What is a Good Leader?

When people talk about leadership they are often talking about the title or the personality of a leader. But real leadership is about a set of behaviours which we see and value in others, and can exhibit ourselves.  Real leaders lead not because of their title, but because of the authority they develop in others.  So, what is a good leader in business today? 

Lead Yourself to Lead Others

Leaders today are selected not from the oldest or those ‘in favour’, but from those whose behaviours reflect the values the business believes in. Successful leaders exhibit their leadership traits through their behaviours and actions which people chose to follow. These behaviours are seen as a set of value-based leadership skills. True leadership is therefore earned authority from your peers. 

What people stand for and how they behave therefore matters in assessing people’s leadership skills. 

Doing the right thing even when no-one is looking, is an excellent first place to start when looking at a leader living their values. How you lead yourself is the first and most valuable assessment any leader can make.  If you cannot lead yourself, how can you lead others?  

How you lead others therefore often starts by looking at how you lead yourself, with self-reflection. Do you as a leader look to find multiple viewpoints from across the organisation, or do you bunker-down with a few trusted voices?  Bringing in balance and inclusion is the most successful way to gain a complete understanding of potential outcomes of any critical decisions. It is also the most effective way to carry people with you as a leader, especially in today’s flat, diverse and skill centred organisations.  

Confidence and Humility 

Demonstrating your self-confidence in your abilities while simultaneously recognising and confronting your limitations through mentoring and coaching in developing those additional needed skills as well as counterbalancing them through a balanced team skillset is also vital for successful leadership. Leaders must be seen as human and recognise what being human means in their leadership.

This humility factor in acknowledging the whole team contribution in everything you do, is seen as a vital leadership skill in todays’ workplace.  Leaders who genuinely value their team create a positive team culture build stronger organisations, which both trust and enable people to dream, do and become more. In cultures such as these the leader becomes invisible as the culture becomes the defining driver of success. 

Successful Leaders Create Leaders

Successful leaders develop people who follow them, not obey them. In many of the most successful cultures leaders want people to challenge them as this makes decision making more robust and sustainable.  Inside positive leadership cultures there are often many leaders, leaders are trusted and respected, and often sit in various roles within the organisation.  

Leaders must also create collaboration and cohesion within their team to build in all the skills the leader will need to succeed within their role. Finding and pulling together the right group of people to create a winning team requires creating a common vision of where they are going that brings together the 3C’s of cohesion co-operation and ultimately collaboration.  

The process of collaboration maturity recognises the need of co-ordination of disparate people who must co-operate for mutual benefit and then will actively collaborate to achieve a shared outcome they could not achieve without each other. Collaboration maturity occurs as the team embeds this relationship into a single operation respecting and valuing each elements valuable contribution.

 

Leadership Model

 

Strategic Responsibility

Ultimately leaders are responsible for everything that happens within a company.  They are solely responsible for setting the direction, the strategy, and the prevailing culture within the organisation. That ultimate responsibility leaders must develop and own. They may take advice but they cannot look elsewhere for responsibility for the strategic decision making.   

 

Leadership Behaviours 

Leadership is a set of personal attributes which inspire others to behave. While leaders need to remember their humility, they do also need to adapt their leadership style to respond (or drive) situations. Leadership styles must also adapt to whom they are leading. Different people respond to different situations.  The idea that one style of leadership will work in all situations, is not true. 

Leaders also need to flex their leadership style based upon situations. While the humble leader is the ideal, it will not work with all people in all situations. So, leaders need to be able to create and deliver influence across all their spheres of influence. Leaders must adapt their leadership style both to influence diverse audiences but also to deal with the situations they face. 

Situational leadership is as much an art as a science. Predicting and reading situations is a learnt skill which leaders need to develop over time and through situations. Either through shadowing roles or through scenario planning being able to stay objective and understand what situational leadership skill you need to deploy to achieve the required outcome takes time to learn.   While each leader has their natural style they must also be able to adapt to motivate different types of people and different situations, moving from reflective / humble leadership styles to directional and pacesetting when needed.

Leading People 

Creating and leading teams of people takes time and effort. Team building was often seen as the occasional activity to bonding, recognising, and rewarding.  Today team development is on ongoing exercise, not the once-a-year review, but a continual mentoring approach supporting people develop and evolve into their role and through their role as it evolves over time. 

