Tero International, Inc. Your Elite Training Team
Tero International, Inc. Your Elite Training Team
How do you get a variety of perspectives to move towards the same goal? How do you avoid stagnation? How can we get people moving, driving and conquering? What empowers people? When someone feels lost, defeated and ready to give up, where will they find the strength to push forward?
Leadership.
To be an effective, competing organization, there must be leaders; effective ones at that. Some people might say that leadership is inherent. It is important to understand leadership is a skill which can be learned. Leadership certainly isn't something that can be learned overnight, but requires considerable knowledge and practice.
James Kouzes and Barry Posner bring to the surface the The Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership in their book Leadership Challenge. They say when leaders make extraordinary things happen within an organization, they are using these five practices:
The premise of The Leadership Challenge defines these five practices and is filled with examples of successes. By the end of the book you will have an idea of how you can incorporate these items as a foundation to build from with your unique leadership style.
One interesting point brought up in the book is around asking for feedback. Kouzes and Posner found something profound in their studies using the Leadership Practices Inventory (LPI), a 360-degree feedback instrument which assesses the frequency on people engaging in The Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership. Through the LPI assessment, where people received the lowest rating, from leaders and their constituents is, "Asks for feedback on how his/her actions affect other people's performance".
To put it a different way, leaders are not asking how they can improve. How is one to know if they are an effective leader? Without polling, people most likely won't tell you. Feedback is a key tool to improvement. Ask and you shall receive. Feedback must also follow the following criteria to be effective:
Think about the last time you asked for feedback. How did the feedback size up compared to the above criteria? If you do not seek feedback already, start incorporating today. The Leadership Challenge, Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership will help anyone interested in leadership know not only what they will want to develop in themselves, but what they will want others to see in them and give feedback on.
Tero's Take
There are many choices when it comes to books on leadership. Tero uses The Leadership Challenge, Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership as the basis for leadership development because the practices identified in the book and examined on the accompanying assessment, the Leadership Practices Inventory, are grounded in the extensive global research conducted by the authors Kouzes and Posner. The context of leadership is continually changing, yet the content of what it takes to be an effective leader has endured through time and is clearly reflected in the five leadership practices. Tero has used this book and the LPI assessment to assist leaders in identifying their strength areas as well as areas of development. By learning to utilize authentic 360 degree feedback directly relating to the leadership practices, leaders can measure their effectiveness, set goals, demonstrate the discrete competencies reflected in the practices, and evolve to lead in ways they otherwise may have never realized.
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