Critical leadership assignment (4)

Last time we looked at the issue of trust in leadership. “The very first job of a leader is to inspire trust. Trust is the single most essential element to our ability to deliver extraordinary results in an enduring way. Trust is integrity to building high-performance because it enables an organization to work as it should; it’s the first defense against dysfunction and the first step towards delivering better outcomes. As we work to continuously improve our leadership, we are inspired by the thought leadership of others who also revere building trust as a critical mission.”ConantLeadership

Trust creates authenticity and authenticity creates freedom which in turns encourages people to put in their best.

“Authenticity is the alignment of head, mouth, heart, and feet – thinking, saying, feeling, and doing the same thing – consistently.” Lance Secretan

Trust means the followers know the leader is with them all the way. They know the leader has a stake in not only what happens to the group but to the individual followers.

Leadership has shifted from someone just showing and leading the way to more holistic issues as trustworthiness, transparency, ethics etc. There must be a proper balance between getting the job done and who and how the job is done. A leader must understand that for his influence to yield maximum results his relationship with his followers is critical.  He must properly balance work with the workers. Without the work there will be no workers and without the workers the work will not be done. “Leaders are frequently faced with making decisions when circumstances aren’t black and white. Critical thinking skills and an acute sense of right and wrong are paramount to being able to consistently and reliably evaluate possibilities and make ethical choices before moving forward. When it comes to the ethical treatment of people, it really boils down to treating others the way he or she would like to be treated—known as the golden rule.

Holistic leaders are open, honest, direct and forthright in the way they act and communicate. This doesn’t mean they are indiscriminate with the timing and information that is shared. Rather, they understand when people are impacted by certain situations and they willingly share the information that matters at the appropriate time. Transparency is also linked to the virtue of humility, because holistic leaders are willing to be vulnerable and admit when they don’t have all the answers or things don’t go according to plan.” Jim Funk

Part of a leader’s critical assignment is to understand and make it a policy that the end does not justify the means. The process and procedure through which are done must be of high ethical standards. The days of the end justifies the means are over in leadership. The leader must carry the people along in a transparent and trustworthy manner. If this is not done the leader will soon lose his leadership influence and if not well handled he can destroy the organisation.

“Traditional leadership competence has been about behavior—what a leader is capable of doing in the workplace. That approach describes desired actions, but it overlooks the character traits that are crucial for guiding those actions. A more complete model of leadership competence goes beyond actions to describe who the leader is as a person. I refer to this model as holistic leadership.

To be continued