LEARNING ABOUT LEADERSHIP

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As some of you may know, I am the newest member of the Ariel Group Executive Team.    I have spent the last 15 years focused on how to leverage relationship management skills (negotiation, communication, coaching, managing change, influence) for better business results.   As I turn my attention to building on this base of knowledge, and expanding it to include leadership theory, I am discovering some interesting themes.

1. Leaders need a global mindset.

James Kouzes,  Chairman and CEO of TPG/Learning Systems, and the co-author of The Leadership Challenge, writes, “While the content of leadership has remained the same over the past twenty years, the context has not.”   I have worked in a professional services firms for most of my adult, post graduate school life, and we used to think (way back in the day!) that being “global” meant getting on a plane from our home office and going wherever it was on the globe that our clients were located.  We have come to learn that this is nowhere near the expectations of what “global” means in today’s marketplace.

A leaders’ global mindset encompasses everything from the tactical – for example, not always scheduling cross geography conference calls at 9am EST which makes it 9PM in AsiaPac – to the more strategic:

• How are we managing cross region so that we are not a headquarters-centric organization where strategy is pushed to the regions without their input?
• If the organization is US or UK based is it an English-only rule for conducting business?
• Have we considered our impact on the local community of our presence in region – is it all positive (job creation) or is there is also some perceived downside and how are we attempting to mitigate or manage that?

As you think with a global mindset what leadership questions are you considering?

2. Leadership strategy as business strategy.

There seems to be a shift in focus to the collective development of leaders in an organization, with a goal of enabling them to address real-time enterprise-wide business challenges, as opposed to instilling a set of competencies.  Targeting leaders’ attention at issues the organization is facing, not attributes an individual requires, is resulting in leadership development strategies that seem to be more closely integrated with business objectives.

The Ariel definition of PRESENCE is: the ability to connect authentically with the thoughts and feelings of others in order to motivate and inspire them toward a desired outcome.   As such,  PRESENCE allows leaders to “attune their ears” to the issues of the day via careful, flexible communication adapted to their  specific audience; listening carefully not only to words spoken, but also to the underlying messages shared; disseminating information in ways their teams, colleagues, customers and partners can understand , engage with, integrate and ultimately act upon.   PRESENCE can be the foundation upon which leadership strategy and business strategy come closer together over time, creating leaders who are agile strategists, thinkers and implementers.

Tags: Gabriella Salvatore,Jim Kouzes,leadership development,leadership viewpoints,The Leadership Challenge