The Effective Leader

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 677.

From workplace surveys I have found that most people want to be – and feel they could be – more effective leaders. Certainly they want their leaders to be more effective. But what do we mean by effective leadership in business? It would appear a simple question. Unfortunately, effectiveness is more easily recognisable when it is absent. Leaders who attempt to use business jargon and try out the latest ideas are too often seen as figures of fun. Whilst people frequently agree on what ineffective leadership is, clearly knowing what not to do is hardly helpful in practice.

Huge amounts of research have been done on this very wide subject. When you look at leadership in different ways, you see different things. While descriptions of leadership are all different, they are all true – and this is where disagreement arises. However, leadership is specific to a given context. The effectiveness of your actions is assessed in relation to the context and to the conditions under which you took them.

For a magazine article I wrote recently, I interviewed a publishing executive, author of several well-known publications, about what effective leadership is. It was significant that, at first, he did not mention his own company. He talked at length about what was happening in the industry – the mergers, takeovers and global nature of the business. Before he was able to describe his own objectives for the new publishing organisation he was setting up, he had to see a clear fit between these proposals and the larger situation outside. Obvious? Of course. But I have lost count of the number of leaders I have coached who believed that their ideas were valid whatever the situation.

At this point I should also mention another example, that of a finance director whose plan of action was not well received. The company he had joined had grown steadily for twenty years, serving clients who were in the main distrustful of any product that was too revolutionary. The finance director saw potential challenges from competitors and wanted his organisation to move with the times. Unfortunately, most staff below him were unwilling to change. I concluded that although there were certainly some personal skills he could improve upon, what he most needed to do was to communicate effectively with his subordinates, so that they all felt at ease with his different approach.

Some effective leaders believe they can control uncertainty because they know what the organisation should be doing and how to do it. Within the organisation itself, expertise is usually greatly valued, and executives are expected, as they rise within the system, to know more than those beneath them and, therefore, to manage the operation. A good example of this would be a firm of accountants I visited. Their business was built on selling reliable expertise to the client, who naturally wants uncertainty to be something only other companies have to face. Within this firm, giving the right answer was greatly valued, and mistakes were clearly to be avoided.

I am particularly interested in what aims leaders have and what their role should be in helping the organisation to achieve its strategic aims. Some leaders are highly ineffective when the aim doesn't fit with the need, such as the manufacturing manager who was encouraged by her bosses to make revolutionary changes. She did, and was very successful. However, when she moved to a different part of the business, she carried on her programme of change. Unfortunately, this part of the business had already suffered badly from two mismanaged attempts at change. My point is that what her people needed at that moment was a steady hand, not further changes – she should have recognised that. The outcome was that within six months staff were calling for her resignation.

Choose the right answer

1. In the first paragraph, the writer says that poor leaders

A do not want to listen to criticism.

B do not deserve to be taken seriously.

C are easier to identify than good ones.

D are more widespread than people think.

2. Why does the writer believe there is disagreement about what effective leadership is?

A Definitions of successful leadership vary according to the situation.

B There are few examples of outstanding leaders available to study.

C Leaders are unable to give clear descriptions of their qualities.

D The results of research on the subject have concluded little.

3. The publishing executive's priorities for leadership focused on

A significant and long-term aims.

B internal organisational aspects.

C professional skills and abilities.

D overall business contexts.

4. According to the writer, the finance director was unsuccessful because

A staff were uncomfortable with his style.

B existing clients were suspicious of change.

C competitors had a more dynamic approach.

D colleagues gave little support to his ideas.

5. Staff at the accountancy firm who were promoted were required to

A correct mistakes.

B have a high level of knowledge.

C maintain discipline within the organisation.

D advise clients on responding to uncertainty.

6. The example of the manufacturing manager is given to emphasise that

A managers need support from their employers.

B leaders should not be afraid of being unpopular.

C effective leaders must be sensitive to staff needs.

D managers do not always understand the attitudes of staff.

WHAT MAKES A GOOD MANAGER?

Here are 10 tips By Bill Gates

There isn't a magic formula for good management, of course, but if you are a manager perhaps these tips will help you be more effective.

1. Choose a field thoroughly. Make it one you enjoy. It's hard to be productive without genuine enthusiasm. This is true whether you are a manager or employee.

2. Hire carefully and be willing to fire. You need a strong team, because a mediocre team gives mediocre results, no matter how well managed it is.

One common mistake is holding onto somebody who doesn't quite measure up. It's easy to keep this person on the job because he is not terrible at what he does. But a good manager will replace him or move him to a set of responsibilities where he can succeed unambiguously.

3. Create a productive environment. This is a particular challenge because it requires different approaches depending on the context.

Sometimes you maximize productivity by giving everybody his or her own office. Sometimes you achieve it by moving everybody into open space. Sometimes you use financial incentives to stimulate productivity. A combination of approaches is usually required.

One element, that almost always increases productivity is providing an information system that empowers employees.

When I was building Microsoft, I set out to create an environment where software developers could thrive. I wanted a company where engineers liked to work. I wanted to create a culture that encouraged them to work together, share ideas and remain highly motivated. If I hadn't been a software engineer myself, there is no way I could have achieved my goal.

4. Define success. Make it clear to your employees what constitutes success and how they should measure their achievements.

Goals must be realistic. Project schedules, for example, must be set by the people who do the work. People will accept a 'bottoms-up' deadline they helped set but they will be cynical about a schedule imposed from the top that doesn't map to reality. Unachievable goals undermine an organization.

At my company, in addition to regular team meetings and one-on-one sessions between managers and employees, we use mass gatherings periodically and e-mail routinely to communicate what we expect from employees.

5. To be a good manager, you have to like people and be good at communicating. This is hard to fake. If you don't genuinely enjoy interacting with people, it'll be hard to manage them well.

You must have a wide range of personal contacts within your organization. You need relationships - with a fair number of people, including your own employees. You must encourage these people to tell you what's going on (good or bad) and give you feedback what people are thinking about the company and your role in it.

6. Develop your people to do their jobs better than you can. Transfer your skills to them.

This is an exciting goal but it can be threatening to a manager who worries that he is training his replacement. If you are concerned, ask your boss: 'If I develop somebody who can do my job super well, does the company have some other challenge for me or not?'

Many smart managers like to see their employees increase their responsibilities because it frees the managers to tackle new or undone tasks.

7. Build morale. Make it clear there is plenty of good will to go around and that it's not just as some hotshot rnanager who is going to look good if things go well.

Give people a sense of the importance of what they are working on - it's importance to the company, its importance to customers.

When you achieve great results, everybody involved should share in the credit and feel good about it.

8. Take on projects yourself. You need to do more than communicate.

The last thing people want is a boss who just doles out stuff. From time to time prove you can be hands-on by taking on one of the less attractive tasks and using it as an example of how your employees should meet challenges.

9. Don't make the same decision twice. Spend the time and thought to make a solid decision the first time so that you don't revisit the issue unnecessarily. If you are too willing to reopen issues, it interferes not only with your execution but also with your motivation to make a decision in the first place.

People hate indecisive leadership so you have to make choices.

However that doesn't mean you have to decide everything the moment it comes to your attention. Nor that you can't ever reconsider your decision.

10. Let people know whom to please. Maybe it's you, maybe it's your boss and maybe it's somebody who works for you. You are in trouble - and risking paralysis in your organization - when employees start saying to themselves: 'Am I supposed to be making this person happy or this other person happy? They seem to have different priorities.'

I don't pretend that these are the only 10 approaches a manager should keep in mind, or even that they are the most important ones. There are lots of others. But these 10 ideas may help you manage well, and I hope they do.