The Champion Leader E-Book

Christopher D. Connors

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

Seitenzahl: 395

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

Reestablish the connection between your organization’s talent and its leadership

In The Champion Leader: Harnessing the Power of Emotional Intelligence to Build High-Performing Teams, bestselling author Christopher D. Connors delivers an invaluable, inspiring discussion of how to adapt to the rapidly changing rules of engagement in the modern workplace. You’ll find out why so many employees feel disconnected from their leaders in today’s remote and hybrid working environments and how to address that disconnect.

Connors explains how to prioritize one-on-one and team conversations focused on understanding employee needs, career development, and wellbeing to help foster a future-focused organization. He also walks you through how to maximize your emotional intelligence and enhance your leadership skills to assist in the development of a high-performing organization that delivers superior results.

The Champion Leader also offers:

• Ways to build adaptability, assertiveness, and empathy in the pursuit of connection between your organization’s employees and its leadership
• Strategies for developing self-awareness of how you show up and model leadership for others in your organization
• Research-backed insights on how to improve your self-confidence to create a culture of camaraderie and connection
• Techniques for engaging with and supporting people to improve employee retention and recruitment

The Champion Leader is an inspiring and insightful resource for managers, executives, and all business leaders seeking to become more emotionally intelligent for themselves—and to give that gift to everyone in their organization. The Champion Leader is an essential guide to solidifying your leadership foundation.

Leseprobe

HARNESSING THE POWER of EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE to BUILD HIGH‐PERFORMING TEAMS

THE CHAMPION LEADER

CHRISTOPHER D. CONNORS

Copyright © 2024 by Christopher D. Connors All rights reserved.

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.

Published simultaneously in Canada.

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Library of Congress Cataloging‐in‐Publication Data is Available:

ISBN 9781394211333 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781394211357 (ePDF)

ISBN 9781394211340 (ePub)

Cover design: Paul McCarthy

To my dad, William O'Neil Connors: Thank you for being the best father—the ultimate champion of Bill, Kevin, and me. I love you always. Your remarkable legacy will live on forever in our hearts and memories. You're always with us in spirit.

The Champion Leader

The champion leader is willing to commit to a lifelong leadership education that begins with self‐awareness.

The champion leader has the courage to go all‐in and invest in the lives of their employees.

The champion leader focuses on both hygiene and motivating factors for every team member, and ensures these needs and wants are consistently being met.

The champion leader provides opportunities for growth and knows when to support, comfort, and challenge their employees to bring out their best.

The champion leader is accessible, real, and knows the best leadership is by example.

The champion leader is someone who leads from the heart with time‐tested values such as integrity, honesty, love, belief, confidence, and respect.

The champion leader is driven, organized, inspirational, and committed to positively influencing others to achieve results and scale their impact.

The champion leader is an excellent communicator who celebrates the team's wins.

We can all play the role of champion for the people we lead.

We can all be a champion leader.

People Come First

I was speaking with a retired US Marine Corps colonel a few years ago about his experience serving in the military and all that he'd learned along the way. This man proudly served his country in Iraq and Afghanistan and, by all accounts, is a true American hero. He saw a lot of action during his combat tours. Now, as a civilian, he found himself pondering what leadership meant to him: how it helped him forge ahead during some of the most challenging days of his life.

He smiled, with a reflective gaze as he carefully chose his words. I could practically feel the playback of the memories in his mind. He turned to me and said, “Christopher, the wheel of leadership was first chiseled centuries ago. And yet, we always need to adjust and adapt as leaders. Times change. People change. The constant we must always remember is: in leadership, people come first.”

I find myself thinking of the wisdom he shared each day. It's the secret to building high‐performing teams and thriving organizations.

As we look ahead at the modern business landscape, a people‐first approach now takes center stage. How we communicate and connect with our employees and customers will define our future success. The rules of engagement in the workplace have changed. Technology is evolving at warp speed. So is where and how we work. The need to collaborate effectively is essential for championing the success of high‐performing teams. But with the only certainty in the future being uncertainty, the question on the mind of every leader and organization is now: How will we continue to adapt?

Organizations and employees are learning to adjust to the new normal of remote and hybrid environments, while leaders and their teams are trying to find alignment on expectations. Employees feel disconnected from their senior leaders. Middle managers are finding it more challenging to keep up with the pace of work, while finding time to manage their teams.

The top human resources issues facing businesses are hiring, employee engagement, and retention, yet many organizations are struggling to build authentic connection with their employees. Leaders must focus their time and energy on supporting their people, or they risk watching them exit for better opportunities.

To be a champion leader, an emotionally intelligent approach is what is needed for this new business era. Emotional intelligence (EQ) helps accelerate the speed of your performance to build the needed connection with your organization and customers. It's through this invaluable skill set that we connect with ourselves and bring our self‐awareness, motivation, and empathy outward to build emotional connection with others. Doing this is the greatest investment you can make in growing your leadership skills and supporting the people of your organization.

