Linked 2 Leadership

Many leaders wake up in the morning and jump straight into action. They are ready to take charge, ready for success, and ready for results. They often “feel” just about ready for anything!

But often, the only thing they are ready for is mediocrity.

The Fallacy of Ready

Unfortunately for many leaders, from newbies to the seasoned ones, “being ready” is just a feeling they have inside of them and doesn’t really match the challenges they are going to face on any given day.

Because they FEEL ready, they mistaking think that they ARE ready.

Actually BEING ready means that:

• You fully understand you vision
• You know the steps to take on your mission
• You know what resources you need to use and balance to reach your planned goals

Believe me, BEING ready is the only true way to authentically FEELING ready.

Anything else is just a feel-good fantasy that leads to unfinished work, lost opportunities, and mediocre results.

Leading Change – It Takes a Plan

If you want to know if you are really ready to lead people to reach your goals, rather than feeling ready, ask yourself a few questions like these:

• Are you ready to solidify your business leadership?
• How developed is your leadership action guide?
• What steps are missing to getting your plan on paper and into action?

Here are some very effective tools that I use to help you answer these questions with Conflict Scenarios and Leadership Elements 

Motivating Change

There are 3 important leadership elements to motivate change:

• Differentiation
• Vision
• Preparation

Each of these leadership elements is part of the leaders action guide. Learn how these elements can create a culture of growth.

3 Leadership Challenges for Change

1) Knowing When to Be Different

The ability to balance ‘when to stand out and when to differentiate’ or to ‘blend in as a strong team supporter’ is a leadership challenge.

The key to team leadership is co-operation and collaboration.

If you collaborate as a team player then accolades from the executive management will follow.

But what if you see something that is not working?

Does this make collaboration difficult?

Not in some organizational settings where different perspectives are encouraged. However, often this is not the case and an opposing dialogue and a different perspective creates conflict.

Conflict is unavoidable when clashes of perception arise if not dealt with in a proper way.

Leadership Scenario

For example, high performance teams recognize how important safety is.

Perhaps a driller forgot to remove handles and the bottom of a vessel is leaking. This is clearly a matter of safety but what happens when the report is a near miss instead of a hazard?

Certainly, the differences of perspective cause concern for the team leader.

The dilemma rises in the ability to foresee consequences and forecast the grade of severity of the problem. A team leader desires to end conflict but sometimes other matters are more serious. The question becomes should the leader speak out, report the concern or not.

Change demands scrutiny.

2) How to See with Certainty

The problem is that even with the safest equipment and the best evaluations other environmental factors are significant influences. A minor incident such as in the above example of a driller forgetting to remove handles could lead into a catastrophic accident under the right circumstances.

To see with certainty a team leader must prepare for the worst case scenario.

No “crystal ball” is 100% correct; however certain determinations can reduce risk which in turns increases a favorable outcome.

• For example, to wear proper safety equipment, in industrial operations reduces the risk of injury.
• Executive leadership plans higher safety by eliminating potential pitfalls.
• Examine ‘near misses’ for ways to intervene and prevent serious damage from occurring.
• Follow-up and evaluation reduces harmful exposure to potential danger; a Safety Awareness Program helps increase safety in the workplace.

3) How to Prepare

Preparation is the single biggest reason leaders succeed.

My mantra is this:

“Leading is a Planned Action.”

To succeed one must prepare. Safety equipment checked, minor incidents reported and near misses examined.

There are millions of ways for businesses to fail. Leaders aware that they are not omnipresent or omnipotent but restricted by their limitations can feel powerless.

Restricted by the vast power in the environment and surrounding events and circumstances that they cannot control can cause uncertainty.

Q: So then, should leaders give up?

A: No.

Instead, recognize limitations to increase the opportunities for success.

Planning Leadership Success

Congratulations! You have just taken your first step planning your leadership. Now you have 3 leadership elements to help you face your leadership challenges.

Certain conditions need a leader to stand and differentiate yourself.

Vision comes from a careful evaluation of as many factors as possible. The best way to prepare is to plan your action steps. The dividends that this investment in leadership development will pay off for decades!

So where is your leadership action plan? What are the steps you need to take to successfully arrive at your planned destination? What is missing in your toolkit to insure success? I would love to hear your thoughts!

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Learn, Grow & Develop Other Leaders™

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Loreen Sherman is CEO of Star-Ting Inc., Speaker, and OD & Leadership Specialist
She serves clients with Custom Publishing and Modular Skills Packages
Email | LinkedIn | Web | Booking | 877.896.7292

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