Leaders need feedback to thrive. If they don't constantly evaluate how they are doing as leaders, they face repeated failure. Here is one important feedback mechanism that most leaders ignore.
Life on our planet flourishes through feedback. If life forms don't develop feedback loops and get good information about how well they are interacting with their world, the world eventually kills them.
This holds true with leaders. Leaders must get feedback as to how they're doing -- otherwise they won't be leaders for long.
One kind of feedback is results. After all, leaders do nothing more important than get results. You should understand the kinds of results you're getting, if they are the right results, and if you are getting them in the right ways.
There is another kind of measurement that is as important, and sometimes more important, than results. It's a measurement most leaders overlook. That measurement has to do not with you but with the people you're leading.
To explain what that measurement is, I'll first describe a fundamental concept of how one goes about leading people to achieve results.
There's a crucial difference between doing a task and taking leadership of that task that makes a world of difference in the task's accomplishment.
For instance, if one is a floor sweeper, doesn't one best accomplish one's task not simply by doing floor sweeping but by taking leadership of floor sweeping?
Such leadership might entail:
Otherwise, in a "doing" mode, one simply pushes a broom.
You may say, "Listen, Brent, a job is a job is a job. This leadership thing is making too much of not much!"
Could be. But my point is that applying leadership to a task changes the expectations of the task. It even changes the task itself. Think of it, when we ourselves are challenged to lead and not simply do, our world is, I submit, changed.
Whenever you need to lead people to accomplish a task, challenge them not to do that task but to take leadership of that task.
This gets back to the key measurement of your leadership. Your leadership should best be measured not by your leadership but by the leadership of the people you lead.
Now, in becoming leaders, they can't simply do what they want. They must come to an agreement with you as to what leadership actions they will take. You can veto any of their proposed actions. However, use the veto sparingly. Cultivate your confidence and their confidence in their leadership.
When you evaluate the effectiveness of your leadership by the feedback loop connected to their leadership, you are assessing your world as it should be, and great results will follow.
2005 © The Filson Leadership Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
The Leadership Talk As A Living Hologram
PERMISSION TO REPUBLISH: This article may be republished in newsletters and on web sites provided attribution is provided to the author, and it appears with the included copyright, resource box and live web site link. Email notice of intent to publish is appreciated but not required: mail to: brent@actionleadership.comTwo Leadership Traps: How To Avoid Them. How To Get Out Of them (Part 2)
Most people fail in their careers because of leadership deficiencies. A key reason for their failure is they continually and unknowingly keep falling into two leadership traps. The author describes the traps and how to get out of them.Two Leadership Traps: How To Avoid Them. How To Get Out Of them (Part 1)
Most people fail in their careers because of leadership deficiencies. A key reason for their failure is they continually and unknowingly keep falling into two leadership traps. The author describes the traps and how to get out of them.