What used to be called Forming, Storming, Norming and Performing function of team building has been replaced by the view of continual team development. It is a supportive process that supports everyone as individuals, small cohorts as well as whole units to excel within their environment. Leaders today must now focus on barrier removal and building resilience within their people and teams to enable them to achieve their goals. 

The focus today for leaders is on outcomes not outputs. It’s easy to be busy, but to achieve planned and desired outcomes as bottom-line results teams require leaders they can trust, who are accountable, provide commitment and remove conflict. 

 

Successful Leadership 

Leadership is like any skillset, it can be learnt and developed. It is best developed within the culture of the organisation within which that leader will emerge as a leader within. But it does not have to, and often bringing skills learnt elsewhere is a great way to develop new leadership skills within an organisation. Becoming a leader should not be the end of someone’s development, but the start of their leadership development. 

If you would like to know more about how we help leaders lead, then get in contact with us here Richard@cowden   

 

Did you and your business Pivot, Furlough, Hibernate of Fold during Covid19?

Business Leaders Did you and your business Pivot, Furlough, Hibernate of Fold during Covid-19?

Everything is easy in hindsight. 

In history everything is clear and simple, some would say obvious to the point where the reader is left thinking what was all the fuss about. Well off course Britain would be on the winning side at the end of World War 2! How could they not be with the Americans and the free world all supporting them against a deranged megalomaniac.

• Except that in 1939 after the collapse of France that was not the perception. 
• The rescue of The British Army of the beaches of Dunkirk that was not the perception.
• At the beginning of the Battle of Britain that was not the perception.

Etc

History is only in Hindsight

History of anything only tells you want happened from the view point of hindsight, that 20 / 20 vision in which all things are clear, simple and obvious.  For those who lived through those difficult times would have seen the debate first hand things would have looked very different. Requiring difficult decisions against conflicting advice to be made with uncertain outcomes from each step they took. When things are tough its easy for leaders to say dig-in, but the real challenge for all leaders is not just when its tough, but when we are in the unknown and it's tough. That's when leaders will show their true colours in leadership.

The Covid19 era, March to July 2020 is one of those occasions. In January and February we saw a disease far away causing small problems. Like a huge wave approaching a calm beach, we stand and look not realising its impact upon us until it is too late.

Shock and Horror 

When it hit us in the west at first we stood in disbelief, a pandemic had arrived. Some seemed oblivious to it. The daily commute did not change, the polite conversations were around isn't a shame. Then came the realisation phase that a pandemic was like the black death or the Spanish Flu (which was not Spanish at all, just before anyone things it was, it came from the USA). Having seen the initial impact of Covid19, overwhelm northern Italy then came the sobering understanding that this was now everywhere and we all had to change our behaviours.

Leaders look for Certainty 

Few leadership teams had prepared their risk model to include pandemic (despite Bill Gates's 2015 TED talk forecast). They had in their risk model locker room, Millennium bug (2000), Terrorist Attack (2001) and financial crash (2008), and so had contingency planning in place for those such activities, but not for a pandemic. This meant that for many, form politicians, to health professionals down to business leaders they were stepping into the unknown and with no experience of anything like it. The Black Death and Spanish Flu being too long ago to fit with modern economic thinking.

For business leaders this pandemic has (and is) outside the playbook. There is no this is how we deal with this one, turn to page 101.  The response of business leaders has been a real eye-opener for us all, and if you worked in a company how your company reacted tells you a lot more than you might expect about the leadership within your company.  

Many carried on as if nothing was happening until told to stop. Others ran for the hills (Caribbean or such like) to find shelter leaving their underlings to hold the fort. Some froze, some panicked, some just buried their heads and carried on until told to stop, while a few saw the wave before it hit and changed their business not only to survive but for some to thrive during the pandemic.

Leaders Speed in Response 

The speed with which businesses leaders responded to imminent arrival of Covid19 depended upon several factors, but being a unknown meant everyone started on the Back-foot. Those financially over-stretched or totally depended upon current markets were left with fewer options, so closing or furloughing were their only realistic options.  Airlines, pure retail shops, pubs and event businesses immediately went into total hibernation.

Many will have to wait until their market re-opens for they can be brought back and their leadership teams are left modelling how do we re-emerge and what world are we likely to re-emerge into? The new normal, won't be normal, instead we are most likely to see  paradigm shift has occurred in every market. As Barclays and Twitter have already identified, why do we need offices if our people can work better at home? Technology, lifestyle and the customer prefers our people to work from home, so why not change the success we are now finding.

