First Steps
Where to start? Begin by discovering exactly what your convictions are. Clarify and codify for yourself what you believe in. Then, take a nice step back and see how those beliefs are playing out in the organization as it stands today.Don't start with an organizational assessment based on the numbers or your opinions about others. This is not about "them." This is all about you.
Ask yourself:
- What is important to me? What are my values, beliefs, ethics?
- How am I demonstrating those values, beliefs and ethics every day?
- Is the larger organization designed to support my values, beliefs and ethics?
- Where are the disconnects ¡V within my immediate organization and for myself with the larger enterprise?
- What can I do to change how I behave with my immediate organization to demonstrate my belief in them?
- What additional assistance do my employees need to succeed ¡V and how can I ensure that they get everything they need and more to create personal and organizational success?
Realistically, you'll go through this process not once, but many, many times. This is a periodic reality and cross-check to see how you're doing in your own context and, as you begin making changes, in the larger context.
Because, while you can and should expect yourself and your immediate organization to make changes, you cannot - and should not - expect the larger organization to immediately respond or follow suit. This is a personal journey designed to assist you in being more - and helping those whose lives you touch to be more. Give the organization time. It'll get there. It's just a little bit slow.
What's Next?
As you identify your convictions and begin aligning your behaviors with those convictions, you are going to need to take steps to build a collaborative culture based on where you're going.To do that, seek input from your employees about what they need and what their dreams are for their jobs and the larger organization. (They have them, you know). Talk to internal and external customers and suppliers about their needs. Find out what more and what else you can be and do to create success.
Enroll and engage in conversation and communication. Sit back. Listen. Take in as much as you can. Look for trends and themes. Find out where the possibilities are - the connects and disconnects that you can effect.
Be more. Be all those things you always believed about yourself - and usually bring to the rest of your life.
Leaders aren't made or born. Leadership is a choice - a belief in and commitment to everything that is good and noble within you.
Be a leader.
Back > The Manager As Leader, The beginning
Leslie L. Kossoff is a leading organizational thinker and consultant. Her firm, Kossoff Management Consulting, has provided guidance in the areas of executive and management development, and organizational strategy and excellence for over twelve years. Her current focus is the next generation of leadership and the generation after that.
