Leadership For Dummies E-Book

John Marrin

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 480

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Beschreibung

Do you find yourself being asked to lead others but have no idea where to start? Do you lead a team spread across different offices or even continents? In this no-nonsense guide to leadership you will find answers to crucial questions like: what is leadership? And what style of leadership should I be using? You'll discover how to lead your friends whilst remaining their friend; how to lead change in a way that people accept and understand; when and where to draw the line; and how to reflect on your experiences to become a better and more effective leader.  

Only a lucky few of us are natural born leaders. It takes time and effort to develop a range of leadership styles which work for you and those around you as well as discovering how to become comfortable leading others. Leadership can be a lonely occupation; Leadership For Dummies is your ideal companion. John Marrin explores the fine line between managing and leading and the book is full of tips for making the most of your leadership experiences and how to cope with the dilemmas and discomfort all leaders at some point experience.

Leseprobe

Leadership For Dummies®

Visit www.dummies.com/cheatsheet/leadershipuk to view this book's cheat sheet.

Table of Contents

Introduction

About This Book

Conventions Used in This Book

What You’re Not to Read

Foolish Assumptions

How This Book Is Organised

Part I: Introducing Leadership

Part II: Leading Yourself

Part III: Leading Others

Part IV: Leading People Through Change

Part V: Leading Different Types of Team

Part VI: The Part of Tens

Icons Used in This Book

Where to Go from Here

Part I: Introducing Leadership

Chapter 1: Taking the Lead

Appreciating Why the Work of Leaders Isn’t Easy

Looking for Leadership . . . and Leaders

Cooking the stew rather than being in one!

Experiencing leadership . . . or perhaps not!

Seeing Yourself as a Leader

Filling the vacuum with the right fluff (stuff)

Transforming starts with you

Rising to all leadership occasions

Leading People and Teams

Knowing what you’re about

Engaging people in work and change

Leading all types of teams

Chapter 2: Pinning Down the Meaning of Leadership

Spotting the Differences between Leadership, Leading and Leader

Leadership is a process

Leading is an activity

Being a leader can be a role and/or position

Deciphering the Language of Leadership

Diving into the soup of leadership jargon

Sampling leadership competences

Sampling a Few Tasty Bits of Leadership

Becoming an engaging leader

Being an active leader

Leading through serving others

Coming Up with a Meaning that Works for You

Chapter 3: Leadership and Management: Two Sides of the Same Coin

Flipping Through Your Experiences of Leadership and Management

Choosing and working with a new boss

Working through your own experiences

Listing your expectations of leaders and managers

Understanding Society’s Changing Expectations of Leaders

Jump! Yes sir, how high?

Jump! Why should I?

Pinpointing the Differences between Leading and Managing

Describing the key differences

Getting people to follow you

Earning the right to lead

Leading and managing together

Part II: Leading Yourself

Chapter 4: Leading ‘Inside Out’: Knowing Yourself to Become a Better Leader

Leading Others Starts with Leading Yourself

Becoming an authentic leader

Looking through the Johari Window

Developing Self-Confidence

Leaving Thomas to doubt himself

Being your best critic

Learning from adversity

Discovering How to Lead from Your Experiences

Achieving more by learning quickly

Harnessing the power of reflection

Developing skills in reflecting

Using leadership learning logs

Finding and working with your own coach

Chapter 5: Singing Your Leadership Song: Being in Tune with Your Values

Recognising When You’re Out of Tune

Acknowledging when ‘it just doesn’t feel right’