This is just the tip of the iceberg, who is going to want to spend money on locked-in white elephant buildings, when they have learnt how to work remotely, butting the 2 to 3 hours commuting to zero. Why go back if you don't need to. The agile and flexible business models are where people want to be. Technology has made the shift happen and while people want to be part of a physical team they will not be doing that 5 days a week.    

Opportunity is there if you look for it.

For many business leaders there is always opportunity if you look for it, and I don't mean toilet roll manufacturers.  There are many businesses which pivoted, some overnight, some took longer. From making medical PPE, to pubs doing takeouts and some becoming pure mobile pubs, the rate of change, the pivot has been impressive to see how quickly leaders have responded to the adversity and looked for and seized the opportunity.    

The people who looked and worked out how to survive in the short term also have the first mover advantage in developing their model for the future.  If you can be agile then you can adapt quicker. Huge potential markets for loungewear have opened up. The home group exercise market (think Joe Wicks and Davina McCall), and the clothing, and paraphernalia around these areas are seeing huge growth.  

Change has happened, it was not just a short nightmare

As individuals, families, communities and businesses all adapt to what some have called the new normal, or bounced back as their channels to market have reopened, the requirement for leaders is not to just go back to what's there before. The world has changed for good. It will not be life as before it will all be new. It might look the same and even feel the same (with facemarks), but this pandemic has accelerated, magnified and accelerated changes that were happening. 

Shops did not just suddenly stop trading, they were already struggling to deal with market changes, Covid just accelerated that change. Restaurants that have not adapted were unlikely to adapt to changing demand patterns of home eating which Just eat etc have developed. Change is always happening sometimes we see it, once it becomes mainstream, but change is always with us. 

Covid has accelerated and magnified those changes that were happening. from home working, which was 14% before the lockdown is likely to stay either as a permanent move, or become part of a shorter office working week for many, some believe that over 60% of people will not come back. Major companies such as Twitter and Barclays are not planning for everyone to ever return.         

Covid has (and is) a step change Prepare for it.

For leaders of any business, they need to understand that there is no new normal, only a new way of working. Now is the time to make step changes to keep up with changes as they impact upon your longterm future. Your business plans for 2021 onwards need to reflect the world we are likely to operate within towards 2025, not the world in 2019.

Build your model for tomorrow built upon what you can see and feel today, not what happened last year.  For many 2025 is here now and the landscape they have come back to has changed, a step-change forward in many markets. Home delivery for example is now the normal, as is working from home. For many why go back is a reality and for many businesses, not being tied to high cost, high profile HQ, when you can run a global business without the cost. Retail is a changed landscape, many aren't there any more, bye bye Debenhams etc, and demand has gone online for affordable retailing. This is just the tip of the iceberg of change, so leaders must look at the real business landscape they will be operating within.      

Learn more at www.richardgourlay.com and learn how Richard Gourlay supports leaders grow and develop their skills though his online mentoring support. 

Working ON Your Business not IN Your Business

The pressure on directors and leaders to be not only great role models but also to be involved in every aspect of the business is relentless. But successful leaders in any sector, no matter their personality or background, can't be everywhere and know everything. Those that try quickly suffer from stress and burnout. Trying to be everything to everyone is exhausting and futile.

Successful leaders have the ability to focus ON their business rather than IN their business. What that means in reality is that they do not loose sight of their most important role, that of leading their people and organisation. Here are some of reasons why directors get sucked into their business so easily, and what to do about it. 

Directors: Being Pulled from Pillar to Post

The urge for directors to jump in to your business as the chief fire-fighter or executive management is the most natural reaction any director or owner has when it is under pressure to demonstrate their leadership. 'Keep calm I'm in charge' is the key message leaders want to portray. That position of fire-fighter extraordinaire (superman without the lycra) the man (mainly) who can, is a powerful pull to keep leaders hands on, but its also one main reason why companies don't succeed.   

Directing is what a business expects directors to do in demonstrating their leadership skills. From making the big decisions through to setting an outstanding example to others, the pressure is always on to be seen be in the control and to be the ultimate arbitrator of problem solving. The problem is that while firefighting looks and feels vitally important, spending time working out why things have gone wrong is actually what is ultimately important, and what we directors should be investing our time and energies on solving.   

