The Secret of Natural Leadership Authority E-Book

Ralf Juhre

• Herausgeber: ingenior training & consulting
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Seitenzahl: 141

Beschreibung

Nothing has been more painful for me than watching those with leadership and management responsibilities labor extremely hard and yet receive hardly any true allegiance from their followers. On the contrary, the followers often withhold their allegiance from them. Enormous amounts of effort are poured by the leaders into creating strategies, visions, objectives and structures. Everything has been meticulously thought through, it definitely should work now! But the results just fail to materialize. The followers do not trust their leaders. (Dieser Teil ist aus dem Vorwort) -Want to improve your leadership efficiency? -Not sure how much leadership authority you really have? -Want to see wholehearted followers in your organization? This book will help you to identify your actual challenges and improve your leadership authority to be more successful.

Leseprobe

The Secret of

Natural

Leadership Authority

How it is created – How it is blocked – How it is hindered

Ralf Juhre

© 2014, 4th revised edition, English version by ingenior Verlag, Lise-Meitner-Straße 24, 63457 Hanau, Germany

All rights reserved, especially rights of copying and distribution as well as translation. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publishers.

Cover design: Angelika Stein Translation: Erich Fischer, Dublin eBook conversion: Ebozon Distribution

Die Deutsche Bibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen Nationalbibliografie; detaillierte bibliografische Daten sind im Internet über http://dnb.ddb.de abrufbar.

ISBN 978-3-945975-12-1 (ePUB)

To my dear wife Ruth and my children Robin, Florian and Annika, who have helped me understand leadership authority.

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To my dear parents who shared their wisdom and their faith with me and always lead by example.

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To all those who have led me in the past. I learned all that I know today from you – the good and the bad leadership!

Contents

Preface

I. What is Leadership Authority?

I.I. Definition and Distinction

I.I.I. Natural Authority and Manipulation

I.I.II. The Task of a Manager

I.II. Errors on Leadership Authority

I.II.I. Error I - Authority Comes by Position

I.II.II. Error 2 – Authority is Confused with Violence

I.II.III. Error 3 – You Either Have Authority – or You Don’t

I.II.IV. Error 4 – Authority Has Nothing to Do with Character

II. How Is Leadership Authority Created?

II.I. Trust Is a Must

II.I.I. Low Levels of Trust

II.I.II. Level of Professional Trust Too Low

II.I.III. Level of Relational Trust Too Low

II.I.IV. Regular Level Readings Are Needed

II.II. How Do You Earn Trust as a Leader?

II.II.I. Earning Professional Trust

II.II.II. Earning Relational Trust

II.III. The Power of Attitude

II.III.I. Courage as Foundation for Leadership Success

II.III.II. Greed for Security Versus Self-Respect

II.III.III Inner and Outer Prostitution

II.IV Is It All About the Use of Power?!

II.VI.I Different Ways of Using Power

II.IV.II. Will to Master

II.IV.III. Will to Improve

III. What Destroys Leadership Authority?

III.I How to Effectively Ruin Leadership Authority

III.I.I. Lack of Appreciation for the Task

III.I.II. Lack of Self-Respect

III.I.III. Lack of Integrity Towards Others

III.II. The Five Worst Leadership Mistakes

III.II.I. Leadership Mistake 1 - Expectations Toward Staff Members Not Clear

III.II.II. Leadership Mistake 2 – Leader Does Not Delegate

III.II.III. Leadership Mistake 3 – Leader Does Not Reflect

III.II.IV. Leadership Mistake 4 – Allowing Reverse Delegation

III.II.V. Leadership Mistake 5 – Inconsistency with Low- And Non-Performance

IV. Where Are You?

IV.I. How Much Natural Leadership Authority Do You Enjoy?

IV.I.III. External Assessment II

IV.II. What Can You Do?

IV.III. Your Next Steps

Glossary

Preface

For many years, I have been working with managers and staff members in companies, non-profit organizations and societies. Nothing has been more painful for me than watching those with leadership and management responsibilities labor extremely hard and yet receive hardly any true allegiance from their followers. On the contrary, the followers often withhold their allegiance from them.

Enormous amounts of effort are poured by the leaders into creating strategies, visions, objectives and structures. Everything has been meticulously thought through, it definitely should work now! But the results just fail to materialize. The followers do not trust their leaders.

