Blessing Mpofu

Ways You Fail Those Who Lead You

Leadership is visible. Every leader has a bull’s-eye on him. This is because everybody is watching you and everything you’re doing. And, everyone seems to always know better than the leader. Leadership is not for sissies.

You cannot lead without courage and a level of deafness. People often more readily point out how leadership is failing or has failed but hardly stop to consider how they fail leadership.

Before you pass judgement or critique, consider how you are helping the demise of your leaders and the enterprise you serve in.

Don’t be quick to point out your leaders’ failure before considering how you are contributing to their failure (Click To Tweet)

Here are 3 Ways You Fail Those Who Lead You:

Goals

Leadership gives vision. Vision is foundation for goals. You fail your leadership when you prioritize your own goals over those set out by leadership. When you serve your own goals the enterprise you serve ceases to serve those it is supposed to and serves you.

This is selfish, to say the least. Goals set in line with the vision are an enabling force. Acting without them effectively cripples and undermines the efforts of any team or organisation.

Initiative

When you are not quick to see and or explore the possibilities that currently exist as a result of the organization’s present position, you fail your leadership.

Your present responsibilities could be creating greater opportunities for the enterprise you serve. When all you see are your present responsibilities and not the possibilities that may result as you fulfill them you fail your leaders.

On the same note, you fail your leadership when you see opportunities and do nothing at all about them. You do not act on them or highlight them to your colleagues, leadership and enterprise at large. You also fail your leadership when you only act when you are told to do so.

Follow

This is rather obvious but extremely important. You fail those that lead your team or organization when you do not follow them. You fail your leadership when you devalue your role or do not do it with care. Leadership is failed when those who follow have no respect for their work.

You will not agree with your team and your leadership all the time. In such times, you will fail your leadership when you decide not to follow through with a decision because you do not agree.

Unity is not synonymous with always the same perspective all the time. Having a different perspective to your leadership does not mean you cannot follow them.

Management, the Demise of Leadership [An Excerpt]

One critical mistake that most organisations make is that their leaders usually just deteriorate into managers. This means that leaders get more concerned about maintaining the status quo and, as long as nothing much is changing in the organisation, they behave like the proverbial ostrich and prefer to believe that the situation with the market and the public will always stay the same. Managers of organisations are basically there to produce predictable results for their organisations. Leaders, on the other hand, are primarily there to produce change – Mandivamba Rukuni in Leading Africa

Blog Post Integrity

integrity is important for successful bloggers

I read and follow blogs to sharpen my thinking, learn and grow. Check out the other reasons I read and follow blogs here. There are some things that I find annoying and try not to do for you, the community that reads my posts.

There is no one best way to blog. Different things work for different bloggers in different contexts. Never make the mistake of thinking there is one best way.

However, there are some things I feel must never be compromised when it comes to blogging (and perhaps other social media platforms). Every blog post must have integrity. This must stem from the values every blogger must embrace. By blog post integrity I mean:

Link Integrity

As part of search engine optimization (SEO), which is a means helping you organically rank higher in search engines, internal and external links are encouraged. (You can read more about SEO here).

Internal links are links to other posts etc. on your blog. And, external are other websites and blogs you link to outside of your blog. Every blogger must ensure that every link in every post works.

This is a difficult gig for old posts, especially where you link to websites or blogs that do not exist any more. However, the least you could to as a blogger is ensure that links within your blog are functional. (I might be guilty of that on my blog and I correct it as soon as I find faults)

Sending people to a link that does not work is like giving a guest in your house directions to a bathroom that doesn’t exist.

Sources

Credit sources for your illustrations and other media that you use that you did not create. I use a lot of creative commons media and do my best to credit my sources.

Most of the creative commons media I use is open for adaptation and commercial use on condition that the source is acknowledged. I even go as far as acknowledging the sources for some of the ideas I build on from other people.

Out of wanting to seem smart, some people go on to present other people’s work as their own. I find it despicable.

You do not lose credibility by acknowledging that you are not the originator, you actually gain credibility.

What must be included in blog posts for their integrity’s sake?

Making Vision Stick [Excerpt]

I consider myself an avid reader. I also try to read very broadly to help me grow. I read books, blogs and tweets from people that don’t think like me. The excerpt below is from Andy Stanley’s book on vision, “Making Vision Stick“. An easy read that highlights the importance of keep vision out in front and helping those you lead to do the same. The excerpt:

…I like to joke that the three primary obstacles to making vision stick are success, failure, and everything inbetween. There is no season in which a leader can push autopilot and expect the organization to remain vision driven. It is possible for an organization to increase market share and profit margins while drifting from its original vision… …Success lures us into taking hands off the wheel. Failure causes us to overcorrect. Both succes and failure can lead to disaster.

… Over time organizations become more complex. Complexity is distracting for leaders. Where there were once two balls to juggle, suddenly there are three, then four and then forty. All of them are important. Where there was one good opportunity to pursue, suddenly there are three. And each new opportunity leads to yet another and another. Complexity can kill the original vision.

making vision stick — you must keep vision visibly in front you otherwise you will veer and derail your organization

If you’ve read the book, what are your take aways? If you haven’t, do yourself a favor and read it. You can get it here.

disclosure: this post has affiliate links

Which Leadership Style is Best?

Not all people are the same. Leaders are also people and, as a result, are also not the same. Every leader has a different personality, worldview and disposition on different things.

The common thing to all leaders is that they exist to lead [Click to Tweet]

That is why they are there. This leaves how to lead somewhat optional. You can train leaders on the principles and strategies of leadership but you may not be able to completely shape who they become as leaders. This is because every leader has a different personality and something about it will color their leadership.

Personality profiling or strengths assessments, such as Strengths Finder, Myers Briggs, DISC and Insights, highlight different strengths people have. Leadership style has impact on those you lead and ultimately on your enterprise.

Different leadership styles are effective in different contexts. For example, leaders can take into account the personalities they lead. A relational leader may find it easier to lead and may be able to succeed in getting results from their team.

On the other hand the relational leader can put relationships ahead of results. Some leaders are more focused on the tasks, strategy and ideation. There are myriad ways of assessing and labeling leadership styles.

It is not that leaders have one leadership style per se. What is called ‘leadership style’ is generally their primary and predominant response(s) or disposition as they lead.

Which leadership style is best? Which leadership style is better than the other? Or, which is the best leadership style? None.

There is no one leadership style that is best. Neither is there one leadership style that is better than another. What makes the difference is how leaders manage themselves in leading. One of the reasons teams get frustrated with leadership is not leadership style but the context it which a particular style is employed.

Different leadership styles get better results in different contexts. The most important thing for leaders is to understand themselves and the context in which their predominant tendencies work best.

Leader, where you have shortcomings, it is prudent to lean on those on your team whose leadership styles are stronger than you in the Ares you will need.

The only instances where one leadership style is better than another is when another leadership style could be used to get best results. Screwdrivers are great but are ineffective when you need to knock a nail in.

In conclusion, no one leadership style is better than another per se. Context is what you should use to determine which leadership style will be best.

The best leadership style is the one that best fits the context [Click to Tweet]

It is not the leadership style that matters, but that it is appropriately leaned into in each context. As part of developing a healthy organization factor in discerning the leadership style needed for contexts you encounter.

Your thoughts?