6 PERSPECTIVES OF A LEADER

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Prosper Damon Nicholson
6 years ago
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6 PERSPECTIVES OF A LEADER Your leadership effectiveness is determined by two things: the decisions you make and the influence you have. Great leaders are able to make exceptional decisions.

1 6 PERSPECTIVES OF A LEADER Your leadership effectiveness is determined by two things: the decisions you make and the influence you have. Great leaders are able to make exceptional decisions. They have an ability to process the right inputs with the right people to make informed decisions. But they also understand that they need to be a leader worth following. They are able to engage, stretch, develop, align and mobilize their people to build great cultures and achieve exceptional results. Too often, our leadership is hindered by our limited perspective. We often look at things from a set number of viewpoints, often dictated by our role, experience and personal strengths. As a result, the quality of our decisions suffers, and our influence with our teams wanes. The 6 Perspectives of a Leader challenges us to see things in a new way that will allow us to make better decisions and increase our influence so we can build better teams and get better results. We have created a 6 Perspectives of a Leader Assessment to highlight what you are doing well and identify opportunities to broaden your perspective and strengthen your leadership.

2 CURRENT REALITY Leaders need to have both feet firmly planted in current reality. If they don t have a handle on today s business, they will be unable to effectively navigate and lead through current opportunities and challenges. Biggest Challenge: If you don t know the critical aspects of your business today, you can t make great decisions or manage the business as well as you could. Therefore, your team loses confidence in you and your influence suffers. Key Aspect: You must have a simple dashboard that allows you to easily see the metrics that are most important to the business, with a focus on the window between the past 90 days and the next 90 days. You must make it a regular discipline to review and share this information. What are the metrics that are most important to your business today? While you may track countless metrics, you and your team should have clarity and alignment around which are the most important. What got you where you are? To make the best decisions, you must be aware of the key historical information and events that are directly shaping your Current Reality. To master this perspective, leaders must understand their business and how it works. Never stop the discipline of inspecting the critical metrics that will tell you how your business is performing and where you need to adjust.

LONG-TERM VISION Leaders need to see beyond today to where the business is going in the future and paint a clear and compelling picture that excites others to join them on a journey to a better

3 LONG-TERM VISION Leaders need to see beyond today to where the business is going in the future and paint a clear and compelling picture that excites others to join them on a journey to a better tomorrow. Not only do people want it and need it but leadership requires it. Biggest Challenge: Don t fall into the trap of thinking small and playing it safe. Your vision needs to stretch you and your team to achieve more than what is seen or possible today. Key Aspect: You can never over-communicate your vision. Be creative in how you regularly share your vision with your team with both passion and energy. Make sure you help them see the unique role they play in making it a reality. Is your vision in writing? Having your vision in writing helps solidify your thinking and allows you to better share it with others. Is your vision clear and compelling? If you re vision doesn t excite you, it will never excite those that you lead. Keep working on it until it fires you up. How am I using my vision? If you write your vision and file it away somewhere, you ll never see any lift or benefit. You need to make reviewing, using and communicating your vision a regular discipline of your leadership. Our proven 3B Business Vision Tool will walk you step-by-step through a process to create a powerful business vision. If you already have a written vision, our Vision Review Tool will help refresh and sharpen it.

STRATEGIC BETS Leaders place strategic bets to close the gap from their current reality to their longterm vision and drive their organization forward with clarity and confidence.

4 STRATEGIC BETS Leaders place strategic bets to close the gap from their current reality to their longterm vision and drive their organization forward with clarity and confidence. These three to five initiatives are above and beyond the normal scope of operations. Biggest Challenge: These are called bets for a reason. While you can research and plan, leaders are taking a risk by investing in these initiatives. You can t let fear of failing hold you back if you re going to chase a big vision. Key Aspect: In order to be successful, these strategic bets must be resourced with leaders, specific point people and teams with systems for coherent communication and strong accountability. Do your Strategic Bets connect to both your Current Reality and Long-Term Vision? You need to run all of your Strategic Bets through both in order to ensure alignment and priority. Have you identified the resources needed to execute on each Strategic Bet? You need to make sure each bet is a priority and resourced properly from a time, resource and budget perspective. To put you in the best position to win, each bet should have an owner to drive progress and accountability. How are your Strategic Bets doing? You need to make sure you have a system in place to regularly review the status of your bets to keep than on track and make any necessary adjustments. Often the difference between a successful man and a failure is not one s better abilities or ideas, but the courage that one has to bet on his ideas, to take a calculated risk, and to act. Maxwell Maltz, American scientist

