LEADERSHIP

Leadership and Groups

Currently I am also teaching a class on Leadership and Groups at William Jessup University ( http://www.jessup.edu)

One thing we established yesterday was without a vision any small group or a team will not be successful. The leader is responsible to inspire the team with the vision or big picture and keep that big picture focus. As John Maxwell says the goal is more important than the role.

Another thing we had a good discussion about is leadership styles.  The leader is ultimately responsible for the results. But he needs to choose the appropriate style based on the situation and the readiness of the followers. He can choose telling, selling, participating and delegating styles of leadership. I had talked about these styles in another post on the blog earlier.

Leaders and relationships

Leaders build strong relationships with team members, friends and business partners. Leaders serve and help others accomplisah their goals and purpose.

One of the key leadership principles which leaders use to build strong relationships is to encourage the heart. ( One of the leadership principles in the book Leadership Challenge by Kouses and Posner). They affirm and recognize the contributions of others and give respect where it is due. Building relationships is critical as leaders know that a Mount Everest dream cannot be accomplished alone.

Leaders recognize gifts in team members

Leaders have the ability to recognize the gifts in the team members around them.  They assign them roles and responsibilities based on their gifts.  Once a leader learns to do this effectively he eliminates the impact of weaknesses in the team members on the team output. An example is if someone has a gift to be detail oriented then the leader needs to give him a role which is detail oriented and not a role to put together the strategy for the organization which needs big picture thinking.  It does take time to recognize clearly the gifts in our team members but we need to keep learning as we move along.