Leadership

Hi All In the previous post I covered 12 leadership styles. Being an expat in a country and company that employ more than 95 nationalities, working with different cultures, is not a choice, but a necessity. "The ear of the leader must ring with the voices of the people" Woodrow Wilson  With the march of globalisation and internationalisation growing louder and stronger, few successful businesses can now escape the need to work across cultures. Today's leaders need to be adapt at leading and managing people of different cultures; they need to listen to the "voices of the people" as well as understand what those voices may actually be telling them. This in essence is the crux of the challenge; when people perceive the world, communicate and view their leaders in different ways, the leader's ears may be ringing with misunderstood messages. The leader will come across cultural issues in many different guises. By way of illustrating the challenges of cros...

Hi Leaders I recently had an assessment with my boss for a possible promotion, and while we were discussing leadership, he made mention of " servant leadership ". This totally resonated with me, as I have always believed that to be a leader, one must be a servant first to know how to lead. In becoming or being a servant, the most important step to this state of leadership is, becoming humble. Humility and ego do not see eye-to-eye and will definitely be at odds with one another. To give you a quick view of the difference between traditional leadership compared to servant leadership, here is a simple diagram: As you can see, the roles of importance has flipped. So what is servant leadership exactly? While servant leadership is a timeless concept, the phrase “servant leadership” was coined by Robert K. Greenleaf in The Servant as Leader, an essay that he first published in 1970. In that essay, Greenleaf said: “The servant-leader is servant first… It begins with th...

Hi Leaders "Let me ask you a question: If you were crafting a list of behaviour patterns that you think good leaders need to be successful, what would be included?" One person suggested that you needed to be politically wise to truly  manoeuvre  your way through a newsroom (gossip parties); that if you weren't, you would essentially be eaten alive. I understand the politics of a office chit chat all too well. But I also know that, as a leader, you can discourage it or encourage it. You can operate with what has become known as creative tension or you can let it be known that playing politics will get you absolutely nowhere. I did my best to practice the latter, and those working with me know I have no tolerance for politics and the gossip that accompanies it. Another point of contention came when a mid-level manager questioned whether you had to work longer and harder than everyone else to get ahead. And, he added, do people who work for you feel they have t...

Hello In the previous post I made reference to "Transformational Leadership", and thought I'd elaborate on the topic today. The business world has moved from management styled running of businesses, to leadership. It is the hype today, and it brings with it a lot of excitement, but also uncertainty in some cases. Trailblazers James McGregor and Barnard M. Bass saw the importance and the need for businesses to survive, to change the way they were managing or leading their teams. James defined transformational leadership as:  "leaders and their followers raise one another to higher levels of morality and motivation."  Leadership became more about a team effort, than an individual in charge of the whole.  This was a revelation that stuck with me, and worked magic everywhere I implemented this behaviour. Now, I cannot imagine managing or leading any team any other way. The Backbone: Creating an inspiring vision of the future: A team needs a compell...