People are led by people, or they are not led at all. This will forever remain true! No artificial system has the ability to permanently act as a substitute for the power of natural authority (leadership power) of aperson,especially when it comes to the three most important aspects of leadership:

Create allegiance

• Release existing motivation

• Focus energy into achieving a common goal

All three of these leadership qualities requirehuman leaders, not systems. So what is the secret of successful leaders? Why are they able to obtain natural authority (acknowledged leadership power) from their staff members while others fail to do so? What makes these leaders different from others? In this book, I deal with the following questions: What actually isnatural authority(leadership power)and what is it not? How do you recognize it? How is it created and how is it blocked or hindered?

It takes a lot of courage to admit to yourself that you do not possess or that you possess very little naturally acknowledged authority (leadership power). Often, those in positions of leadership lack the will or the ability to publicly question themselves with regard to this central issue. The safe environment of a book can help take an honest look at your unvarnished self and face the truth.

I wish all of my readers the courage to acquire the self-awareness that in the end is rewarded by true sovereignty.

Ralf Juhre, Director of ingenior GmbH

A word to the English translation: The translator has taken the historic traditional approach of using the masculine pronoun “he” in any case where the gender of the person in question is not defined. This has been done to enhance the readability of the text and is in no way putting down the female gender or denying the fact that many persons in leadership are female.

I. What is Leadership Authority?

I.I. Definition and Distinction

What actually is leadership authority or “leadership power“?

It is not quite easy to give an answer to this question. Therefore, I will try to elucidate it by asking a further question. How many totally committed soldiers who are fighting out of conviction are required to wear down an army of hired soldiers on the other side? What would be your estimate? Usually a ratio of 1:10 will suffice. 100 committed fighters who are willing to lay down their lives for their cause are enough to wear down an army of 1000 hired soldiers.

How does this relate to our topic of leadership authority? Well, an army of hired soldiers is led by a different breed of leaders than one of committed fighters: While the general of the committed crowd owns the allegiance of his soldiers, the general of the hired soldiers has to put up with mere conformity and submission. The leader of the hired army prefers to watch the battle from a secure distance. The danger of him being shot in the back is too big. The leader of the committed army fights in the first ranks of the battle, and he is primarily protected by the lives of his faithful followers.

Natural leadership authority breeds committed followers: Men and women who do not go to battle because they have to, but because they want to! Leadership power is therefore the power to guide and direct people, not for a cause alien to them, but for their own cause.

I have never met a single manager who would not wish for his staff members to be in line with the objectives of the company and willing to fight for them, like an army of committed patriots rather than hired soldiers. However, I have met a lot of managers who are hired soldiers themselves; who do not have the guts to total commitment, and who never decide either to fully identify with the cause of the company or to leave it altogether. Such managers have no natural leadership authority whatsoever, even if they have the power of command. Often enough they themselves are aware of it, but they have resigned to it or even made a conscious decision for it. Hence, they will only perpetuate existing systems.

Those managers, however, who decide to base their leadership on natural authority rather than on the power of command, are those who are changing the world. Possessing natural authority comes at a price, though: It costs comfort. Many men and women have set out on the journey of acquiring natural authority and they are achieving remarkable results on the way. They are the ones who are shaping the face of the earth on a small as well as on a large scale.

The following practical examples from everyday life show situations, where natural leadership authority or leadership power is acknowledged and how it leads to performance results on the part of the follower:

Situation 1:

A child voluntarily overcomes its own reluctance to complete the homework under the leadership of his or her father or mother. Without the help of a parent, the child would not have accomplished that, he or she would have remained resistant. No coercion or pressure is exercised; the child acts out of his or her own will.

What happened?

The leadership power of the parent was based on the ability to help the child successfully overcome the inner reluctance without feeling like a looser in the process, or without becoming a looser.

Situation 2:

Through personal conversations, a manager regularly succeeds in instilling in his staff a sense of personal responsibility for achieving certain objectives. The staff members pursue the achievement of the goals with initiative and enthusiasm, and without any further instigation. No pressure is exerted upon the staff members; they act out of their own accord and free will.

What happened?

The leadership power of the manager is based on his ability to win the allegiance of his staff for the achievement of objectives.

Both situations have in common: Neither the staff members nor the child act in order to avoid suffering. No pressure is exerted in a certain direction. In both cases, the leader succeeds in winning the allegiance of the follower. And this is precisely a characteristic of natural leadership authority: People are willing to change their behavior out of their own accord and completely voluntarily. The initiating force comes from outside. A person who has the ability to achieve this in others has natural leadership authority.

Definition:

Whenever people give their allegiance to a person without any coercion or pressure,naturally acknowledged (leadership) authorityexists.

It is common knowledge that all humans carry motives for their actions within themselves. Nobody likes to do something just because somebody else wants it. We prefer to do things that we ourselves want to do. If somebody is proficient and skilful in influencing a person in such a way that he or she starts pursuing certain causes or goals out of his or her own accord, this person possesses acknowledged authority (leadership power) in this situation. The motivation does not come from outside (avoiding of suffering/pleasure gain), but from within.

