening and flawless execution. Clever, focused and thorough, Todd is a pleasure to work with. ~ Andrew Cole, Manager, Bell Canada
**Remember, the donations support a worthy global charity, with a tax receipt issued directly to the donor.

Thanks - I hope I can count on your support of my efforts and look forward to speaking to donors very soon...or at least once I've recovered from the 14km race!
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Wednesday 8 July 2009

Creative adaptive beings, not machines

In a previous post about Howard Gardner's theory of Multiple Intelligences, I wrote that I find it a useful tool to identify one's own preferred "intelligence" as well as one's blindspots. I further suggested that the model was of value in identifying and working with people's existing abilities, to help them get the most out of what comes naturally to them and to make the most of the diversity that results from natural differences of perspective. Thus equipped, team members will be better able to respect each perspective and engage in a collaborative and productive discussion.


Is intelligence multiple?

Gardner's theory has provoked controversy. Only a few weeks ago an article appeared that typifies the contrary position. On my reading of Not Every Child is Secretly a Genius, Ferguson seeks to reassert that there really is only one measure of intelligence - defined as "the ability to learn" - and all people have it to varying degrees based on their "raw biological machinery of intelligence" (added emphasis mine).

I find his phrase telling, as it suggests to me a determined effort to reduce the concept of intelligence to something mechanical in order to apply just one tool of measurement rather than admitting of multiple possibilties.

I'm not saying that "every child is a genius in his/her own special way" and everyone should get a trophy just for playing the game.

What I think is that something as complex as intelligence ought to be subject to a broader treatment than that rendered by reductionist science employed to describe "what is true" in the area of intelligence (with the attendant dire warnings against alternative views that risk leading us "down the path to intellectual relativism").

Rather than treating people as learning machines, I'm in favour of a more flexible approach.


Learning takes many forms

Today any number of neuroscience and brain books tell the stories of how people's brains have literally rewired themselves to regain key functionality that had been lost to catastrophic illness or disease.

A less traumatic - yet no less astounding - accomplishment is described in a recent review of the book Fixing My Gaze: A Scientist's Journey Into Seeing in Three Dimensions. The book tells the inspiring story of a Susan Barry, who overcame the effects of being born cross-eyed and gained (I would say, "learned") stereoscopic vision in adulthood.

The reviewer's closing statement I find uplifting enough to quote at length:
With the added evidence it offers of the brain’s perennial plasticity, this book will encourage us all because it suggests that if people can reconstruct pathways of vision, there are other things they might succeed in doing. It is a pleasant and optimistic thought indeed, that at any point in life we might, if determined enough, be able to fix things, improve, mend, and grow in positive ways: even to see more clearly, and not just with our eyes.
So to paraphrase Shakespeare's Hamlet: There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your reductionist scientific view. Clearly the brain is capable of many things beyond the strict confines of IQ tests. But is this talk of brain plasticity and capacity to relearn all just new-fangled neurospeak...or has it always been so?


Complex adaptive beings, not caveman-machines

A Newsweek article from last week gives a very readable summary of recent debate over evolutionary psychology (or evo-psych), a field which essentially suggests that we humans in the 21st century still operate with Stone Age minds.

That is, traits that evolved thousands of years ago to adapt to the challenges of the day have been passed down in the genes of successful survivors - reinforcing those behaviours.

Clearly humans have an ability to adapt to the environment and survive; we need only look at how our ancestors applied superior intellect and adaptive skills to successfully inhabit every corner of the globe no matter how inhospitable.

Where the evo psych argument falls over, however, is that it assumes that our ability to adapt somehow ossified early on, rendering modern humans little more than cavemen in business suits. In sum, there is a single human nature and it was set a very long time ago.

In stark contrast, more and more research now supports a field called behavioural ecology, which "starts from the premise that social and environmental forces select for various behaviours that optimize people's fitness in a given environment. Different environment, different behaviours—and different human 'natures.'" In other words, yes humans evolved according to Darwin's theories...AND natural selection chose in favour of "general intelligence and flexibility, not mental modules preprogrammed with preferences and behaviours."

And, arguably, in favour of multiple intelligences distributed across the human population.

Complex adaptivity is therefore a hallmark of the human condition and always has been. Despite the Western impulse to reduce everything in our world to the strictly measurable, there is great merit in considering the multiple as well as the singular...lest the quest for a single "truth" devolve into the kind of arguments over right/wrong that already cripple so many human interactions, in the workplace and in society at large.


Credits: "Caveman" illustration by Peter Oumanski for Newsweek.
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Sunday 5 July 2009

New series: Save-the-world Sundays / this week - the Meatrix!

Regular readers are aware of my support (and that of my company, tmc) for environmental causes, particularly those devoted to animal welfare and habitat preservation. A quick glance at the right-hand sidebar of this blog makes this equally clear - "supported causes" and the "unofficial adopted mascots gallery" are given prominent mention.

Today I'm starting something new, which I'm calling my Save-the-world Sunday series of blog posts. On the principle that weekends are for spending time pursuing hobbies and interests, I'm designating Sundays as the day to highlight some of these important causes and provide information on how readers can act for change.

This week: Enter...the Meatrix

There's an important viral campaign going round at the moment which, as of this writing, has had at least 15 million viewers.

It's clever, it's informative, and it's something that we can all do something about - industrial meat production. Go inside the Meatrix, find out where meat really comes from and vote with your purchasing power and decisions.

Watch The Meatrix (part 1) and then check out what the movie's producers at the Sustainable Table have to say here.


Australia: Animal testing experiments kill one animal every hour

ONE animal in NSW is killed every hour during testing for new medicines and cosmetic products. The Daily Telegraph can reveal 8813 animals - including birds, guinea pigs and endangered marsupials - were killed during 12 months of trials.

Another 16,000 were kept conscious and subjected to a "a moderate or large degree of pain/distress that is not effectively alleviated". [...]

University of Wollongong researcher Dr Denise Russell said the tests were cruel and had continued even when alternatives were available and in spite of government appeals.

"What hasn't been addressed is replacing animals with alternatives like computer simulation and the use of tissue samples which don't require that we take the animal and house them in a prison and just kill them in cruel ways," Dr Russell said yesterday.

NSW review panel chair Professor Margaret Rose said that the 16,000 animals being subjected to category 7 testing, the most painful test while the animal remains awake, was cause for concern.

Among the thousands of animals were 14 horses, almost 3000 fish which had their water poisoned for environmental testing, almost 1000 chickens, 379 sheep and 59 cows.

What you can do:
Join or support the efforts of Animals Australia, the only national animal protection organization that actively exposes animal abuse and promotes a cruelty-free lifestyle.

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