The hardest task in doing the right thing as a leader is to know how and when to stand back and not get drawn into the day-to-day stuff in any business. By ensure they stay directing, not doing, and making the future happens successfully. It's always easier to pick up someone else's ringing phone rather than educate them to do do it.  But in doing so you've just become a firefighter rather than a director directing. Successful leaders have to learn how to stand back and understand what is happening and why. They must learn that their actions in directing people lead to the results they can see. To change their people's behaviour which leads to a change their activity and outcomes requires leaders to change their behaviours first.

Being a director is an official role, often a badge of great success and a role of not only legal significance but also as a role model of leadership. Leadership, the act of leading is about directing others towards an agreed shared goal, and that is where leaders deliver results. Leadership is a action, an interaction in how leaders support and serve their people, not a title but a series of actions which impact upon others.

The best leaders are the not the ones people see, but like great teams, from sports teams to kitchen chefs, where everything happens as if by magic and no-one can see how it is done. But like a great orchestra everyone knows their place, their role and how they contribute to the overall success of the business. 

Work: ON it! Not IN it!

Working ON the business, deciding where the organisation is going and why rather than IN, getting stuff done, is where people really see the value of an effective leader. That requires leaders to focus on both where they are going as well as how they a business is operating in getting to that destination. 

The biggest mistake leaders can make is wanting to be seen to be busy in the business. Being seen as doing something within the company process, directly adding to the value chain, while it is being seen can lead to the leadership looking sight of its real role, that of leading not working in. Being a 'hands on' person is one of the classic perceptions which people inside a company feel they need to deliver to be valued. 

While stepping in to pacesetter is a good tool, it most often pulls directors out of their role and means they become a boss not a leader.

Directors Need to Be Seen to Lead

I've just worked with an advanced manufacturing client to develop an operations director who said in response to my suggestion: "I can't be seen to sit down and read how to do something new, I have to be busy doing something so all my people can see me working hard." This classic trap, of having everyone working IN their business leaves no-one working ON their business. It's an example of the classic challenge for leadership of being seen and being seen to be busy.

Being seen and involved in everything is part of being in charge, and able to offer advice, make decisions and drive people towards their objectives. The effect of having to be always seen is that directors have to be first to arrive and last to leave, draining the batteries of many directors particularly in rapidly changing companies.

Where being seen becomes the culture of leadership, suddenly everything has to be run past them which leads to vertical management structures, creating a lack of empowerment throughout the organisation which results in reduced moral and hierarchy control, putting further pressure on directors and undermining ownership as deference to authority becomes the normal acceptance. This change makes all decision making hierarchical, creating control and in result reducing flexibility to respond to changes, which no-one, the leadership, is now looking out for.

The other common problem with being seen all the time, having your door open at any time is that directors become the only people able to make decisions, resulting in increased pressure on directors to know what is going on. This pull factor into the day-to-day and the politics of micromanagement eats resources and kills innovation.  

Successful leaders understand the importance of being seen effectively in business today is more about communicating when you are available and that you are available to them to provide dedicated support not just being there for people. Being seen therefore in today's business world is about being able to provide quality of time support not just volume of time. Keep your distance from the day-to-day, don't walk all over the management process and respect people's talents to solve problems rather than tell them how to do things.  

Leaders must 'Know What's Going On'

Directors have to know what's going on.  But the danger is that if you are working in your business as a director, then you can be a bull in a china shop, wildly spinning round treading all over other people, who aren't directors, and their roles.

Directors getting involved in every detail of every process within the business can lead to a culture of  micro-management. Micro-management, where every decision is analysed and scrutinised by directors, not only undermines good employees but often leads to reactionary and damaging over-rullings of effective processes and procedures. Which leads more often than not on the process breaking down.                                                                                                                                              

Knowing the process and how it works is vital for success, but micro-managing processes often lead to confusion on decision-making and the over-ruling of the existing tried and tested process.

What makes successful knowledge of what's going on, is the ability to see the process happening and recognise where it is under-pressure and where it needs resources to deal with the pressure points.

Being able to step back and see what is happening while not being dragged into the process is a vital ingredient for directors to lead from a position of overview knowledge not micro-managing detail, leave that to those who run each section. Let them own their area then they will care about it. Review how people are delivering and working out what support they nee rather than walking all over what they are doing unless things are going seriously wrong is the best behaviour leaders can demonstrate. 

