Fresh from a weekend of rediscovering the lawn and gardening muscles that clearly took the winter off, I found myself happy that I was able to quickly access freshly sharpened, well-oiled tools. As any good tradesman or craftsman (or weekend gardener) will tell you, there is no substitute for the right tool, properly maintained, when you need it. The same goes for leaders.
While there is no substitute for experience when it comes to leading, the role is a composite of activities, knowledge and skills that unless properly developed and maintained will quickly dull. Proper maintenance includes regularly revisiting fundamentals, challenging yourself with exposure to new tools and situations and broadening your knowledge of other critical elements of leading in this emerging world.
3 Tools to Master and Skill Sets to Sharpen that Will Improve Your Leadership Effectiveness:
1. Revisit the fundamentals regularly. I’ve yet to conduct a workshop with experienced leaders where a number of them didn’t comment on how helpful it was to revisit some of the fundamentals, including: the role of a leader, feedback basics, active listening skills, presentation skills, the art of asking questions and others.
As you gain experience, remember that it’s remarkably easy to develop an overly strong and false sense of self-confidence that leads to shortcuts and bad habits. Revisiting the fundamentals can prevent that decay and keep you in top condition.
2. Learn to negotiate. One of the areas of glaring weakness in many otherwise good leaders is the lack of negotiation skills. While almost all of us probably think that we know how to negotiate, we’re likely making critical and costly mistakes with alarming regularity.
It’s quite possible to move through your education and career without being exposed to formal negotiation training, yet this is in large part what leaders spend much of their time doing. If you think that your BATNA is a statistic calculated in baseball or something that you swing at a round object coming your way, it’s time to invest some time in learning the art and science of negotiating. Failure to do so is a commitment to leaving money and performance on the table.
3. Improve your Cultural IQ. Great leaders and professionals develop culture sensing and coping skills through deliberate preparation and practice. As your organization stretches globally and your involvement with suppliers, partners, employees and customers around the globe increases, you’ll want to be culturally aware. Your competitors are!
If Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions sounds like a band that your kid listens to or a summary of the weight differences of people across different cultures, you need to invest time and energy in developing your Cultural IQ.
The Bottom-Line for Now:
Hey, this leadership role is hard work. The title is generally not much more than a learner’s permit that requires you to develop and cultivate your skills to succeed as well as to avoid disaster.
Regardless of your age and experience, the laws of entropy apply and the only way to prevent decay is to keep growing, keep learning and keep moving. You owe it to yourself, your firm and your team to keep the skills sharp. Set the pace for your team with your own professional development and watch as others follow your lead.
Hey Art,
Thank you for this timely reminder. I have gone back and listened to a bunch of old podcasts from Manager-Tools.com just recently. It helps me remember what I should be doing on a regular basis with my directs.
Don’t you think of the three you mentioned above the Cultural IQ is the most important?
Blessings,
Dave
Never encountered the Cultural IQ idea. I’ll have to check it out.
I particularly like the part on the cultural IQ. Even if your particular business is expanding to foreign shores there is a good chance that you will hire individuals who are not originally from the United States. Being culturally sensitive goes a long way in our home offices as well.
Dave, David and Wade, thanks for reading and commenting. It seems like the Cultural IQ issue is the topic of the moment. It is in my mind one of the core issues to grasp…and to develop, for ourselves and for our team members. I’ll be back with a post or two on this specific topic. The link to Hofstede’s website will give you a view into some important issues in understanding the differences across cultures. -Art
The cultural IQ is important both internally and externally. Just today I was talking with a client about the importance of knowing when the institution has become primary over the mission of the organization. It’s too easy to pay lip service to the internal culture and the leader can lose touch with what is special and effective.
Enhancing one’s familiarity with external culture will increase as more and more businesses work globally. One area that challenges leaders is to use more curiosity when outside the home culture.
Thank you Art,
for the Geert Hofstede™ Cultural Dimensions link, I find the five dimensions model with countries listed on the left column fascinating.
The reminder of the need to refresh on the fundamentals such as your book, “Practical Lessons in Leadership”, is just what is needed to keep the tools sharp
Elli, thanks for sharing your perspectives. Cindy, I’m glad that you are finding the Hofstede information interesting and useful. And hey, thanks for highlighting the book! Best to all. -Art