Questioning what underpins your leadership

Leaving your old baggage behind

Composing Your Own Leadership Tune

Working out what’s important to you

Questioning your assumptions

Singing Your Leadership Song

Communicating your values

Harmonising with others

Chapter 6: Stepping Up to Leadership: Handling Dilemmas

Dealing with Dilemmas

Surviving being thrown in the deep end

Being chosen for the right wrong reasons: Few new leaders arrive fully trained

Becoming comfortable with being uncomfortable

Getting caught in the middle

Accepting that leadership can be lonely

Avoiding the imposter syndrome

Leading Friends

Achieving success while keeping your friends

Knowing where and when to draw the line

Part III: Leading Others

Chapter 7: Developing a Sense of Purpose

Having Clarity of Purpose

Avoiding being a busy fool

Being bold: leading with conviction

Clarifying how you add value

Focusing on your key results

Spending the right time on the right job

Becoming a Visionary Leader

Valuing having a vision

Creating your own vision

Expanding Your Sphere of Influence

Discovering that you have more influence than you think

Questioning whether something really is outside your control

Targeting the people you want to influence

Chapter 8: Employing the Power of Engaging Leadership

Engaging People: The Key to Unlocking Commitment

Avoiding the black hole of meaningless work

Making work meaningful

Realising that engaged people go the extra mile

Building the Foundations for Engaging People

Relating to people

Being Captain Courageous: Speaking your mind

Switching on your senses

Creating shared meanings

Knowing the Secrets of Engaging Leaders

Being open to everything

Building strength through vulnerability

Chapter 9: Becoming an Engaging Leader

Recognising Your Existing Skills

Enhancing Relating to People

‘Working with’ and not ‘doing to’ people

Having a genuine interest in others

Building strong connections

Being non-judgemental

Developing the Courage to Speak Your Mind

Standing out from the crowd

Remaining aware of being dishonest

Asking searching questions

Inviting challenge

Coping with embarrassment and threat

Sensing for Success

Being in the moment

Seeing what others miss

Listening for meaning: Getting behind language

Being Brilliant at Building Commitment

Starting from pole position

Beginning from their grid position

Focusing on winning together

Agreeing actions to drive success

Avoiding meaningless language

Keeping on track

Chapter 10: Modifying Your Leadership Style

Appreciating the Need for a Range of Styles

Wondering why you seem to get the problem people

Choosing horses for courses

Working with chameleon people

Understanding Different Styles of Leadership

Exploring leadership styles

Realising how styles impact on people and performance

Modifying Your Leadership Style So That It Works for You and Others

Being true to yourself

Assessing first, choosing second

Focusing on outcomes

Excelling through trial and error

Chapter 11: Leading People to Peak Performance

Being a Great Role Model

Flying your flag on the summit

Avoiding the crevasse of double standards

Acting Before Avalanches

Appreciating the dangers of delay

Applying the golden rule of ‘Now’

Leading Under-performers Towards Your Peak

Working on commitment and capability

Approaching cliffhanger conversations

Roping people into improvements

Mapping progress towards peak performance

Coaching the Good Towards Greatness

Taking a time out to coach

Choosing the right role

Practising what great coaches do

Part IV: Leading People Through Change

Chapter 12: Diving into a Sea of Change

Dealing with New Changes but Perennial Problems

Appreciating what gets up people’s noses

Swimming with sharks – and surviving!

Riding the waves successfully

Being a Change Agent

Cruising with your crew

Implementing decisions that aren’t yours

Leading change you disagree with

Leading Change, Transforming Culture

Looking out for icebergs

Diving deep to uncover culture

Hanging onto the diver’s lifeline: Stop, think, breathe!

Chapter 13: Transforming Workplace Culture: A Leader’s Approach

Knowing Where and How to Begin

Spotting the opportunity for change

Starting from where you are

Creating a Plan for Your Change

Experiencing initiative fatigue!

Celebrating people past and present

Clarifying the start and end points

Bridging the gap between old and new

Adopting Approaches for Minimising Resistance to Change

Choosing the right pace for change

Uncovering people’s objections

Getting buy-in from everyone

Making change tentative

Handling resistance to change

Chapter 14: Reinforcing a New Culture: Maintaining Your Workplace Changes

Walking the Talk: Leading by Example

Being a visible leader

Using the power of story-telling

Spotting people straying from the path

Paying Attention to the Right Things

Remembering that what gets measured gets done

Keeping everyone up-to-date

Reacting positively to crises

Promoting good practice

Part V: Leading Different Types of Team

Chapter 15: Leading Your Own Team

Creating a High-Performing Team

Dealing with ‘we’re okay: leave us alone’

Separating the great from the good

Harnessing the power of team purpose

Valuing team values

Assessing the Effectiveness of Your Team

Rating your team

Conducting a team self-assessment

Striving for Continuous Improvement

Developing a high-performance atmosphere

Making the un-discussable discussable

Chapter 16: Taking on a Project Team

Getting Your Team Up and Running

Avoiding ‘project-itis’: The scourge of organisations

Appreciating and using the stages of team development

Accelerating through the stages

Leading Team Members with Multiple Commitments

Investing time in the project’s purpose

Challenging unhelpful behaviour: Sorry, wrong room, wrong team!

