Deliberate Leadership
By Ken Keis.
Deliberate Leadership is about being self-aware enough that you can be purposefully wise, diplomatic, and intentional with competence. It is about embracing the values (and behaviours) of accountability, reliability, and responsibility. Admittedly, there are hundreds of other definitions of leadership; they all vary somewhat in orientation, but most imply that the leadership process contains the element of influence, which is situational, in constant flux, and could be directed towards individuals, teams or organizations – all with the intent of achieving success.
Deliberate Leaders lead by personally modelling the behaviours or ways of thinking that they desire while encouraging others to courageously take the initiative to be independent in their reasoning and in doing so, transfer ownership and responsibility to others.
Deliberate Leaders are teachers, mentors, and role models – and they accomplish the majority of their results through the power of influence, not authority.
All of these aspects of influence are essential for leaders to ensure that followers will respect them and the decisions that they make. While influence is important, it is also crucial that leaders deliberately persuade their followers (through the leader’s actions) to believe that they are “Credible.”
Credibility is at the heart of influence!
Before you can build trust and influence as a deliberate leader, you must understand who you are, what you need to change, and how to go about it. When we are not self-aware about our own preference, gifts, talents, and tendencies, it is impossible for us to act trustworthy, and influence deliberately. If we are not aware, we are living life – day after day and year after year- oblivious to our natural thought patterns and beliefs.
All of us have met people who are completely unaware that their behaviour and conduct are inappropriate. They have no idea that they are clueless about life and leadership.
Developing the Whole Leader: You!
Becoming a deliberate leader starts with developing all of you. Several factors make up what you bring as a leader to the playing field. To be a successful leader means deliberately developing the whole person. But how do you go about doing that? Well, it starts with learning the art and science of digging deeper into understanding yourself and at the same time, you learn about the others you are leading.
Are we a product of nature (born that way) or nurture (input from our environment)? The answer is Yes… We are a combination of both nature and nurture.
Have you completed a personality assessment in the past that ended up boxing you into a specific type? Did you feel trapped by the results? Most personality assessment test designers do not honour the whole person, and fail to acknowledge in their methodology that we are both nature and nurture.
Each person is born with many parts that form the whole (nature); we gain knowledge and beliefs (nurture) as we live our lives.
Your personality is exclusive to you alone. No one else in the history of time has been, or will be, exactly like you.
What is Your Leadership Style ?
Can you recall a time when you have walked into a room and immediately had a connection with someone you had never met before? What about the opposite situation? You meet someone for the first time and something about them makes your skin crawl. What is creating those responses to two strangers?
Our personalities are made up of many factors. Our Personal Style, however, strongly drives our perceptions and our connections with others. You will have more chemistry with someone who is similar to you in terms of your preferences and the way that you like to interact with the world.
Why is that?
To really understand yourself and others, you must be aware of the meaning of Personal Style and that each style dimension has predictive qualities and characteristics. No one style is better than another; they are simply different. Those differences, however can lead to conflict, miscommunication, and strife; all which can be eliminated or at least reduced when you understand the essence of personal style,
How to Deliberately Create High-performance Individuals & Teams
Do you realize that 70% to 80% of people dislike their jobs, from a feeling of mild irritation to downright loathing?
If you are in a job, or take a position, that does not suit your personal style pattern, then you will not be able to function at your peak performance.
Our belief is that one of the main reasons that 80% of people dislike their job is that they have not matched their personal style with the job style of the position?
Many individuals and professionals have attempted to link occupational suggestions to each style dimension, type or personalities as the marketplace calls them.
We don’t agree with that process.
- Your personal style does not predict success in an occupation.
- Style compatibility applies only to a specific role or position that needs to be filled, not general job titles
- Jobs that our children will enjoy in the future have not even been invented yet!
When individuals, teams and organizations become intentional with matching the right person to the right job, not only will magic happen; but performance will quickly follow.
Leadership is about understanding self as well as others. The way we engage others and present ourselves will either motivate or disillusion our followers or team. As leaders we are responsible to lead the way. When leaders understand their Leadership Style, and their team members style, they can optimize their leadership and team effectiveness.
The number one reason for low staff morale is the individual or supervisor to whom the person directly reports.
Regardless of the politics in an organization the leader of a group sets the tone for the team. If there is low morale in a work group, there is a higher than 90% chance that the supervisor is contributing to the condition.
Style influences your ability to build credibility, productivity, quality, and job satisfaction in the workplace.
Take Action – Key Strategies Critical to Your Future Success:
- Recognize why you don’t like or you feel irritated by others who are different than you are.
- Control your style, don’t let your style control you.
- Accept the differences in others; serve and lead them in their style needs and orientation.
- Be aware that you create a level of credibility with everyone with whom you interact, whether you want to or not; it is the price you pay for showing up in life.
- Know the job style of the work and roles that are best suited for you and implement this concept with your entire team and organization.
- Choose the working environment that reflects your Values and needs, not someone else’s.
- Encourage others – such as your peers, employees, superiors, colleagues, family, friends – to become aware of and to embrace their unique style, values and strengths.
- Realize your need to develop and understand the whole person, including biophysical factors, self-worth levels, environmental systems, social teachers, emotional anchors, spirituality, and your personal style – all of which make up our unique personality.
We can list more but you get the point.
The research is clear. Without knowledge and awareness of personal style, 98 % of individuals will under-perform and fail to reach their potential.
With all the right information you can consider yourself armed and positively dangerous! You will make a difference in your life, and in the lives of everyone with whom you interact.
Go for it! You have nothing to lose and everything to gain.
Here’s to all of us Deliberately Leading on Purpose!
Also if you want to learn more about any of the topics mentioned in this article you can buy our new book Deliberate Leadership, co-authored by Ken Keis Ph.D. & Mitch Javidi Ph.D, where we take you through each topic above (plus more) in much greater depth, and walk you through the journey, as well as provide you with the tools and a free assessment to get you started!