Developing Your Leadership Development Plan
Welcome to 2009. Here's wishing it's the best one yet for you - at work and in life! From a work standpoint, what's developing with respect to your leadership development efforts? What are your plans with respect to what I like to call the five Key Domains of Leadership?
Key Leadership Domain #1 - Managing UP the Chain. Establishing and maintaining - and growing - your relationship with your boss and others above you in the organization, is an essential component of being properly recognized (and rewarded) for your results. Too, it helps determine how much of your boss' value-added flows back down to you. That said, take a moment to list out 3-5 new things you can try to meaningfully improve how you manage UP the chain and commit to putting at least one of them in play this week.
Key Leadership Domain #2 - Managing DOWN the Chain. Effectively leading A-caliber players is one thing, but more likely than not, your leadership success will ultimately be determined by how you lead your B- and C-caliber staff. Getting people to consistently over-achieve is a definite leadership competency. That said, take a moment to list out 3-5 new things you can try to meaningfully improve how you manage DOWN the chain and commit to putting at least one of them in play this week.
Key Leadership Domain #3 - Managing ACROSS the Chain. Leading without formal authority is another essential competency in business. Without an ability to influence your peers and get them to willingly follow your lead, you significantly limit your organizational impact. That said, take a moment to list out 3-5 new things you can try to meaningfully improve how you manage ACROSS the chain and commit to putting at least one of them in play this week.
Key Leadership Domain #4 - Managing OUTSIDE the Chain. Vendor personnel, contract employees, consultants, industry contacts and connections ... valuable resources, all. That said, take a moment to list out 3-5 new things you can try to meaningfully improve how you manage OUTSIDE the chain and commit to putting at least one of them in play this week.
Key Leadership Domain #5 - Managing YOURSELF. Although isolated here for simplicity sake, your ability to make meaningful improvements in any of the aforementioned domains is contingent upon your ability to manage yourself ... and the gap between your self-perceptions and how others - up, down, across, and outside the chain - perceive you. That said, take a moment to list out 3-5 new things you can meaningfully try to improve how you manage YOURSELF and commit to putting at least one of them in play this week.
Effective leadership development best happens when it's more than just an ad hoc effort. Taking a few moments you take here, in January, to develop your leadership development plan will likely yield considerably better results than by just winging it.
Key Leadership Domain #1 - Managing UP the Chain. Establishing and maintaining - and growing - your relationship with your boss and others above you in the organization, is an essential component of being properly recognized (and rewarded) for your results. Too, it helps determine how much of your boss' value-added flows back down to you. That said, take a moment to list out 3-5 new things you can try to meaningfully improve how you manage UP the chain and commit to putting at least one of them in play this week.
Key Leadership Domain #2 - Managing DOWN the Chain. Effectively leading A-caliber players is one thing, but more likely than not, your leadership success will ultimately be determined by how you lead your B- and C-caliber staff. Getting people to consistently over-achieve is a definite leadership competency. That said, take a moment to list out 3-5 new things you can try to meaningfully improve how you manage DOWN the chain and commit to putting at least one of them in play this week.
Key Leadership Domain #3 - Managing ACROSS the Chain. Leading without formal authority is another essential competency in business. Without an ability to influence your peers and get them to willingly follow your lead, you significantly limit your organizational impact. That said, take a moment to list out 3-5 new things you can try to meaningfully improve how you manage ACROSS the chain and commit to putting at least one of them in play this week.
Key Leadership Domain #4 - Managing OUTSIDE the Chain. Vendor personnel, contract employees, consultants, industry contacts and connections ... valuable resources, all. That said, take a moment to list out 3-5 new things you can try to meaningfully improve how you manage OUTSIDE the chain and commit to putting at least one of them in play this week.
Key Leadership Domain #5 - Managing YOURSELF. Although isolated here for simplicity sake, your ability to make meaningful improvements in any of the aforementioned domains is contingent upon your ability to manage yourself ... and the gap between your self-perceptions and how others - up, down, across, and outside the chain - perceive you. That said, take a moment to list out 3-5 new things you can meaningfully try to improve how you manage YOURSELF and commit to putting at least one of them in play this week.
Effective leadership development best happens when it's more than just an ad hoc effort. Taking a few moments you take here, in January, to develop your leadership development plan will likely yield considerably better results than by just winging it.
So what are some things you're likely to list out - and focus on - this year? Who can you encourage to work on this exercise, as well?
(For more on the five Key Leadership Domains, see: http://www.ggci.com/leadership-coaching/scope.htm.)
Labels: Fear/Courageousness, Leadership Development, mentoring, Motivation, Success at Work
posted by Barry Zweibel at 10:25 AM
3 Comments:
Barry: Pulling these five key leadership domains together is really smart thinking. What's intriguing about them is that most managers spend much of their time on one or two domains and skip the rest. They think up and out, and ignore peers, or think down and out and ignore their boss. Getting all five domains in place and keeping them in place is a very important task and relates directly to their future.
My mentor always reminded his people that their peers and their subordinates got them promoted, not him. If they had difficulties with peers or subordinates they probably wouldn't get promoted, etc. Initially an intriguing notion, but I've found that it works pretty well.
Thanks, Dan. Yes, many (most?) people focus on only some of the leadership domains and then wonder why things don't turn out quite right, so I thought it important to diagram the entire portfolio of leadership domains for them.
Re: Your mentor's comment - spot-on! Leadership success cannot happen in a vacuum. Never did; never will.
Thanks for the post, Barry. Here are MY Lessons Learned/Realized:
Up the chain -- Don't ask what we should do that's new. Try it (within reason of course) and report on the positive results.
Update your boss on what your doing to navigate this difficult economic period. What does your team look like 2 - 3 years from now? (Don't wait to be asked - offer.)
Down the chain - Solicit input from your B and even C players. (I'm guilty of focusing too much on the A players) Take the time for face to face. (I'm doing that this week. With a C player) This is difficult in my virtual world. Take a chance and give a C player an additional responsibility and turn him / her into an A or B player. (I don't do this enough if even at all)
Across - Provide updates on projects without being asked. (guilty) Ask what they are doing Show interest and offer to help.
Outside - How are your business partners being affected by the economic climate? (The Hertz example we discussed.) How can I help Continue to build loyalty and show that I care?
Yourself - Barry - put this under conversations I need to have with myself: What am I afraid of? Why? (It's ok. This shows energy and passion.)
What am I going to do to overcome and grow from this? How can I do more for others? (professional And personal life)
Again, thanks.
Post a Comment
<< Home