When leaders personalize relationships, show their employees they care, and dedicate the time to support their development, bottom‐line profits soar, as reported in “The Impact of Employee Engagement on Performance” by the Harvard Business Review Analytic Services.1 People choose to not only stick around, but also put more energy and passion into their work when they feel valued.

The ripple effects show a more motivated workforce that feels greater connection to the company mission and to their leadership. Every touchpoint they have with your customers—and prospective customers—is more enthusiastic and positive in nature.

Emotionally intelligent leadership is about being the best we can for ourselves and then being the best we can for the people we lead. It's about igniting passion and belief in our organization, which helps solve problems and leads to the development of our team members. Through empathy and curiosity, we gain insights into the heartbeat of our organization—our people—and then connect that back to our strategic goals.

Putting People First for Better Organizational Results

The people‐first model is what creates longevity and long‐term profit. As legendary Southwest Airlines founder and CEO Herb Kelleher said: “Honor, respect, care for, protect, and reward your employees—regardless of title or position. And in turn, they will treat each other, and their external customers, in a warm, in a caring, and in a hospitable way. This causes external customers to return.”2

Kelleher walked his talk. Southwest Airlines experienced 47 consecutive years of profitability from 1973 to 2020—a jaw‐dropping feat in the highly competitive airline industry. But it wasn't just for the quality of their peanuts. Southwest Airlines was a company built on prioritizing the needs and wants of its people from the inside out. It's why they experienced the astonishing success that they did.

It's time for organizations and leaders to understand what emotional intelligence is, why it matters, and how this skill set can be instilled throughout your organization for maximum benefit. EQ will be the key differentiator in high performance over the long haul. It's a skill set that every individual can learn and improve on each day. The need for emotional intelligence in communicating effectively, collaborating, and driving results is critical in all industries. It's this focus on soft skills that is essential for the modern workforce.

As new research comes in, we continue to see how emotional intelligence threads its way through the most desirable labor market skills.

Take this remarkable insight from Pearson, for example:3

Our study analyzed labor market trends in four major economies—US, UK, Australia, and Canada—and confirms that, while technical skills remain highly valued, the top five most sought‐after skills … are all human skills:

Communication

Customer Service

Leadership

Attention to Detail

Collaboration

These attributes are part of what form the composite skill set of emotional intelligence and are the cornerstone of a champion leader. As vital as leadership, collaboration, and connection are today, the need for these soft skills will continue to grow stronger. This is what I'm told each day in conversation by leaders and executives. It's what I'm observing firsthand while working with organizations to help bridge the communication gap between executive leadership and middle managers, which affects the relationship between line managers and front‐line employees.

There is a burning need for leaders and employees—at all levels—who can communicate effectively. Creating connection means going deeper than the surface level; it's about how you empathize, gain understanding, and truly help your employees and coworkers to become the best versions of themselves.

Building a Modern, Authentic Culture toBenefit Employees

As one generation of employees exits the workforce and a newer generation enters, we're seeing how the needs and wants of employees have changed. In particular, millennials and Gen Z employees are looking for greater connection to their leaders and better work‐life balance. All employees are signaling a desire for more career development and growth opportunities within their organization. This has moved multigenerational communication to the forefront of leadership focus, as leaders seek to reach and build relationships across all levels. Attributes such as self‐awareness, empathy, and mastering the art of social skill carry immense value for how leaders build connection.

So what's at stake? The future of your organization. Your ability to advance your career in the direction of where you truly want it to go. The well‐being and betterment of every person whose life you have the profound ability to touch. There are more employees than ever before who are dissatisfied with the status quo. They’re quiet quitting, or giving the minimum amount of effort each day because they don’t feel recognized or appreciated. They’re daydreaming about better job opportunities.

Championship leadership connection revitalizes organizations. Hygiene factors such as pay, title, and work flexibility will always hold sway. But it's care and connection that empower the efforts of the organization by building relationships that are personalized, engaging, and genuine. This is how you foster trust and retain the best people in your organization. It's also how you establish an open dialogue that's receptive to feedback.

The most powerful pieces of feedback I see consistently when conducting 360° leadership assessments are the following:

I wish my leader took the time to get to know me and our team better on a personal level

.

I wish my leader shared more about herself or himself with me and our team

.

What conclusions can we draw from this? After all, this is a business, not a social club, right? Yes, but the bottom line is that many employees are now looking for leaders who are willing to ditch superficial relationships in favor of going all‐in to forge authentic ones. A lack of engagement and connectedness is at the heart of what's caused many people to flee organizations in droves. The modern workforce wants leaders who respect them, value their contributions, and embrace optimism and candor. Shifting to a positive, connected way of leading will help you retain your top talent and build a cohesive, caring culture that achieves dynamic results.

