Wednesday, October 27, 2010

iCommit

John Quincy Adams once said that "if your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader." I mention this because I have been thinking about leadership quite a lot over the last week, having been asked to put together a guide for Leaders. The brief was to create something simple that will help leaders to understand how to act in such a way that their actions will help to enhance the employee engagement within the business.

As usual, I started my research by turning to the web for inspiration and ended up in complete data overload. If you google "Leadership", you will get roughly 120,000,000 results. If you google "How to be a Leader", you will get just over double the results at 241,000,000! The results came in formats from videos and images to tweets and standard web pages. All of them with advice that ranges from truly inspired to utterly baffling.

It was as I was growing rather more frustrated than inspired that I remembered a piece of advice that I was given a long time ago when I was 8 years old; "Always treat others as you would yourself be treated". Although I haven't always kept it front of mind (to my own detriment as a leader) it has been the one rule that I have found to have the most power when in a leadership position.

Thinking about it, I realised that what I needed to do was to think about what I have wanted or received from the individuals who have been my leaders over the years. A fairly short time later, I had in front of me what I have called the Leadership Commitment (see below). Taking the three key areas of leadership as being Plan, Share and Act. I created a series of personal statements that cover off, to my mind, the key basic actions that every leader must do to ensure that s/he acts as a leader at all times.

Plan
  • I will create, and agree with each team member, a set of SMART objectives, targets and measures that are aligned to the company strategy
  • I will create, and agree with each team member, an appropriate development plan that meets their career aspirations and potential
Share
  • I will hold a regular one to one meeting with each member of my team at least once a month
  • I will hold a regular meeting with my whole team at least once a month
  • I will be open, honest and transparent in all my communications
Act
  • I will recognise individual contributions and reward or correct behaviours, as appropriate, in a timely manner
  • I will consult with all team members on key decisions that impact them
  • I will hold myself to the same high standards of professionalism that I ask of my team
You will note that each statement within the Commitment is personal and begins with "I will...". This is deliberate. Ray Kroc once said that "the quality of a leader is reflected in the standards they set for themselves." I believe that if leaders are to act in the way that they should, they need to commit wholeheartedly to the standards espoused in this commitment. One approach to keeping them "honest" is to have each leader receive a signed copy from their immediate leader, which they in turn will sign at a meeting with that leader and then be asked to display on their desk or in their office.

I don't profess to have created a panacea for poor leadership, simply one solution that may work. Where the human factor is concerned, perception is everything. One person's leadership is another person's dictatorship. HR has a funadamental responsibility to enable the success of both the business and the individual employee. Leadership sits across both of these. The key is to keep on trying to drive the appropriate leadership behaviours in whatever way makes the most sense.

All the best

Jim

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