#Leadership : How to “Ripple” Your Leadership…As a #Leader Tasked with Seizing New Ground & Improving an Organization’s #Performance, Do you Start with the Systems, the People, or Yourself? Get Out the Mirror!
Leaders Cannot be Effective If they Don’t Begin by Understanding their Own Values, Visioning their Personal Futures, & Recognizing their Unique Strengths & Weaknesses.
As a leader tasked with seizing new ground and improving an organization’s performance, do you start with the systems, the people, or yourself? Get out the mirror!
According to leadership expert, Chris Hutchinson, leaders cannot be effective if they don’t begin by understanding their own values, visioning their personal futures, and recognizing their unique strengths and weaknesses.
In his new book, Ripple: A Field Manual for Leadership That Works, Hutchinson demonstrates that true leadership is like skipping stones in a pond. With an engaging conversational tone and fun, whiteboard-style sketches, he teaches that the secret to leadership is that the power isn’t in the stone. It’s in the ripples. And stone-throwers simply can’t set robust, long-lasting ripples in motion if they’re not starting from a place of self-alignment.
To get into alignment Hutchinson recommends three steps.
- Decide What Matters Most
Leaders who consciously and explicitly state their own values lead from a place of clarity and empathy. On the other hand, leaders who direct without such self-awareness tend to be defensive and oblivious to others’ motivations and values.
To reveal what matters most to you, write down your top ten values. Now underline the top three. Finally, write out your understanding of how you are living (or not) those three values, including in your role as organizational leader. Adjust your course as necessary.
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- Chart Your Own Course
According to Hutchinson, the clarity of the end goal increases the clarity of the actions needed to achieve it. And nowhere is that more true than for leaders’ personal visions for their own lives.
In his workshops, Hutchinson takes participants through a guided visualization. He tells them to close their eyes and picture their own memorial services three years from now. Then he asks: Who’s attending the service? What do you want those people to remember and say about you? What do you want those people to carry on as your legacy?
Now ask yourself: How do I get from my reality of today to my hoped-for future? Start taking daily steps to get there.
- Know Where You’re Awesome
Are you often surprised or disappointed when others in your organization can’t do (or see) the things you do? This is a sign that you don’t know your own strengths, says Hutchinson. “When people unthinkingly see the abilities that come easily to them as not important or valuable, they are not recognizing—or even discrediting— their own strengths,” he writes.
On the other hand, he adds, any strength overdone or used without thought can become a weakness. In other words, more is not always better.
To discover your sweet spot, Hutchinson advises making a list of things you find easy and fun. Circle or add anything that people often compliment you on. Validate by asking someone you trust to look at this list of strengths to see if they agree. Of course, third-party assessments such as DISC, Strengths Finder, and Workplace Motivators can also help you see and understand where you’re awesome.
Truly effective organizational leadership starts with self-leadership, emphasizes Hutchinson. Next comes leadership of people and last, systems. While Ripple: A Field Manual for Leadership That Workscovers all three, it makes a strong case for working on yourself first to make the biggest impact on your organization.
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Kevin Kruse is the creator of the Leading for Employee Engagement eLearning program for managers and author of the bestselling book, Employee Engagement 2.0.
Forbes.com | August 7, 2015 | Kevin Kruse