THE TEAM Leaders are able to not only see the business from their team s perspective but also ask the right questions to best understand the unique challenges and opportunities only their teammates

5 THE TEAM Leaders are able to not only see the business from their team s perspective but also ask the right questions to best understand the unique challenges and opportunities only their teammates can see. Biggest Challenge: Leaders must have the courage to ask the tough questions. Be open and humble as you seek out feedback that will help you to improve as a leader. Too many leaders are unapproachable, so their teammates will never share the truth with them and the organization suffers because of it. Key Aspect: As leaders, you must get out from behind your desks and make connecting with your teammates across the organization a priority. What do they see? Your teammates have a unique perspective on the business and your customers both today and in the future. You must have systems in place to make sure you understand what they see from where they sit. Do they have what they need? One of the greatest values you can offer your team is making sure they have everything they need to perform their jobs with excellence and are put in a position to do their best work every day. Walking the Floor is a great discipline for leaders to adopt. Be intentional and schedule this time to connect with teammates in an informal way. What one thing would help you do your job better?, is a great question to ask as you seek to better understand their perspective.

6 OUR CUSTOMER Leaders must understand what it feels like to do business with their company or organization. To serve them well, a leader must know who their clients are, why they value their product or service and what their current and future business needs are. Biggest Challenge: Leaders must always keep their customer at the center of everything they do. If you don t stay connected with your customers, it s easy to find yourself and your business off course. Key Aspect: Surveys are a great tool, but leaders need to hear directly from the people using their product or service to understand the client s perspective. This is not something that should be delegated. Find ways to connect face-to-face with your customers. Do you really know your customers? In addition to knowing the basic demographics of your customers, you must seek out information that helps you really understand who they are and what is most important to them. Understanding your customers is the best way to serve them. How can you add the most value to your customers? Always be looking for ways to meet the needs of your customers (both current and future). By adopting a mindset of partnership and constant customer service, you ll be able to create better connection and relationship with your customers. The Keep - Start - Stop process can be a simple but powerful way to get feedback from your customers. Simply ask them, What should we keep doing, start doing or stop doing to better serve you? This framework can help you glean great insights into both them and your business.

YOUR ROLE Leaders need to clearly see the unique value they bring to their organization and how to execute on those activities that will allow them to best serve the organization both today and in

7 YOUR ROLE Leaders need to clearly see the unique value they bring to their organization and how to execute on those activities that will allow them to best serve the organization both today and in the future. Biggest Challenge: Saying no to the good so you can say yes to the great. Leaders must be ruthless about focusing their time and energy on the activities that will have the greatest impact on their leadership and business. Key Aspect: Effective leaders are able to take charge of their calendar rather than reacting to other s priorities. Set your ideal week as the foundation to build your schedule upon. Do you know where you add the most value? Leaders must be crystal clear on their high-payoff activities. Identify those and either delegate or eliminate everything else competing for your time and attention. How are your growing? To meet the future needs of the business, you must be investing in your own growth. Identify where you need to grow to be the leader the business will need in 5 years. How are you growing and developing others? This is one of your greatest responsibilities as a leader. Executing on an intentional plan to grow and develop your people must be part of your role. Our One-Page Simple Business Plan allows leaders to focus on their true high-payoff activities and provides them a filter to say no to activities that would pull them off course.

The Fundamentals of Great Leadership

WHITE PAPER The Fundamentals of Great Leadership A guide on how to establish a strong leadership presence. If you ve put in the work to gain a leadership position, you may feel you ve made it and your