Developing
Leadership Skills
“Codifying one’s thinking is an important
step in inventing oneself.” (Bennis,
p.42) An efficient way to reduce ones thinking to the simplest
terms is speaking or writing our thoughts; writing seems to be
the best way of learning who we are and what we believe. Even
though “self-knowledge” is something easy to describe,
it is difficult to achieve. To be authentic is to be our own author,
to discover our own energies and desires, and then to find our
own way of acting on them.
To become a leader, we must become ourselves, become the makers
of our lives, separating who we are and who we want to be from
who the world thinks we are and wants us to be. This is a lifetime
process. Some people start the process early, and some don’t
begin until later. Those who struggled to know and become themselves
as children or teenagers continue today to explore their own depths,
reflect on their experiences, and test themselves. Others undertake
their own remaking on midlife. Sometimes, we simply don’t
like who we are or what we are doing, and so we seek change. (Bennis,
p.49)
In discussing modes of learning, Bennis calls on the work of
Professor Gib Akin, in Organizational Dynamics, who writes that
when learning is experienced and absorbed, it creates personal
transformation. A person does not gather what they learn as possessions
but rather becomes a new person. True understanding comes from
reflection on our experiences. Leaders are self-directed. Learning
and understanding are the keys to self-direction, and it is in
our relationships with others that we learn about ourselves.
American organizational life is a left-brain culture; logical,
analytical, technical, controlled, conservative and administrative.
We are its products and are dominated and shaped by those same
characteristics. Our culture needs more right-brain qualities.
We need to be more intuitive, conceptual, synthesizing, and artistic.
Reflection is a major way in which leaders learn from the past.
In fact, what we do is a direct result of not only what and how
we think, but also of what and how we feel.
Reflection comes first, followed by strategic action. When we
learn to reflect on our experiences until the resolution of our
conflicts arises from within us, then we begin to develop our
own perspective.
Leaders don’t necessarily have to invent ideas, but they
have to be able to put them in context and add perspective.
Perspective is no more and no less than how we see things. It
is your particular frame of reference. Once we master the arts
of reflection, understanding, and resolution, perspective and
point of view will follow.
The creative process that underlines strategic thinking is infinitely
complex, but, according to Bennis, they are basic steps that can
be identified:
- We have to know where we’re going to end up.
- We flesh out those routes, elaborate them, revise them, and
make a kind of map of them, complete with possible pitfalls
and traps as well as rewards.
- We then examine this map objectively, locate all its soft
spots, and eliminate them or change them.
Unless we are willing to take risks, we will suffer paralyzing
inhibitions, and we will never do what we are capable of doing.
Mistakes are necessary for actualizing our vision, and necessary
steps toward success.
Trust is the underlying issue in not only getting people on our
side, but also in having them stay there. According to Bennis,
there are four leadership ingredients that generate and sustain
trust:
- Constancy: whatever surprise
leaders themselves may face, they don’t create any for
the group. Leaders are all of a piece; they stay the course.
- Congruity: In true leaders,
there is no gap between the theories they espouse and the lives
they practice.
- Reliability: Leaders are there
when it counts; they are ready to support their co-workers in
the moments that matter.
- Integrity: Leaders honor their
commitments and promises.
When these factors are in place, people will participate. Leaders
always have faith in themselves, their abilities, their coworkers,
and their mutual possibilities. But leaders also have sufficient
doubt to question, challenge, probe, and test too. Maintaining
that vital balance between faith and doubt, preserving that mutual
trust, is a primary task for any leader. Vision, inspiration,
empathy and trustworthiness are manifestations of a leader’s
judgment and character. Leadership is first being, then doing.
Everything the leader does reflects who he or she is.
The way that Esslinger found to manage his teams in an efficient
way that drives and coalesces them within the firm has been described
as this: “We integrate and cross-train. We have designers
who are coming to us with strict backgrounds in branding, engineering,
market research, software, who would normally operate in their
narrow, specialized field.
At frog, we pull them out of their single-minded space to turn
them into universalists. For example, digital designers who were
working on branding have heavily influenced some of the most successful
products we've made. And our product designers have inspired some
of our most advanced software projects. It's proved the key to
frog's appeal as an employer, because this allows our more than
100 highly trained designers to find and develop their own identities
within our client's very specific brand challenges.”
 
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