Distinguish the Cognitive, Attitudinal, and Behavioural aspects of effective Leadership
Any body of knowledge has three different but complimentary paths to mastery
Leadership development is no different!
There are Cognitive aspects.
Those things you need to know in order to be a good leader.
The Attitudinal aspects.
The attitude you need to carry – or develop – in order to be a good leader.
The Behavioural aspects.
Those things you need to do in order to be a good leader.
There are plenty of resources available to help you with the Cognitive aspects of Leadership.
Knowing a lot about leadership can be a good thing.
The Attitudinal; and Behavioural aspects require a different path to mastery.
Meeting regularly with an executive coach can help you put both these aspects together.
Meeting regularly with a Mentor or Peer is equally valuable in the development of the right attitude and demonstrating the right behaviours.
Meeting with people who will be honest with you, give you unfiltered feedback on how you come across, can help you to put the attitudinal and behavioural pieces together.
Inspiring a 360-degree peer review, can be a great starting point. Go get some comprehensive, anonymous, feedback from those around you. Professionally definitely. If you are brave get some personal input too.
The results of these reviews tell you not how you hope or wish you are coming across. They tell you how you are coming across.
This information, in and off itself will prove incredibly powerful in changing attitudes and behaviour.
The CAB acronym is designed to remind us of the limitations of traditional leadership training or coaching.
It is relatively easy for an ‘ivory tower theorist’ to fill in your Cognitive blanks.
You cannot become an effective leader focusing on the ‘C’ alone.
Find a role model, mentor, executive coach (who has led), someone who will give you honest feedback based on their perception of you.
This will help you close the gap on those Attitudinal and Behavioural components as well.
This is where you start to develop your Personal Power.
Leadership: Positional or Earned?
Build leadership on the personal capital you’ve earned, not the title you hold
Positional Authority can often be seen as the rule of the land.
Especially by weak leaders.
If you acted up in school your teacher told your parents. Then, you were in trouble, right?
There was rarely, if ever, any discussion about what did or didn’t happen. There were no conferences.
No jury of 10 of the ‘just and fair’.
Nine times out of Ten punishment was duly administered.
Why? Because the Teacher was an authority figure. As where your parents. As is the Prime Minister, the Police, your Boss (we all have one). Any authority figure was respected…. due to the position they held.
Perhaps Positional Authority has seen its day. Although I still see it more than not. Especially in the fresh, uninitiated leaders of today. They wander around “pulling rank” like a kid who has just been made ‘Hall Monitor’. They tell people what to do without giving them a clear “why”. Their mantra is “Just do it”. The strapline is “Because I said so!”
Earned Authority may be slowly, but surely, replacing Positional Authority.
This authority is based on the capital you built up with your people. Built up through the development of your relationship with them. Today's leaders know that relationships are essential to effectively lead a team.
Positional Authority typically evokes a Compliant or Rebellious Child (see Transactional Analysis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transactional_analysis) response. The leader will rarely, if ever, get the truth from their direct reports when using their Position to influence.
Leadership Guru Peter Drucker talked of the skills needed to manage a non-profit organisation of volunteers. He observed that in organisation such as this one cannot pull rank. Threatening a pay cut or firing a person just won’t get you anywhere. He said that if every leader led the for-profit business as though it were a non-profit, morale would be higher and much greater productivity would result.
One of my standing rules of Leadership is.
‘People go to work for their own reasons, rarely, if ever, for ours’
This is shared early, but repeated constantly, to the Executives I coach.
Great Leaders know why people do what they do and keep creating opportunities for their people to perform at their very happiest; and their very best!
Never settle for Positional Authority when the potential for Earned Authority exists.
If you would like to have a free 30 minute consultation with Dave to discuss further please email us at david.davies@sandler.com and we will be in touch.
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