Four Aspects of Leadership You Need To Know About
Posted: November 13, 2017
It is easy to get overwhelmed or even lost because of the many niches within the leadership & business development genre. I read a lot in this space. The more I read the more I feel I need to read. It can be discouraging. It is easier for you to digest if you break it down into chunks. Here are four to start: building relationships, business acumen, self awareness, & organizational strategy.
Building Relationships. Do you want to be my friend? Sometimes that is all it takes. My kids do it all the time. Building leadership starts with positive and effective relationships. This is a core competency.
Business Acumen. You need to be able to do something, attain goals with minimum guidance. Otherwise you are just hanging out. This includes the competencies of teamwork, performance & motivation. Although it also encompasses technical skills, managing work, and industry knowledge.
Self Awareness. Self awareness is the bud that flowers into leadership. If you think of these as stages then this is where a top performer starts to become a leader. That is why a lot of training starts here. Self awareness includes the competences of vision & values, sustainability, resilience, and emotional intelligence.
Organizational strategy. The ability to set the vision and direction for the long term success of the organization. Its comprised of the following competencies: political acumen, awareness. change, culture.
12 Core Competencies of Leadership
- Building Relationships
- Teamwork
- Performance
- Motivation
- Vision & Values
- Sustainability
- Resilience
- Emotional intelligence
- Political Acumen
- Awareness
- Change
- Culture
It's impossible to tackle all of them at once. That is the point of chunking it down. Pick one. Make a four to six week plan to focus on a skill in your chosen competency. Work to actively change your behaviors and habits. Habits drive change. It takes 4 to 6 weeks groove the behavioral and neurological pathways of the new habit you want to create. In a year to a year and a half you can make meaningful progress in each of the 12 competencies.
Some additional tips for developing leadership.
Create a masterminds group with professional peers. Focus: What is working? What needs improvement? Share challenges and successes. Support each other with suggestions, encouragement, ideas for improvement. Network to create mutually beneficial opportunities.
Attend leadership development programs. Some ideas on where to look for programs: at work, local universities, non-profits, LinkedIn Learning, Coursera.
Form a leadership development group. Read a book or take a course and come together to discuss implementing the changes.
Data Driven Leadership
Why talk about leadership on a blog about data? We have not talked about data or decision making. I don't have a lot of time to write. I debated including leadership as a thread of this blog. I decided the topic merited inclusion.
These 12 competencies are inputs that go into decisions at an organizational level. To make the best use of data a data driven organization, a data savvy manager, needs an understanding of leadership theory. The theory informs a leader of the right questions to ask when mining data. I've taken some additional notes on these 12 competencies. I plan to flesh these out over time showing how they play a role in a data driven organization. For now my notes will have to do.