Leaders MUST Lead By Example

'Lead from the front, lead by example,' is first rule of any leadership development course.  But it is also a phrase which is poorly understood, here's why:

'Leading by example' is one of the most commonly misunderstood terms leaders fail to appreciate and causes the biggest mistakes directors make in doing their job. When directors are told to lead by example they look at  the role of the person they are demonstrating their leadership skills to and then they lead them by doing that person's role, not theirs. That 

In doing that person's role they are not leading but replacing that person in doing the role. The result is that in leading by example directors do, but don't lead. Doing someone else's job is not leading or directing it is doing, the trap which anyone can of fall into, particularly when we are busy, under pressure or when we see someone not doing it as they should.

'I'll do it so it gets done,' mentality is the quick fix, but not the right solution. How will they learn unless they do it, not only in theory but day-to-day. The best help you can give someone is to train them how to do a job and ensure that they know why they are doing that job, reward them for doing it and motivate them to do it even better, but don't do it for them (unless you want to swap roles).

If you would like to learn more about how to work on your business as a leader and avoid becoming a leader working n their business, then click here to learn more:

http://www.richardgourlay.com/leadership-is-all-about-vision-2/

Email Richard Gourlay 

Or click here to see more blogs on google+: https://plus.google.com/+RichardGourlay/posts/eSKmfKv1qL9

Or click here to see more about us at www.cowdenconsulting.com

Like to learn about Strategy then buy the book: Strategy The Leader's Role by Richard Gourlay 

many thanks

Richard

Richard Gourlay, business strategy consultant, Dumfries and Galloway Scotland, UK

Leading Transformational Change

Leading Transformational Change 

Successful change in business, in fact any change, does not happen by accident. Happy accidents of good fortune can easily be undone by leadership teams focusing on measuring the wrong outcomes. One leaders' variation from the expected, is seen as an error, to another leader the same variation is innovation. That difference, maybe the difference, between success, and failure in business.  

The Post-It Notes Example

Think about Dr Spencer Silver and his pressure-sensitive adhesive which he failed to succeed in promoting as "solution without a problem" but which Arthur Fry identified as very useful sticky pad useful for book marks and rebranded it "Press 'n Peel" and accidentally in the process picking yellow as its iconic colour. Even then, what we today know as "Post-It Notes" did not take off, it was only his passion and determination which led to them being given away as free samples in 1980, which led Post-It Nots winning a customer approval rating of 94% which ultimately guaranteed its success as a product. To many a glue which failed to stick has become an iconic office product that none of can imagine an office not having.

Change is Painful BUT Vital

Change is always painful and for many organisations it is actively discouraged. Often it is not just ideas which are disregarded but also the people asking challenging questions, those who challenge the status quo, asking why we are doing something and why are we not doing something, are often labeled as loose cannon's within the organisation, or trouble maker's in today's politically correct world they are described as "off message". 

These people who ask awkward questions are seen as not towing-the-line, need to be re-educated or eradicated. The language used to describe those who seek to ask the most valuable and powerful questions in any organisation, the question "why" and "why not" often reflects the institutionalised nature of the organisation.  People who ask this type of question are the voices of change from within organisations which leaders can either choose to listen to or not.  

Leader's Must Look For Change

Leader's need to not to discourage people who challenge the organisational, but understand         what the driving force behind those who challenge the status quo.  The larger the organisation the harder it is to see change as hierarchy and multiple levels of engagement can cloud and confuse the ability of leader's to see and understand the drivers of change.

For organisations to successfully compete they have a to change in response to, or to lead their market. For leaders' to achieve success within their market they have to look for where does tomorrow's growth come from and ensure that transformational change takes their organisation to where they need it to be to succeed. 

In every market change is the only constant. Leaders can embrace it or defer it, but they can never ignore it, for any lengthy period of time. Change can be incremental in any sector or it can be revolutionary, how the leadership responds to that change not only reflects their comfort with dealing with transformation but more importantly how they see their organisation in the future. Those who defer transforming to meet changes find their position in a market sector often eroded through hesitancy of action and uncertainty of direction. 

Transformational Baby Steps Create Tidal Waves

For transformation to happen in any organisation there has to be a will to change, driven either by desire to succeed or by fear of failure. The desire to achieve, a market position, turnover, profit, margin, efficiency or win certain customers is always the easier option for leaders to focus efforts upon, rather than being led forward in response to changes, transformation through fear, we do or we die!    

Leader's Mindset

Leading transformational change is as much a mindset as is a process. It requires a mindset that says yes we can, as well as an understanding that moving people out of their comfort zone, their institutionalised state requires not only a visionary and passionate leadership but also baby steps, which everyone can take.  If you are going to move an organisation first decide why then how before worrying about when. I work with leaders who always want to focus on creating a timescale to completion, to make it happen by, often led by the perception that momentum will solve every problem.  

