Understanding Leadership Locators

By Adetokunbo Obayan                               

In 1707, British Admiral Clowdisley Shovell made a miscalculation of his flagship’s position in the Atlantic, leading his whole fleet towards the rocks of Scilly Isles. Four warships and 2000 lives were lost due to this mistake. Recently I misread a landmark on a journey and assuming I was at my destination took a wrong turn and that resulted in an extra three hours and an unquantifiable amount of hassle to my journey which at the time should have ended 20 minutes later if I had not misinterpreted my position, Understanding where you are is essential to determining what responses are expected of you. A failure to measure your location properly can be fatal. Many of us may have heard the story of the airline pilot who made the following announcement. "Ladies and Gentlemen, I have good news and bad news. First the bad news; all our navigation equipment has broken down so we don’t know where we are and the good news; the engines are performing very well so we are making good speed". The question is good speed to where?

The identification measures are what can be referred to as locators.

In other words Leadership Locators are:-

The parameters you use to know where you Stand in the Leadership Schema

The Indicators of your leadership status and the kind of leadership you can exercise

The basis for Leadership growth planning and effectiveness analysis

I have identified four major locator types which are necessary for determining where we stand in the leadership picture. These are:

The Four Types of Locators

Positional Platforms

Perspective

Competencies

Personal development

Locator No 1: Position in the group

Leadership is defined by W.C.H Prentice as

"the discipline of deliberately exerting special influence within a group to move it toward goals of beneficial permanence that fulfills the group’s real needs."

This implies that Leadership is about an individual, a group and his influence on the group. Hence the way and manner a person fits into a group will obviously affect the mode and nature of his influence. It is necessary therefore to determine the different dimensions which are necessary to determining your location.

Where do you stand in the leadership picture or in the group determines what kind of leadership you can exert on the group.

What are the variables?

Where you are relative to the entire organisation or group

Are you in any sub grouping – This is often a function of the size of the group.

What is your relative position in your subgroup

What is your subgroup and subgroup heads impact or potential for impact on the organisational vision

what your impact is on the organisation’s vision

What is your potential for upward movement

Answers to these questions will determine our location in the overall scheme of things.

The interesting thing is that as long as influence can be exerted from any of these positions leadership can be exerted. The obvious fact however is that the leadership available to a new entrant in an organisation is obviously different from that of the CEO of the organisation. 

 

Diagrammatic Representation of Positional locators no 1

Fig 1.

New entrant
Experienced campaigner
Subgroup sub leader
Subgroup leadership
Overall organisational Top LeaderSenior Management
Overall organisational leader

A person inevitably exercises leadership over or towards 4 main sets of people. These are:

Himself

His peers

His subordinates

His superiors

As he or she moves from position to position the quality of leadership he or she is capable of having at each level is different for a number of reasons. First of all the numbers and compositions of the various groups change. When a person is a new entrant he finds that the number of his peers and superiors far outnumber those of his subordinatess

 

 

 

 

 Represented in a graphic form

 

 

What these graphs imply is that at each stage or platform length of stay usually leads to an increase in influence as a result of increasing familiarity with the role demands which translates to some form of leadership but if this is properly handled it will usually lead to a change of platform but if no change is forthcoming influence levels will plateau and gradually begin to decline

 

Locator No 2: Leadership Perspectives

A second type of Leadership locator describes the leader by his perspective or manifestation as leader. This perspective leads him to take a position reflective of his perspective. Usually at the beginning of a person’s entrance into a setting he is predominantly in respect of his leadership an individual but as he begins to gain credibility his influence as well as his leadership status begins to be established albeit often in an informal manner. From then on he progresses along a path depending on his perspectives and his growth levels.

These positions which are reflected in the diagram below are

Positional leader – These would probably be described as the first stage of formal leadership. It describes a person who is given at least a de – jure recognition of him as a leader. There are many people for whom this is an end. They celebrate the position and enjoy to the fullness the perks and status associated with the position. As a result they are unable to turn de jure into de facto. One clear example from Nigerian History is what happened when General Ibrahim Babangida was forced to resign after annulling the results of a Nigeria’s fairest ever election in June 1993. As a result of the suddenness of the situation an Interim National Government was then set up with Chief Ernest Shonekan as Head of State. It soon became obvious however that although he held that position in theory, in practice he was not the leader of the Government or country. It was not then a surprise to anyone when he was forced out of office by the very forces he had failed to establish control over. Hence he was merely a positional leader

Assertive leader – The assertive leader is a leader who is not only there dejure but has also effectively taken charge. I am always reminded of the Speech given by Norman Lamont after he resigned as British Chancellor of the Exchequer following the ERM debacle. He said "Mr Prime minister, We give the impression that we are in office but not in power". The assertive leader is not only in office but also in power. However a leader that only rises to the assertive level may as well be a tyrant.

Efficient leader – The efficient leader is the leader who has learnt to use his office to produce results. He is efficient and effective in the use of the resources allotted him including human beings. In my opinion most efficient managers fall into this perspective of leadership. They produce results. As a matter of fact most organisations actually seem to be satisfied at this level

Visionary leader – The Visionary leader is a leader who produces leadership in such a way that tomorrow and its changes are taken care of. They are people of real vision. They are inspirational and to use the words of John Maxwell they know where they want to go. Such leaders produce in the words of Peter Senge "A shared picture of the future they seek to create. These are the leaders who maintain our relevance in our world of today and tomorrow.

