What type of Leadership are you delivering today?

As we hear the commentary surrounding the leadership of the late Baroness Margaret Thatcher, it highlights clearly the style which she adopted and consistently deployed in her reign. Sadly, it divided the nation and her inflexibility led to her demise – well, it was 11 years!

If there was a discussion occurring about your leadership, what would people say? How would they describe your approach in the different situations which arose in your organisation?

If you haven’t thought about this, take a moment and consider the responses to these three questions:

1.Which style of leadership do I consistently deliver?
2.How effective am I at changing styles as the need arises?
3.What do I do regularly to ensure that my leadership is effective and helping others?

Taking time to reflect on your own leadership identifies how you behave in certain situations. You have the opportunity to measure and evaluate your choice and ask for feedback or help to strengthen approaches

A key question to ask yourself: Am I being the leader which is needed for the situation and for the people following in my tracks.

In the late 80’s, my nickname was Maggie Thatcher – I was leading a group of Volunteers and our goal was to double our membership. We achieved the goal and it was highlighted that my autocratic style of leadership created the shift and success. I was a novice at the time and whilst I was slightly offended by the title, it led me on a journey to practise other styles – thank heavens!

TOP RIGHT QUADRANT

Top Right Quadrant

In our pursuit for excellence, we are always aiming to ‘land’ or to be placed in the ‘top right quadrant’ of any model. (Imagine a four grid quadrant – high-high on both axis descriptors.)

This month, we've been focusing on MARCH, 'Master Reoccurring Challenges' and it’s time to move to the top right quadrant of our FEAR model.

In summary: identify the fear or fault, review and edit our mind talk activity, establish skill training to combat and bolster the physical ability and finally measure for results.

The top right quadrant is about being consistent – being predictable. That’s what followers are attracted to in a leader. It may be hard work, continually practising to form a new habit, but for us observers we want to trust, respect and admire someone who won’t disappoint us.

Mastery is beyond the quadrant – once you've tackled the quadrant activity & ability, attaining regular consistent results, you can springboard from that point, feeling satisfied that the original challenge is now a quest fulfilled.

DO YOU HAVE THE ABILITY TO LEARN?

Do you have the Ability to Learn?

Our ability to learn a new approach, skill, procedure, sport – whatever – will depend on our mind's activity and our physical approach to do something about it.

Today I cracked the 10km run – I’ve been training (learning) for eight months and it finally occurred this morning at 7am (it took about 75 minutes – which meant an early start). It was easy (famous last words) but I have been working on it for months. Running in a group, pushing ourselves, encouraging each other, sharing tips & ideas has paid off.  

How often do we ‘try’ something and when it doesn’t work immediately, we are reluctant to try it again. Whether it’s making a pitch to the boss or board, retrenching employees or avoiding sugar in our diet – it takes physical practise.

If we involve others in our learning, we increase our accountability; having a resource willing to support the learning and increases our chances of making the change stick. However, we must be mindful that we all learn differently but don’t allow that to be an excuse!

To Make Reoccurring Challenges extinct then commit to asking for help to learn. My FEAR model is purely a piece of scribble – it takes people to bring it alive.