The reality is that people are always willing to hear about transformation, the "I have a dream moment" (especially if they are part of an away day to an exotic location) but the reality of transformation is that it requires people to change their institutionalised ways, which while talk is cheap and (freely available) people are less keen to make change than to talk about it as some abstract future requirement. As Mark twain said "why put off tomorrow what you can put off to the day after". To make change happen often the most effective leadership tool is finding an effective baby step which moves people forward together, out of their comfort zone and enables leaders to see their people as they really are when it comes to change, a diverse group of individuals siting along an adoption curve. 

The first step is often decisive in enabling leaders to move everyone forwards to a successful outcome, or in failing and being left with false starts and fragmented pieces of transformation, where some people and departments are somewhere else from others. The natural reaction to failing to transform everyone at the same time is to retake back to safety rather than push forward. Leader's must take all their people to somewhere new, not just the evangelists for change.    

Successful transformation needs to be driven forward, either by the classic burning the bridge to prevent  going backwards (removing the old system and its architecture so it cannot be used as comfort blanket / default option) or by restructuring the organisation so there is no memory or ability for the organisation to go back to. 

Leader's Must Communicate and Champion Change 

The leaders' ability to make change happen is paramount in communicating why change is necessary. This paradox is that for any successful organisation is that the need for change is not appreciated until after it has become a significant problem. In any market change only appears at the edges, those in the middle and doing well don't need to change, (unless their market is changing rapidly and they are used to it). In most markets leadership teams come into existence, develop and deploy their strategy and then manage that situation until the strategy wains and then they are replaced as failure to satisfy stakeholders drives them out of their role. This cycle of renewal, success and decay is why in many markets there are leaps forward in transformation as the leading brands ebb and flow in sync with each there, responding to the changing fortunes of the leading brands. 

In organisations or markets which are successful in transformation or where change is the only constant, then continual jockeying for position with new products and services enable continual transformation to be the normal state of affairs. In these sectors transformational leadership is the expected and the pressure is on to ensure that it continues not just as the status quo but happens in the right direction. In accelerating markets often change can outpace the ability of organisations to moneterise the changes they are making, which requires leaders to hold back changes so that transformation does not kill the company. If you move too fast you can outstrip the markets ability to expense the value of your brand. This can most commonly be seen in products where by the time it is made it is out of date, such as in IT programmes. 

Change only happens when people change

Change happens not when processes change but when people change. Leaders need to remember that as the identification for them of change being lived rather than talked about. Meetings about implementing change always indicate that while the process can change, not all the people have, can or will.  

Leaders need to focus on carrying their people with them through the whole transformation 

process, from start to finish. The fundamental weakness of leadership in the transformational process, is that they are there at the start and appear at the end, but where they are most needed is in the middle. It is at the danger point in any transformation when people are letting go of their institutionalised behaviour but not yet able to see the tangible benefits of their new transformed behaviour that they need to see the leadership and know they are on the right track. 

It is at the point of no return, the point where success in change is fleeting if at all discernible that people at every level need to know they are heading in the right direction. It is here that transformational leaders make the real difference. It is here that successful leaders know they are most valuable to their people, by keeping them on the path to success, like a good sports coach knowing where and when to speak is as important as what they say. 

Great transformational leaders focus on just on why they are driving their organisation somewhere new like Arthur Fry but also know that for transformation to succeed people have to see the benefits, no matter how small to know they are going in the right direction with the support of transformation leaders to enable them to fully fulfil their true potential.

Like to know more about Leadership and Change, then click this link: Leadership and change 

Like to know how to develop and grow your strategy skills as a leader then? 

Then read more blog by Richard Gourlay or buy the book Strategy: The Leader's Role by Richard Gourlay, 160 pages of advice and expertise in strategy and leadership skills; including models and examples of how to build your strategic skills for your business, your leadership skills in leading your organisation to success.   

• Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform; 1 edition (July 13, 2015)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1508761965
• ISBN-13: 978-1508761969
• Product Dimensions: 6 x 0.4 x 9 inches
• Click link for more: https://www.amazon.com/Strategy-Leaders-Successful-leaders-business/dp/1508761965
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What! YOU a Leader!

What is Leadership to YOU?

Leaders matter because they drive organisations forward. 

