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Leadership is practiced not so much in words as in attitude and in actions. Harold Geneen |
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Leadership is a process by which a person influences others to accomplish their objectives while directing the organization in a way that makes it more cohesive and coherent. Leaders carry out this process by applying their leadership attributes such as beliefs, values, ethics, character, knowledge, and skills.
Although your position as a manager, team leader, supervisor, department chair, or dean gives you the authority to accomplish certain tasks and objectives, this power does not automatically make you a leader. Rather, it simply makes you the head of a given project, school, or department.
The application of true leadership is something more akin to an art, and requires refinement and personal development. Leadership differs from management in that it influences followers to achieve high goals and fulfill their role to the organization, rather than simply taking direction and completing tasks.
What makes a person want to follow a leader? The basis of good leadership is honorable character and selfless service to your organization. People want to be guided by those they respect and who have a clear sense of direction. To gain respect, a leader must be ethical. A sense of direction is achieved by conveying a strong vision of the future coupled with open communication that conveys trustworthiness and desire to include others.
Our programs and services are derived from a core set of "leadership practices" drawn from various sources, including the research and literature on leadership, national best practices, and our two decades of experience as teachers, researchers and practitioners in the fields of training and organizational development. These leadership practices include:
Creating productive workplaces:
- Communicates a clear vision of the organization’s purpose and aspirations
- Articulates the role contributions expected from those in the workplace
- Enables others to see the meaning in their work by clarifying how individual contributions relate to the organization’s mission, goals and objectives
- Creates a workplace that recognizes and links individual talents and interests to organizational needs
- Includes others in decisions that affect them
Inspiring performance and a commitment to excellence in both service and quality:
- Challenges others to be ambitious on behalf of the organization and to take responsibility for making a full contribution
- Holds self and others accountable for workplace contributions
- Coaches and mentors others and provides feedback that motivates
- Demonstrates appreciation for staff contributions and develops creative strategies to reward performance
- Inspires, solicits and implements ideas for quality and service improvements
Anticipating and preparing for change, facilitating individual and organizational transitions:
- Communicates with senior University officials and colleagues to understand future trends, challenges, and priorities at the University
- Leads the organization in assessing the need for change, and encourages all to stay abreast of “best practices” and evaluate their applicability to the workplace
- Supports creativity and innovation
- Discerns “lessons learned” from experience that can be applied to future plans
- Prepares others for change, including handling ambiguity and uncertainty
Developing collaborative relationships:
- Builds effective social networks
- Leads groups (staff meetings, committees, task forces) to productive outcomes
- Engages in meaningful conversations, first seeking to elicit and understand the needs and interests of others before articulating one’s own agendas
- Seeks to identify common ground and to achieve “win-win” solutions to business problems
- Applies negotiation and consensus-building strategies to lateral relationships
Building personal competence and resilience:
- Sets aside time for reflection and planning
- Assesses own knowledge, skills and abilities and commits time to plan for and attend to personal and professional development needs
- Understands personal preferences and motivational drives and how these influence leadership behaviors
- Understands the dimensions of “resilience” and takes appropriate steps to ensure psychological and physical hardiness
- Works to develop credibility by modeling critical leadership attributes and practices, including:
- Truth telling
- Promise keeping
- Consistency
- Persistence
- Listening
- Patience
- Taking responsibility
- Respecting others
- Valuing diversity
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