Leadership Effectiveness
What it takes to be an outstanding leader:
The Three Dimensions of Leadership Effectiveness™
Nothing is more important to the success of an organization than the quality of its leadership. Yet nothing is less understood in organizations than leadership!
This dichotomy leads to massively misplaced effort that may involve unproductive management training based on the season’s leadership fad. Or the misunderstanding that leaders are born, not made, which leads companies to give up on management training and leadership development.
Unfortunately, an exceptional lack of high-quality leadership – and leadership development results – exists in organizations of all types, sizes, and industries.
A model of leadership effectiveness
After working with managers and leaders from more than 40 countries and every continent except Antarctica, the fundamental dimensions of leadership effectiveness have become apparent to Steve Lishansky. These dimensions, or principles, provide a strong foundation for managers to take their experience, creativity, and expertise to significantly greater levels of impact and results.
These Dimensions of Leadership Effectiveness show up in every culture and every organization that boasts leadership excellence. Superior leaders demonstrate:
1. Personal effectiveness
2. Interpersonal effectiveness
3. Organizational effectiveness
The essence of personal effectiveness
Personal effectiveness is directly connected to the level of fulfillment you have in your life and work. What drives your level of fulfillment is your congruence with your identity, purpose, and values. How clear, present, and connected you are with who you are, why you are doing what you are doing, and what is most important to you determines how strongly and easily you bring your own best talents, capabilities, resources, and passion to your work. In effect, the more authentic you are with yourself, the more authentic you will be with everyone around you.
The essence of interpersonal effectiveness
Interpersonal effectiveness is a great challenge for almost every organization. Without doubt, we must get along and communicate well with each other. Yet communication training programs seldom improve interpersonal effectiveness, nor do they help professionals reach a massive level of impact. Why? Perhaps this type of management training neglects the ultimate driver of interpersonal effectiveness: creating value for people.
Understanding this principle – “the more value you provide to another person, the more valuable you are to them” – changes how you think about building better relationships. This is consistent whether we’re talking about a leader’s relationship with his or her team or the company’s relationship with its clients. You know how successful a relationship is when you understand how the parties involved rate the value of that relationship.
The essence of organizational effectiveness
Organizational effectiveness is driven most profoundly by the quality of its leadership. The most important aspects of outstanding leadership are generating a powerful vision of the future and aligning the organization with that vision. The power of vision is that it inspires and motivates people with a compelling future and fuels their ability to create that meaningful future in their day-to-day activities. A powerful vision engages people’s most powerful forces: identity, values, and purpose. When the power of vision is aligned with the organization’s mission, clear and meaningful goals are generated – goals that are consistent with realizing the vision and mission.
With these essential elements in place, you have a focused and aligned organization that is best able to utilize the combined talents, capabilities, and resources to produce meaningful and valuable results.
When fully achieved, leadership effectiveness in all three dimensions is the essential practice of outstanding leadership – and produces profoundly powerful improvements in understanding, performance, and results. How well do your leaders measure up in all three dimensions?
Contact Steve Lishansky today to improve your leadership effectiveness!