Leadership is never just a title. Leaders are people who show the way, they challenge people and make decisions, they are the people others look to as role models and for authority. Everyone can identify a good leaders when they see them in action, but what makes a good leader is always open to question as to which attributes really matter. Situational leadership, picking the right attributes of leadership for the situation you face, for the list below, is the key to great leadership, the ability to understand the leadership needs of the people you lead at any time.






I have met many leaders who try to do all these things, 'trying to be all things to all men', but in doing so fail to lead. Leading people must always start by leading yourself, that means by believing in yourself, in your abilities and that your belief motivates and empower your team to perform. GREAT LEADERSHIP IS NOT WHAT A LEADER DOES BUT WHAT THEY INSPIRE OTHERS TO ACHIEVE. This essential first element, a leader's core belief in themselves and what they stand for is the self-branding which other people buy into. 

Leadership starts with having a Clear Vision 

True leadership to me is always shown by how a leader develops and owns their vision for their organisation. Having a clear vision which reflects what they stand for, is the most demonstrable way a leader can communicate their core beliefs. Having a vision for the future pulls together a leaders core beliefs as a human person and as a leader.  What you stand for, reflected in how leader behaves to others, is the most important value a leader can portray. 

The vision a leader demonstrates not only reflects their core beliefs in themselves but more importantly in their team. That faith is reflected in the leader's intent, what they are setting out to do. How bold, how courageous their plan for the organisation is an important element in successful leadership. Many great teams fall apart as people leave, not because of poor leadership in leading people in their role, but due to a lack of inspiring aspiration from the leader. Where leader's change from being aggressive and assertive and play safe and show little aggressive intent, then aspirational teams often breakup as the aspiration breaks down.            

3 key Leadership Elements

The 3rd element of a leaders vision is in their actions. Does the leader lead form the front, or is all talk. Great leaders know that being seen to lead is easy when things are going well, but truly effective leadership is about being visible and determined during the difficult times. When nothing is going according to plan. Taking the first step into the unknown, is demonstrating our belief in your vision as is rallying the troops after a set-back is belief in your vision, these are the moments of truth for a leader, are they there at the front or hiding away leaving others to pick up the pieces.   

The 3 Elements In Effective Leadership: 

The three elements which determine a truly effective leader:

A leader’s core beliefs

A leader’s aspiration 

A leader’s actions

Each of these three elements can be defined with three simple questions:

1. What you really believe is the essence of who you are? (core beliefs)
2. What will you commit to do each and every day to ensure that those core beliefs are demonstrated to your team? (aspiration)
3. How will others recognise what you believe in what you do?  (actions)

The challenging part for any leader is how do you know you as a leader are communicating that pure belief.  The rousing speech, the motivational run around the team and the congratulations as people achieve results are not where you will find the evidence of your leadership.  

Evidence of leadership comes from where you are taking your people. Not the destination, but the direction and pace of travel. A leader's beliefs, aspirations and actions are best demonstrated when needed most, when things aren't going well, when are where there is uncertainty and confusion. 

"True leadership skills, and the leaders' character come out when setbacks occur, that's when leaders need to stand up and stand out"

When things don't go according to plan that people look for leadership and look at leaders, not just as a role model but to look at who they really are. Inspiring someone who is succeeding is just management jumping on a bandwagon: leadership is when people are struggling, or failing, and the leader comes to them listens, refocuses them and inspires them to try again with new tools or in new ways and then supports them every step of the way to success.

Here's three useful ways for leaders to see how if and how you are delivering effective leadership:-

1. Strategic Leadership 

Are you leading from the front? Have you got plan which inspires and motivates people about the future. If not then spend time to develop your strategic plan for your organisation. If you are not working ON your business, they you are stuck working IN it. 

Do your people know what your plan for the organisation is and looks like? Do they know where they are going and do they understand where and more importantly why they are going that way? Ask your people what they know about the future direction of the organisation, start with the person who knows you least and work backwards. What do you learn about how your future plan is understood and valued across the company?

 If you don't have a plan which everyone understands and values then it is time to step out and work on your forward Strategic Plan.

2. Self-reflection: 

Think about the impact you have as a leader. Are you inspiring people or managing people? Leaders motivate others to act, managers conversely tell others what to do. Leadership is not about managing, but motivating through setting an example. 

Sit down and think about what you can do to deliver more effective leadership rather than being pulled into a glorified management role. Get yourself an experienced mentor to bounce ideas around with, from outside the organisation if possible to help you focus on your leadership skill development.   