Developing a Sense of Shared Accountability

Avoiding slopy shoulders

Remembering the team process

Appreciating the power of distributed leadership

Chapter 17: Facilitating Virtual Teams

Understanding Virtual Teams

Naming a team

Defining virtual teams

Comprehending the challenges of being a virtual team leader

Facing up to ‘we’re not a team because we never meet’

Establishing Clever Ways of Working

Getting your ‘ducks in a row’

Tackling ‘out of sight, out of mind’

Appreciating differences in language

Working across different cultures

Accommodating larks and owls

Ending Your Virtual Team

Chapter 18: Leading Your Senior Management Team

Developing a Collective Sense of Responsibility

Breaking the dependency cycle

Helping managers out of their silos

Encouraging Courageous Conversations

Keeping your managers’ heads up

Critiquing each other’s thoughts and ideas

Being strong by being vulnerable

Sharing Accountability for Success

Stopping the blame game

Creating a healthy environment

Embedding the behaviours you cherish

Preparing Others for Leadership

Spotting potential high flyers

Working yourself out of a job

Part VI: The Part of Tens

Chapter 19: Ten Tips on Taking the Lead

Making Leadership Common Sense Your Common Practice

Believing that Everyone Wants to Make a Difference

Rising to Every (Leadership) Occasion

Building Up, Not Putting Down

Listening Before You Leap

‘Working With’ People Rather Than ‘Doing To’ People

Being Uncomfortably Comfortable

Speaking Up and Speaking Out!

Expanding Your Sphere of Influence

Keeping Your Head When Everyone Is Losing Theirs

Chapter 20: Ten Tips for Leading Yourself

Leading Yourself First

Being Authentic

Looking Out! You’re Always Being Watched

Avoiding Being a Busy Fool

Knowing Where to Draw the Line

Raising Your Hand High

Being a Healthy (Self) Critic

Talking Yourself Up

Modelling Yourself

Avoiding the Lonely Hearts Club

Chapter 21: Ten Tips for Engaging People

Earning People’s Respect

Being Bolder

Making Things Meaningful

Striving to Gain Commitment

Getting the Most from Measurement

Avoiding Being a Victim of Change

Celebrating People’s Contributions

Striking While the Iron’s Hot

Making a Good Team Great

Creating Time for Coaching

Cheat Sheet

Leadership For Dummies®

by Dr John Marrin

Leadership For Dummies®

Published byJohn Wiley & Sons, LtdThe AtriumSouthern GateChichesterWest SussexPO19 8SQEngland

E-mail (for orders and customer service enquires): [email protected]

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Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, Chichester, West Sussex, England

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, Chichester, West Sussex

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About the Author

Dr John Marrin is an expert on how leaders of organisations totally engage their directors, managers and employees to enhance their commitment and achieve higher levels of individual, team and business performance. He is a leadership coach and organisation development specialist to a wide range of clients including large multinationals, privately owned businesses and public sector organisations. While working primarily with organisations throughout the United Kingdom, John is also experienced in supporting clients in Europe and South America.

John is intensely enthusiastic about engaging people to work better together through enhancing mutual understanding and establishing shared commitment and accountability for achieving success: he redefined the meaning and practice of engaging through his DPhil. John is a Chartered Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, and holds a Master of Arts in Management Learning from Lancaster University.

John is founder of Marwel & Co. which specialises in leadership development and employee engagement. To find out more about the services of Marwel & Co., visit his website: www.marwel-co.com. John’s email address is [email protected].

Author’s Acknowledgements

My special thanks go to my wife and sons for putting up with seeing much less of me during the process of writing this book, and to my wider family and friends for their tolerance. You have all been much neglected, but not forgotten, for many months. I also want to acknowledge my parents, John and Vera, for encouraging me and instilling values that I continue to cherish.

Thanks to the team at Wiley, especially David Palmer for inviting me to write this book, to Rachael Chilvers for guiding and supporting me throughout the process, and to Andy Finch for helping me to clarify my thinking.

I thank my clients and colleagues for the opportunities to work and learn with you, and for the experiences that have eventually been distilled into the contents of this book.

