Leadership - Standards
Standards
Early behaviour
Earlier [see Chess the middle game] we commented how leadership is a little like a game of chess.
| Opening gambit | New leader |
| Develop the opening | Developing leader |
| Middle game | Maturing leader |
| End game | Complete leader |
In order to move through the various phases to reach the top you will need to exhibit the required standards.
If you don’t learn to be professional at an early stage you will be found out as a leader and only reach a particular level.
This is often the stage of management in the middle game where you are in a matrix situation. You are trying to hone your skills to not only survive in the flatter structures of the matrix but you also want to get out and move higher up the leadership ladder.
We know that to improve leadership skills you need trust. Trust leads to followers and that in turn will give you influence.
You can’t gain trust just by thinking that it’s a good idea you have to develop suitable communication skills.
Communication skills
Good communication can be in small groups, one to one or in larger scale presentations. This can be seen in team meetings, coaching sessions or full PowerPoint presentations.
Any form of communication should cover two main aspects.
- Content that people want to hear about.
- An interesting communication manner.
These are often called substance and style. One without the other will lead to a failure to communicate your message.
When people attend a talk they might ask themselves several questions.
What is it about?
What problem might the information solve?
Is it going to be worth my while listening?
The talk must have the correct substance to answer these questions. It must contain a logical set of information and data to convince the audience that the topic is relevant and the information content supports the described arguments. Without the correct information base the presentation may not be believed. If this happens the message has been lost. If you can connect to the audience on an emotional level then so much the better. Try to make any examples relevant to the audience. Playing on fears, insecurities or benefits gives the audience a personal involvement.
Making a presentation interesting is one of the most difficult parts of giving them.
You are trying to capture the audience’s imagination and with this get them on board with your arguments.
Enthusiasm
For any presentation you must show enthusiasm for the subject. If you have no energy and seem apathetic this will translate rapidly to your audience.
Test your presentation before going live. In particular, look at the slide show or flip chart etc to make sure the audience will see the information easily and clearly. Too much data that is difficult to read is a real turn off.
If you must use cue cards keep them to bullet points as reminders and present the rest from memory.
This will give a much more natural feel to the presentation which your audience will appreciate.
Putting in jokes is tricky. You need to have the right character to tell a joke well in a presentation. Practice makes perfect.
Move around don’t remain stationary all the time.
Speak not to the audience but to key individuals within the audience.
Listening
The art of listening takes a little practice for some. It is easy to talk, get carried away and forget to listen.
It is easier to try to direct a conversation than to listen. If you listen carefully you may begin to understand the problem better.
Once you can understand the problem you will be able to direct any questions with a better focus on resolving the problem.
In this way you may be able to influence without the person feeling pushed.
The ‘monkey on your back’ is another example of good listening. When you are presented with a problem listen carefully and help the individual by gradually allowing them to derive the solution. In this way you will have demonstrated good listening skills and left the individual with a feeling of ownership of the solution. This solution is more likely to succeed.
The annual appraisal is usually an unwelcome appointment met with trepidation on both sides.
Listening skills here are exceptionally important for success. It is a good idea to let the individual talk through their performance before supporting their comments with questions and comments of your own.
When approaching any appraisal the boss and yourself should make a note of any problems and successes during the year.
It is best to record these as they happen and not try to recall them at the year end.
A very good way to hone your listening skills is to occasionally summarise the discussion and key points so far. This will force you to listen and tells the individual that you are paying attention. If you must ask questions use ‘open’ questions and not ‘closed’.
These are questions that don’t invite a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer or other short replies like ‘maybe’ and ‘possibly’.
This will encourage the individual to talk more with descriptive answers.
Open questions often start with ‘how?’, ‘why?’, ‘what?’ or ‘describe’ etc.
Another aspect of any meeting with more than 2 people is ‘how well the meeting met its purpose’.
It’s a good idea to ask people how they felt the meeting went. Get some immediate feedback on the meeting success.
Finally, summarise the whole meeting and agree the next steps.
Listening requires more time than ‘telling’.
On occasion you may find that you don’t have the time for an extended meeting.
What shall you do?
If you have made an appointment, for example, an appraisal, it is up to you to allow significant time.
Many people allow up to an hour. Other poorer managers may only allow 15 minutes on the grounds that the result is all but over.
If you really are concerned about time try to rearrange the meeting.
The presence of an agenda will usually help you keep to time.
The written word
In today’s busy world it is often too easy to communicate in writing too rapidly. Many memos that you receive will be written poorly.
Grammar will be poor, spelling (despite the presence of spell checkers) will be poor and the message itself is likely to be ambiguous.
Firstly, if you write a message read it through before you deliver it.
Secondly, always read the message as though you were the person who receives it.
In particular, make sure that no ambiguities exist that will lead to confusion and error.
Make the communication as interesting as possible to draw attention to the key issue.
Create a logical sequence of events with a beginning, middle and end.
What problem are you communicating?
What comments and evidence are you putting forward?
What are the next steps or conclusions?
Keep it tightly focussed so that you could summarise it in less than 1 minute of conversation.
This will also help to reduce ambiguity.
If you make any assertions always support them with facts. If not, state that you have no facts to support the assertion.
The principle of keeping a piece of writing short and to the point applies to many areas.
Specific items, like reports, should adopt the same principle and should follow a specific format.
Reports should contain an ‘executive’ summary’ so that a person can see if the extra detail in the body of the report is worth reading.
You can always put large quantities of information and supporting data in ‘appendices’.
Progress report writing is covered in ‘The Complete Project management package’.
The style of grammar used in the written work should maintain interest and not make it sound like a legal document (unless it is a legal document of course).
Reading
Reading doesn’t sound like a very useful communication medium as it seems a rather introvert activity.
Improvements in your communication can come in different forms.
If you are reading an official report use a highlighter on the key points which makes it easier to focus on them when you need to.
Make a list of comments and questions that you want to resolve as you go.
If you can learn to speed read it might help you to get to the key points faster.
Some people are not happy speed reading and argue that report detail needs a more considered and slower assessment.
These are reports that you see before you arrange a meeting to discuss them.
What happens if you see a report for the first time at a meeting?
Well obviously the best course is to try to see the report prior to any meeting but this may not always be possible.
One reason you may not see the report is that you as a person and as a representative of the organisation are being tested to see if you are worthy enough to handle the outcome of the report.
If you are a consultant, for example, your prospective client may be trying to find out just how competent your company is.
If you are in this situation make sure that you carry out some research around the key area for discussion.
Those presenting the report will have a lot of the answers to questions well marshalled to try to influence your thinking along their lines.
Unless you do the research you will have no sound basis on which to argue.
Those presenting the report will expect you to have a good knowledge of the area.
Create a list of topics that you expect to see covered.
If you then raise any that are not there you will gain points for your depth of knowledge and being proactive.
As a final bonus to show that you are on the ball you can send the person away with a few additional comments.
These might cover, areas still left that you feel would give extra weight to the report, style of the report writing, the report components etc.
Data
Data is frequently used in presentations to support a proposal. Computers have made it far easier to present data in a variety of formats, for example, spreadsheets, graphs and tables etc. It is unlikely that the calculations will be in doubt so you will probably need to focus on the substance the data is supporting. Is the presenter trust worthy, do they have a track record of being honest with their data presentations? It is now very easy to use spreadsheets to examine multiple outcomes to see, for example, the effect on a project completion date, profit variations or cost levels. The key is to understand the underlying factors well enough to question the assumptions being made. If the assumptions are wrong many of the calculations may be worthless.