3. Feedback: 

Look at both the verbal and nonverbal cues from people you work with. Do they readily engage with you? Do they give you honest feedback openly and frequently? Do people really want to work with you, or do they try to avoid you at almost any cost, or only come to see you when they have good news to share and look for praise from? 

This type of feedback is invaluable in monitoring how you as a leader are performing day-to-day in your role. If people are generating ideas and asking effective questions which test and validate your strategic plan then you are probably leading them well. If not, then the verbal and nonverbal clues of silence and evasion are probably an alarm bell sounding in your ear to change committing quickly. 

I hope that helps YOU become a better leader, if you need more support get in touch to see how I can support you lead your people better. 

Richard Gourlay provides leaders with ideas and inspiration to lead their organisations. From strategy development to implementation, he works with leaders to work on their business rather than in their business. His online mentoring enables leaders to develop their forward strategic plan enabling them to lead their organisation forward with their plan to succeed.

Leadership is about YOU

Leadership is about YOU

“Change is the law of life and those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.” John F. Kennedy

Who you are as a leader

When ever I look at any organisation I am in effect seeing the style and type of leader who runs it, their character shows through.

From the first online impression the brand portrays, to the real impression I feel when I walk through is front door and meet the people, the impact of the leadership is everywhere. Good leadership makes a good impression throughout, it should be seen and felt at every level.

I recently arrived at a new client to see that their disabled parking was at the other end of the car park from the front door, while the executives had named parking bays right next to the front door.

My first question to the directors was why? Followed up with the obvious second question, what first impression do you want to make to people about your values as a business? After a pregnant pause (and implausible excuse that HSE said we needed to keep the front area easily clear so the fire brigade could quickly be deployed), the directors looked at me and said 'we do have a written equal opportunities policy in place' and 'no-one has ever complained'. I then asked what impression this first impression gave to their staff, customers and suppliers? They said 'no idea, but now you mention it there are always a few staff comments when it rains about them and us culture'.

I often see great leadership happen through the delivery of small details which great results can be achieved. For any leader making change happen successfully relies as much on the big picture plan as the implementation of the minute detail. That detail delivery can only be achieved through the character of the leaders themselves. Recognising and using that individual style to mould and shape how leaders decide to lead is fundamental to leadership success.

Leaders Make Change Happen

Great leadership is about making change by demonstrating character-based leadership skills, in other words, leading from “who you are” and not from power or position. Everyone is different and that makes every leader different. Who you are is something you cannot change, successful leadership is about developing your style, based around who you are not on trying to be something you aren't.  Trying to be someone else, from Richard Branson to Steve Jobs maybe fashionable, but its not who you are, so learn from them but don't try to be them.

The idea of character-based leadership resonates with leadership advisors today. Why? Well in my example earlier the leaders were impressed by vehicles, thats how they valued their status, hence their focus as leaders was on highlighting that attribute of who they were. When they thought about what was really important to them they immediately realised what impression they wanted to provide and the impact their current focus was making. Reflecting to my observation and then positively responding to it, told us more about who they are and what was really important to them.

By the time a visited my car obsessed customer the following week, the personalised director parking places at the front door had been replaced by disabled parking area, and the directors cars were parked alongside everyone else in the general parking. They recognised their characters as leaders were being reflected in their business, and not for the best. The result of that simple change was that staff started to engage with them more openly and the staff survey a few months later reported that people felt more valued, when questioned further staff reported that everyone was now seen to be treated equally. 

Great leadership is always about change, not just making it but really understanding it and how to pre-empt where possible and react where necessary to it. Forward planning is the most obvious way in which leaders pre-empt their market. Planning for tomorrow as an inherent culture is one key attribute which sustainable successful organisations possess, but it has to be matched by a culture of implementation. Planning is only a dream if nothing changes. The ability to see that and make that simple immediate change, reflects an openness to change and an approach to listening and implementing change, not just talking about it.

What changes?

In business, everything changes all the time, innovative new products and services become mainstream, then classics then legacy then discontinued. Change is the law of life as John F. Kennedy said, great leadership is about looking for change.

Some changes can be strategic, such as new markets or new products etc but play to who leaders are come from soft leadership skills by playing on who you are as a leader. Playing to you and your style is often as important in delivering effective leadership.

Like to know more about how to lead your business successfully? then see How to Take the Guess Work out of your Business Success

Richard Gourlay provides leadership development programmes, including mentoring support for leaders, connect to learn more.