Leader of a great group – The Leader of a great group is that leader who not only has vision but ends up having as followers people who themselves are great leaders

The progress from stage to stage is reflected in the diagram below. It should however be noted that the number of persons at each stage reduces as we move on in the stages resulting in a situation whereby the rarest group is the leader of vision or his even rarer subgroup the visionary leader of a great group.

 

 

 Leadership Locator Type No 3 : Competency locator

Leadership typically manifests in two main areas of required skills

People handling skills and

Tasks handling skills

The best leaders are usually high on a scale of handling people and achieving things otherwise known as performance indicators. As Admiral Grace Hopper said about leaders you lead people and manage thingsPEOPLE HANDLING SKILLS

John Maxwell it was who said if you look around you and find no one following you are not a leader just merely taking a walk in the park.

Your people handling skills are a major component of your leadership and therefore a determinant of your leadership location.

What are your people handling skills in the leadership equations. These would typically include the following:

Leaders inspire a shared vision among their constituents.  They can recognize potential and breathe life into their dreams and the dreams of others by the use of compelling stories for example. They envision an uplifting and ennobling future and enlist others in a common vision.

Leaders enable others to act. They foster collaboration by promoting cooperative goals and building trust. Leaders strengthen people by giving power away and offer visible support. Leaders mobilize others to want to act.

Leaders model the way.  They have high standards and set the example for others to follow. Leaders maintain consistently between word and deed and get others started by breaking problems into manageable pieces and by achieving small successes.

Leaders encourage the heart.  They encourage people to persist by recognizing individual contributions and by celebrating team accomplishments.  Leaders make people feel like winners.

As John Maxwell so aptly put it "Great Leaders possess two things: They know where they are going and They are able to persuade others to follow"

Tasks handling skills

The second essential area of skills is handling tasks or achieving goals. Daniel Goleman said the essential assignment of leadership is to get results and this is often done by addressing tasks.

While the nature of the tasks may vary the ultimate productivity on the tasks is a measure of leadership capability

There are certain key components of tasks upon which a leader can assess his/her level
1) How efficient is the leader and the group in performing selected tasks

How Good is the leader at determining the essential tasks which help the group achieve its objectives

What is the leaders or the groups strike rate or the productivity and performance

How easily distracted is the leader from the tasks in front

Are things done on time and effectively

These components are a measure of task handling skills and they are a measure of effectiveness in leadership therefore they help in locating the leader. Any leader who intends to grow must be willing to effectively analyse his or her standing in these areas.Leadership Locator Type No 4 : Personal development skills

Leaders must have certain personal development levels in their lives which ultimately determine their output. There a number of different models which are designed to measure the leaders development of appropriate personal characteristics for effectiveness.

One model which I find to be personally effective is that of Brian Ward who developed the FACET model for leadership development. As part of self leadership it might be useful to work on this area of what he calls the FACET Model for leadership development. Each area denotes attributes that need to be built up to be a leader. FACET stands for Focus, Authenticity, Courage, Empathy and Timing. (Brian can be reached at www.affinitymc.com

FOCUS

q How focused am I?

q How much of my time do I spend communicating and inspiring people about our mission, vision, values or strategic goals?

q How much focus do I create in my organization?

q How married am I/my organization to methods that have outlived their usefulness, that do not support the focus?

AUTHENTICITY

q Am I viewed as authentic?

q Do people see and hear the real me?

q Do I wear a mask at work, and remove it when I leave each evening?

q When I commit to something, do I always keep that commitment?

q How high is my 'integrity quotient?'

COURAGE

q How courageous am I?

q Do I have the courage to stand my ground when my focus and values are challenged?

q Do I stand firm, and only change my position when I know that I am wrong?

q How well do I communicate what's not negotiable (the focus) and what is (how to achieve the focus)?

EMPATHY .

q How empathetic am I? Too much/too little?

q Do I create enough opportunities for open and candid dialogue?

q Do I ever find myself getting bogged down in consensus building, or achieving false consensus?

q Is there a feeling of inclusiveness amongst the members of my immediate team, my organization, and with other stakeholders, including customers?

TIMING

q Do I make and execute decisions in a timely fashion?

q Do I know when to 'fish or cut bait?'

q Do I demand well-coordinated and timely execution of strategy from others?

q Do I follow-up regularly?

Develop a plan for working on these areas of personal leadership growth . For further help you may reach Brian Ward and read the book Lead People Manage things.Recently I have developed what I call the five dimensions of leadership and you might want to use that to also assess your leadership locators.

This is based on my observation that five (The magic word five) major areas determine our leadership status These are

Understanding Leadership

Vision- "Great Leaders possess two things: They know where they are going……"John. Maxwell Walk new grounds – Pathfinders

These three form the foundations on which are built the 4th and 5th Component summarised

Influencing or mobilisation

– Self "If you seek to lead you must invest 50% of the time leading yourself, 20% leading those with authority over you etc." Dee Hock Founder Visa

Influencing or mobilisation

– Followers who follow and achieve. The completion of the above John Maxwell QUOTE "…..They are able to persuade others to follow"

• Inspiration – Followers perform above expectations

 

  

ConclusionThese four major locators are designed to help you ask yourself the question where am I in my leadership journey. At the end the whole objective is that knowing where you are you are able to design a pathway for where you need to be.

  

Toks is a founding member of rattle the cage. He can be reached at  toks@rattle-the-cage.com