From some of my previous posts, comments and responses to questions on various forums, you will see that I define a leader in a fairly loose fashion. Indeed, if you think about it, leaders do come in many shapes, sizes and forms and appear to be all things to all people.
Leaders appear to embody the Barnum Effect – “You can fool some of the people all of the time and all of the people, some of the time, but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time”.
- A leader can lead some of the people, all of the time. These are their core followers.
- A leader can lead all of the people some of the time. In certain circumstances a leader can attract support from most people, if not all.
- But leaders cannot lead everyone all of the time. That is human nature for you, fortunately, because we need to be able to doubt our leaders from time to time and question their motives and actions. Otherwise they may fall victim to the dark side of human nature.
This embodiment of the Barnum Effect lies at the core of leadership effectiveness. A leader has the ability to manage themselves and show an exemplary role model;
- They need great Personal Strengths that will attract the respect of their followers.
- They will need great Inter-Personal Strengths that can manage relationships across the great range of personalities they need to influence and gain the respect of.
- They need to have a Strong Vision or Objective that they are deeply committed to and which they can communicate with great enthusiasm and clarity that represents a set of commonly accepted principles that people will value. That vision will be one that will represent a better place for people.
At THG Ireland we have been working on Leadership Development utilising the Self Development Reports (SDR) from The McQuaig Word Survey. We have found that the SDR is a highly effective coaching tool that helps managers cross that line that divides managers from leaders.
We have found that the SDR identifies those behaviours and provides the guidelines that develop the flexible behavioural self management that underpins Emotional Intelligence, that magic ingredient common to all effective leaders.
Tags: coach, development, Engagement, Leaders, Leadership, learning, mission, Success, vision