Dedication

I dedicate this book to my wife Linda, and my sons, Paul and David, who have given me the inspiration, encouragement and support to clarify and fulfil my vocation.

Publisher’s Acknowledgements

We’re proud of this book; please send us your comments through our Dummies online registration form located at www.dummies.com/register/.

Some of the people who helped bring this book to market include the following:

Commissioning, Editorial, and Media Development

Project Editor: Rachael Chilvers

Development Editor: Andy Finch

Commissioning Editor: David Palmer

Technical Editor: Richard Pettinger, Business Management lecturer, UCL

Proofreader: Kim Vernon

Assistant Editor: Ben Kemble

Production Manager: Daniel Mersey

Cover Photo: © Steve Hamblin / Alamy

Cartoons: Ed McLachlan

Composition Services

Project Coordinator: Kristie Rees

Layout and Graphics: Andrea Hornberger, Corrie Socolovitch

Proofreader: Laura Albert

Indexer: Claudia Bourbeau

Introduction

Leadership is something that you recognise when you see it and notice when you don’t see it, and yet most people find it hard to articulate what leadership really is. I’ve written this book because I want to remove the mystique of leadership and enable you to ground leadership in your everyday work practice.

Every chapter in this book is designed to help you to understand different aspects of leadership and how to lead in different contexts and situations. The information you find within the covers of this book is grounded in the real world. This information is primarily distilled from my working with thousands of leaders in many different types of organisations, including owner-managed and public limited companies, public sector organisations and charities. I coached and mentored leaders, built high-performing work teams, worked through difficult leadership dilemmas and facilitated senior management teams to transform their organisations.

About This Book

Reading this book enables you to discover how to work on becoming the great leader you aspire to be (who aspires to be an average leader?). If you’re new to the world of leadership, you can find all you need to succeed in your new position. If you’re an experienced leader, I challenge you to turn the kaleidoscope, and look at your leadership philosophy and practice from a new perspective to identify what’s working for you – and the people you lead – and what’s not.

You can make the fastest progress in enhancing your leadership skills by putting what you learn into practice, and then reflecting on and learning more from your experiences.

Leadership in a work setting is all about engaging people and gaining their commitment to making a highly valued contribution to improving the performance and success of their organisation, and enable them to gain a real sense of fulfilment through doing so. Among the topics covered in this book are:

How leading and managing people are different.

How to gain the commitment of people who work for and with you.

Why you have to start with leading yourself.

How to succeed in leading people through change.

How to increase your influence in your organisation.

How to challenge people whose behaviour or performance doesn’t meet your standards.

How to lead different types of teams.

How to build a great senior leadership team.

I do my best to explain these things, and much more, clearly and concisely. Now that you have an insight into the content of this book, I hope you’re raring to go!

Conventions Used in This Book

To help you navigate through this book, I’ve set up a few conventions:

Italic is used for emphasis and to highlight new words or terms that I define.

Boldfaced textis used to highlight important text in lists.

Monofont is used for web and email addresses.

Also, I use the term organisation quite loosely. I define an organisation as a group of people who have formally come together to achieve objectives. Many different types of organisations exist, including small owner-managed businesses, global public limited companies, charities, public sector organisations and so on. I use the term organisation (or sometimes company) to refer to the business, charity or whatever that you work for.

What You’re Not to Read

I’ve written this book so that you can easily access and understand what you want to find out about leadership in a work context. I’ve made it easy for you to identify material that you don’t absolutely have to read. This information is interesting stuff, and you can benefit from it, but it isn’t essential for you to know:

Text in sidebars: The sidebars are shaded boxes that share interesting stories about real life examples to illustrate points made elsewhere in the text, but you can skip them if you wish.

The stuff on the copyright page: You’ll find nothing here of value unless you’re looking for legal notices and reprint information! If you are, then this is the place to look.

Foolish Assumptions

I wrote this book assuming some things about you:

You’re enthusiastic about developing your leadership ability.

You want to improve your own and others’ performance.

You’ve some experience of leadership through coming into contact with good or bad leaders, or through the position you currently hold in your organisation or positions you’ve held in the past.

You want to know what works. While you want to understand key concepts about leadership, you’re more interested in a pragmatic and practical approach to becoming the leader you aspire to be.

