Develop Your Leadership SuperPower

<p>Job descriptions, performance reviews, incentive schemes, recognition programmes are often box ticking activities in organisations, which often lead nowhere.  Overviewing these various systems and their execution may make the managers feel like they are earning their keep, but are they really contributing all that much to the required outcomes? </p> <p>Counting what the heads do, getting those heads to think and think together are different challenges and the latter necessitates cultivating people. Cultivating people is the “new black” for managers, as they must move up and into real leadership.</p> <p>So what is the difference between being a manager and a leader?  There are many definitions but it doesn’t have to be complex. Leadership is all about creating environments that influence others to achieve the group goals, because people will willingly support a world they create.  Management is the creation, implementation and monitoring of processes. People will willingly comply with a process that helps them succeed. </p> <p>Moving forward means designating the next level of achievement.  In a busy life, with a deluge of emails every day, spiced up with endless meaningless meetings, we can sometimes forget what is the point to all of this, as we are totally consumed with activity.  We need to set the vision for the team of where we want to be and what is the next level for us. </p> <p>It must be concrete, clear and well communicated.  I ran across one the other day: “delivering extraordinary customer experiences”.  Rather ambiguous – you could be delivering extraordinarily bad experiences to your customers!  A bit more clarity needed back at HQ by the look of that one. </p> <p>It raises the point though, that clarity in the communication is key, if you want to get people behind your direction.  Don’t kid yourself, semantics matter.</p> <p>So where possible, get buy in to the vision, such that it is a shared process.  This may be difficult when “The Vision” is lofting down from on high, but there are always su