A special characteristic of this leadership power is the fact that the leader always has the trust of the follower. Otherwise, the follower would hardly be willing to put his energy into pursuing the cause that the leader asks him to pursue. For natural leadership authority to exist, therefore, trust is an absolute must. It is unthinkable without trust.

In my dealings with hundreds, maybe even thousands of managers, I noticed that very many of them do not have any leadership power at all, some have quite little of it, and only a small minority possess a great deal of leadership power. It is not easy to acquire leadership power. But it is definitely worth making an effort to do so, given the extraordinary opportunities that arise when acknowledged leadership authority is in operation.

I.I.I. Natural Authority and Manipulation

Leading people by natural authority is by its very nature miles apart from leading by manipulation. Unfortunately, even highly successful leaders are not always exempt from the temptation to manipulate others. Manipulation often promises a shortcut to a long journey; that is why it is so attractive.

Manipulating people always involves utilizing a half-truth or a lie in order to achieve a certain goal. Apart from moral reasons, a respectable manager should never resort to it, simply because if the truth comes out, the damage done to the trust of the followers is so severe and substantial, that regaining true allegiance from them is unthinkable for a long time. The potential damage in using manipulation is reason enough to reject it altogether.

The manipulative leader will sooner or later be caught up by the scorched earth he produced, and as a consequence he will lose the acknowledgement of natural leadership authority (leadership power).

In my work with managers, however, I meet almost daily those who believe that they can manipulate their staff without having to face bad consequences for themselves or for the cooperation from their staff members. But pride goes before destruction. And you reap what you sow. Manipulating people is not a trivial offence, especially when it comes to leadership! Conscious manipulation is fraud, and it destroys trust between people in a devastating way. Here are a few common examples of manipulation from practical experience. They create big problems in everyday life, and they are found in every company:

The head of department manipulates by interpreting information: The head of department passes on information to his department about what was said by the company management with regard to the topic X. In doing this, he takes some liberties with what was actually said. He interprets the statement of the management in such a way that it fits his own agenda, instead of directly quoting what was actually said.

The members of the department do not have direct access to the company management, thus they have to trust their head of department to truthfully represent what was actually said by the management. On the basis of the heard information the staff members decide what they will think about the management’s decision and how they are going to react to it.

This example is one of the most difficult problems in the day-to-day dealings of senior management. Acting as a consultant in different company settings in my career, I have witnessed such an abuse of authority in multiple cases. This is frequently aggravated by a serious senior management mistake: They often fail to introduce efficient control mechanisms for the correct communication of decisions and targets from top down.

The company management members or senior leadership team members believe that their guidelines are being implemented. In reality, it is not happening, though. The guidelines are watered down and changed through arbitrary “transformation” on the intermediate levels, depending on personal interests, goals or career plans. In this game, the middle managers manipulate in both directions, up and down, and get away with it; often they remain undiscovered for years. If such a culture of active and passive manipulation gets ingrained in a company, it is headed towards a crisis.

Blessed are, therefore, those senior managers who maintain a healthy way of keeping in touch with the ordinary employees. They are always up to date about the information that actually reaches the bottom. Their style of “management by walking around” enables them to perceive whether there is manipulation involved or not. The central issue in this regard is: What can be done to make sure that the set objectives are communicated to the bottom without interpretation? Another example:

Staff members manipulate by “whitewash reporting“: What should not be, must not show in the figures, as it usually has negative consequences. This is why many staff members resort to whitewashing their reports, often even encouraged by their superiors. The catastrophic results are simply fudged a little. “Disguising, deceiving, throwing white smoke bombs”, is the order of the day.

Even when the report is exaggerated and fudged to a degree of 800%, nobody will notice as nobody checks the report. Only the author and his colleagues know that they have not reported accurately. In this scenario of manipulation, management decisions are being made based on an ever growing degree of untrue information.

This is also a common example from practical experience that I have encountered frequently while dealing with organizational development. The predicament of the staff members is understandable: If the reports do reflect reality, they may be accused of failure and, as those responsible for the failure, they may even lose their job.

The more intense the “tweaking and transforming” of orders and reports gets in an organization, the higher the level of manipulation rises. When the level of mutual manipulation rises above a certain point, the level of mutual trust gets so low that nobody acknowledges any natural leadership authority (leadership power) of any other person. With such serious difficulties within the company’s culture, the “company as a system” inevitably gets out of hand, as it is left without leadership.