You like discovering why as well as what. That is, you want to know why people typically do what they do at work rather than just knowing what they do.

You want to make a positive difference and contribution to the organisation you work for and the people you work with.

How This Book Is Organised

I’ve organised this book into six parts to make the material easier to understand and access by keeping related material together. Each part is broken down into chapters, and the table of contents gives you details on each chapter.

Part I: Introducing Leadership

In this part, I provide an overview of leadership and explain the words and phrases you typically encounter in talking and reading about leadership. You discover how to come up with a definition of leadership that really works for you, and start to identify your own leadership strengths and development needs. You also find the key differences between leading and managing people in this part.

Part II: Leading Yourself

This part focuses on you. I introduce you to the notion of being an authentic leader, and explain why working on leading yourself is critical to becoming the leader you aspire to be. You find out how to identify the values that are really important to you and how these may impact on how you lead people. You discover how to learn more about leadership from reflecting on your experiences, and how to handle the dilemmas you may experience in stepping up to a leadership position.

Part III: Leading Others

To be a successful leader, others have to choose to follow you. I explain how you can really engage people so that they give you their commitment: they put all the effort, knowledge, expertise, and skills they have into doing a great job rather than just being compliant. You find out about leadership styles and how to choose the most appropriate style for different situations. I emphasise why you have to consciously set the standards that you expect people to work to, and you discover how to effectively challenge people who don’t meet your standards.

Part IV: Leading People Through Change

In this part, I explain why many people don’t like change, and you find out how to be a change agent. I introduce you to approaches to implementing change in teams and organisations that enable people to embrace change. You also find techniques for embedding new ways of working, and how to prevent people from slipping back into old habits.

Part V: Leading Different Types of Team

This part is where you find out about different types of teams that you may have to lead, and the challenges that you may experience. You discover the characteristics that separate great teams from good ones, and how you can build a high-performing team. I provide tips on how to create a senior leadership team that’s a great role model for everyone in the organisation.

Part VI: The Part of Tens

When you’re looking for a quick reminder of good leadership practice or a bit of inspiration, you can find it here. This part directs you to ten tips on taking the lead, leading yourself and leading people.

Icons Used in This Book

The icons in this book point out particular kinds of information that you may find useful. Here’s an explanation of what each icon stands for:

Take particular notice of the text next to this icon because it provides advice on how to become an exceptional leader.

This icon is a friendly reminder of important points to take note of.

This icon highlights practical advice that you can use to lead people in a wide range of work situations.

This icon highlights real-life stories about leadership that I hope you find inspiring or useful.

Discover exercises to help you to explore leadership next to this icon.

Watch out! If you don’t heed the advice next to this icon, you may end up facing a worse situation.

Where to Go from Here

You don’t have to read this book from cover to cover as you can get most benefit from it by going though it in the order and at a pace that’s right for you. I organise the contents of this book to enable you to take the lead. You can take a structured, sequential approach or read the chapters in any order; immediately diving into a section to find out what you need to know to deal with a situation or problem you’re experiencing.

Use the table of contents to see what you’re attracted to first. For example, if you want to improve your understanding of leadership, go to Chapter 2. Or if you’d like to hone your skills in encouraging people to work to your standards turn to Chapter 11.

Regardless of how you work your way through Leadership For Dummies, I’m sure that you’ll become the great leader you aspire to be. I’m enthusiastic about helping people to become great leaders so if you’ve any specific questions or comments, please feel free to visit my website at www.marwel-co.com.

Here’s to your ongoing success!

Part I

Introducing Leadership

In this part . . .

The chapters in this part help you to acquire an understanding of leadership and start to lay the foundations for you becoming the great leader you aspire to be. I introduce you to common language used in practising leadership and in management literature, and guide you to see the key differences between leading and managing. You can use these chapters to work on clarifying your expectations of yourself and others as leaders.

Chapter 1

Taking the Lead

In This Chapter

Appreciating the need for leaders

Understanding why people turn to (and into) leaders

Spotting opportunities to take the lead

Implementing change and leading different types of teams

Leadership is common sense; but unfortunately not always common practice. With the right information gleaned from my experience of working closely with thousands of managers, and some practice and thought on your part, leading can become as natural as riding a bike (even if you do experience a few wobbles along the way)!

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