The Passion For Business
Don’t Crash Your Plane!
Leaders are being challenged more than ever before. Where a command and control style leadership technique used to work, employees now are more willing to move to another job after only a few years at a company, thus leaving the “gold watch” mentality in the past. They may choose to stay in their current position, but work in one of the following ways:
- Do exactly what we ask (and not one bit more)
- Try it our way (without trying to develop or create a more efficient method)
- Be very busy (and yet not be working on the most important, challenging or risky tasks where the best leaps occur)
This seems to be the case in government, large public institutions and in private business. This attitude may also tend to lend itself to family dynamics. One of the best tools to avoid being overthrown as a leader, either overtly or covertly, is the Leadership Assessment. The right assessment allows you to determine what drives people toward you or away from you. It helps you identify your specific behaviors that affect reality and perceptions, and helps you uncover what makes you valuable to those around you. Specifically, what is it that works well and what doesn’t in your relationships?
You may already have a highly developed set of skills and resources that provide you with great information. However, most of that is typically cognitive, based on logic and reasoning. What can be more powerful is the affective world, that of values, beliefs and attitudes. While the cognitive world may grab our mind, the affective world is what grabs our heart. Most high level leaders fail to get to the next level due to affective issues, not cognitive ones.
Leaders sometimes don’t know what they need to work on because the people around us may not share what we most need to know. It’s a big risk for them to highlight an affective failure or bad behavior on the part of their boss. Yet when I interview a team within a business, it is amazing how the overall business results are limited due to an affective “disorder” or “behavior” exhibited by the leader. During a Leadership Assessment meeting when an employee shares confidential, constructive criticism of a supervisor with me, I ask if they have told their boss. Ninety-nine percent of the time, they say no.
In the thousands of measures we have done, I have found that it’s not the Leadership Assessment that is most important, but a follow-up process that will create a change in behavior on the part of the leader.
We have a survey that is easy to administer, but it is our follow-up process that creates a marked difference in how a team of people work better together with their important relationships. It also creates employees that are learning to become better leaders themselves! Especially with the current business environment, if you have not done a Leadership Assessment in the last 18 months, you should do one!
In summary, if we miss a skill, we typically go get training. For an affective behavior, Leadership Assessments are an extremely powerful tool to identify weaknesses that need work. Even then, it ensures a change of behavior through the right follow-up process and brings the leaders and their employees closer together. When was the last time you or your managers had a true Leadership Assessment?
The Comprehensive Independence Builder
If you are interested in learning more about Leadership Assessments and how they can help you avoid or escape the affective disorders or behaviors that leaders face, please contact us.
You may also wish to learn more about our unique process for Business Owners called The Comprehensive Independence BuilderTM, in which we address all of the obstacles you face and help you use innovative strategies to protect and enhance your business, improve your quality of life and better achieve your goals.
To schedule your Independence Exploration Session or for more information on Leadership, please contact us at 800-786-4332 ext. 108, or dhadley@appliedvisionworks.com.