Solidifying Your Champion Leader Foundation

The mindset of a champion leader is rooted in emotional intelligence, which increases self‐awareness while enhancing your strengths. When you have fortified your leadership core, you can cultivate a personalized, transformational leadership experience for others. You'll be able to inspire and commit to positively influencing your team members to create an impact of their own.

The foundation of every transformational connection is inspired by the Golden Rule: it's the desire to treat someone else the way you'd want to be treated in return. By helping each individual, you are simultaneously building a culture that seeks to elevate each person in the organization. Being a supporter isn't enough anymore. It won't cut it in this new era of business. Champion leaders are needed. There's far too much at stake in this hypercompetitive workforce with millions of employees leaving organizations to find better fits for their personal and professional needs.

A recent Harris Poll showed that: “Over half of employees want to leave [their jobs]… .” One of the reasons was that employees “felt that their employers did not understand them, that they weren't providing empathy.”4 (The other reason was work flexibility.)

This is the pain and reality employers are dealing with. Maybe you know the feeling.

I encourage you to lead with empathy and listen to your employees' needs. Leaders need to get in touch with their emotional sides to find the champion within. Leaders who identify what their employees need and want—and then engage and deliver—will be able to retain top performers and set up their organizations for long‐term success. This need to evolve and adapt to changing demands is a central component of achieving success.

I also implore you to put in the work and think about what kind of leader you are today—and the one you aspire to be tomorrow. Throughout these pages, there are exercises that will equip you with the tools to do so, as well as questions to help you reflect on your journey. Champion leaders have a learner's mindset that is always seeking to grow and improve. By making sense of your experiences, you'll evolve each day into more of the version of yourself that you want to become.

Your Playbook for Emotionally Intelligent Leadership

The Champion Leader is your playbook for building a culture of connected relationships that bring everyone closer together and united toward achieving your organizational goals. As we transition further away from the conventional nine‐to‐five work environment, it's this all‐around cognizance and selfless leadership that will have a transformational effect on your culture.

This book is for leaders at all levels—in all industries—who seek to advance their emotional intelligence skill set and grow into becoming the best versions of themselves. You'll gain insights from a broad range of leaders, from those operating on the global scale to leaders positively influencing their local communities at the grassroots level. There are vivid, powerful stories that will help you visualize what you might do if faced with similar situations.

Chapters 1–9, 11, and 12 feature:

An opening story filled with leadership lessons and practical ways to use emotional intelligence to your advantage;

Four questions to help you better reflect on your past journey, as well as your future personal aspirations and professional goals;

A leadership exercise filled with tools to help reinforce your learning and make it truly actionable; and

A “champion's checklist” to help guide you through each new season of change.

Chapter 10, however, is filled with unique wisdom and vibes. Focusing on “the little things” that truly matter in leadership, the text marches to a different beat than the other chapters. It features “the voice of the leader” with powerful, real‐life reflections from five experts in their fields.

The “Champion's Watch” section is both an homage to a wonderful man, and an inspirational call to lead from the heart.

The “Leadership Resources” section will help provide additional guidance on how to continue your champion's journey.

Championship leadership works to create connection and trust, which are the bedrock of leadership. While it may seem counterintuitive, to build trust you need to be bold and assertive. You need to take risks, dare to innovate, and adapt to change. Take these risks with your team. Be there in it with them through it all. Model the leadership you want to see in others and go all‐in. You'll earn their respect and create an enduring partnership.

High‐performing teams and organizations will thrive or fail based on the power of their people—the coming together of individuals to form a high‐functioning unit whose values, purpose, and goals are far greater than the sum of its parts. But remember, the secret of every high‐performing team is the ability of each individual to maximize their talents and skills and contribute for the benefit of all.

The time is now to start leading like a champion. This change begins with you. Become the best leader you can be and help others become the best that they can be.

As we embark on this exciting journey together, let's focus on the words of the great Herb Kelleher: “The business of business is people. Yesterday, today, and forever.”5

Notes

1

. “The Impact of Employee Engagement on Performance,”

Harvard Business Review

Analytic Services, https://hbr.org/resources/pdfs/comm/achievers/hbr_achievers_report_sep13.pdf.

2

. “Herb Kelleher & Building a People‐Focused Culture,” HSMAmericas, YouTube video, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxTFA1kh1m8 .

3

. “Pearson Skills Outlook: Power Skills,” Pearson, https://plc.pearson.com/en-GB/insights/pearson-skills-outlook-powerskills .

4

. Hess, Abigail Johnson, “‘The Great Reimagination of Work’: Why 50% of Workers Want to Make a Career Change,” Make It, CNBC, October 12, 2021, https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/12/why-50percent-of-workers-want-to-make-a-career-change-new-survey.html .

5

. Kelleher, Herb, “How Southwest Airlines Built Its Culture,” WOBI – World of Business Ideas, YouTube, October 20, 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_CeFiUkV7s .