What is the Primary Paradigm Shift for Transformative Leadership Success?

First, we have an announcement. I have been busy preparing new solutions for businesses and individuals called Jobpreneurship™ for Company and Career Success. This is one of three legs to the Human Investment Leadership™ Stool. To find out more, for companies, Click Here, and for individuals, Click Here. We guarantee the results.

Now, back to Transformative Leadership.

If you want to be a Transformative Leader, the first paradigm shift is to understand The Secret Formula™, levels 1-3. For individuals who are interested, levels 1-2 are discussed in free webinars available to those who sign-up for our newsletter.  Levels 1-3 are applied in our coaching and consulting offers so that we can contextualize the paradigm. However, here I want to state the major concept of level 3.

“You must have a focused cause.”

Most traditional leadership focuses on the 10 steps to take, improving your professional image, and motivational speeches. Transformative Leadership is far more advanced yet relatively simple. However, if the simple foundation is not laid, everything else is often a waste of time and money.

What is a Focused Cause?

Think about those individuals and teams who are willing to sacrifice their lives for a greater good, a religious belief, or a common cause. What do they have in common? They are personally sold out for the belief system, the cause, or the perceived greater good of society. They are willing to put in long hours, do dangerous work, and often get less income but their belief in their cause gives them personal value, esteem, and satisfaction in life. They make a difference in the world.

Here are some examples. Note that many are contrary beliefs yet those in each category will often spend amazing amounts of personal time, energy, and money to promote their cause.

1. Capitalism – Socialism – Communism
2. Evangelical Christianity – Traditional Christian Groups – Islam – Hindus…
3. Pro Abortion / Pro Life – Pro Gay / Pro Traditional Values – Pro Environment / Pro Non-infringement on Human Progress
4. Pro Providing Protection to Others (Police, Fire, Military…)
5. One World Government…National Pride…State Pride…Local Pride
6. Arts…Parks…Helping the Poor…
7. Rights for drugs, immigration, unions, equality…

You may agree or disagree with any of these causes, yet how far are some members willing to go to promote their particular cause?

Most of these people have jobs and other personal interests yet are sold out to their particular cause. Some members even go to extremes.

So, what is your focused Leadership Cause that others can follow?

If all you think is:

• Giving them a pay check
• Getting a tactical job done
• Watching the clock
• Telling them what to do with specific objectives
• Keeping them happy and putting up with their demands

Then, you are not a Transformative Leader. You are a manager.

A Transformative Leader defines their business as a cause for others to join or choose to go elsewhere. They talk about it constantly. They reward those willing to follow. They solicit input and help as long as it is aligned with the Cause. They attract self-motivated people.

The key question is, “What is the Cause that your business or organization can focus on that builds up the business and helps it to compete, innovate, and grow?

Even if you are simply the supervisor in a department, what is the focus and Cause that others can buy into and commit their lives to?

It starts with you, as the supervisor, manager, executive, or CEO deciding if you are really motivated on a passion, belief, vision, and cause or if you are just going through the motions to punch the clock. Before you can transform others, you need to be transformed yourself, know your personal beliefs, and define the Cause that drives you…and is in alignment with Company Success.

So, what is the Cause, Passion, and Vision of your Company?

Can you write it down in 5-10 words? Do you have a company or departmental slogan that defines your Cause? Do your people understand the Cause and how they can fit into it?

A manager simply watches over and guides people to do a tactical set of jobs while a Transformative Leader models, teaches, guides, and gives a vision and Cause for everyone to follow.

Before we discuss other leadership paradigms, teaming, and employee motivation, the primary paradigm shift for a Transformative Leader is, “What is your focused Leadership Cause that others want to follow?”

How Do We Define Transformative Leadership?

We have all read leadership articles about:

• Ten Secrets to Leadership Success
• 5 Steps to Transformative Leadership
• 101 Ways to Lead…

I am sure many of those articles are very helpful. However, we believe that all leadership begins with deciding what kind of leader you want to be. In other words, how do you define Leadership Success? Each of those articles may be of more or less value depending upon how you define leadership.

To keep it simple, we see three principle types of leaders. Now you may disagree with our definitions but please humor us. Perhaps there are thousands of varieties but we only want to define three styles and then focus in future blogs on one of the three.

The first type is the Rigid Leader  (my way or the highway, high stress, high demand. only one way considered (his). The only right response is strict obedience. Is there a place for such leadership? How about life and death situations such as on the battlefield, in an operating room, or while mountain climbing? As long as the leadership produces the right results, such leadership is usually tolerated and often imitated. However, we suggest that it is not optimal for most non-life threatening situations. It can also be personally painful to follow a rigid leader.

The second type is the Political Leader  (manipulates, fabricates, has many masks, blames others, takes credit belonging to others, and avoids personal responsibility or accountability). This type is rampant in most organizations. The best way to survive such as leader is by imitating them and giving them political cover and support. A Politician’s personal success focus drives toward inward company focus. We have all worked in such environments. Company profits and competitiveness are not the primary focus. Those who are results oriented, rather than relationship oriented, are often bypassed for promotions and sometimes becomes the scapegoat used to deflect from the political leader being held accountable. If senior management is political, such leadership is often rewarded. We suggest that it is not optimal for maximum company success potential, but if you are “one of them”, you may not care as long as you are being taken care of by your political alliances.

The third type is what we call the Transformative Leader (wants to enable everyone to maximize their potential, focuses outside the company to create competitive leadership, and wants to align everyone’s strengths to match the company’s vision of success). This profile is looking for best practices and new innovation while wanting to be responsible and accountable for their own actions. Other profile names may include the Servant Leader, the Model Leader, the Pay-It-Forward Leader, or the Coherent Leader.

The reality is that any large company usually has a mixture of all three types of leaders. Leadership advice is usually different depending on the leadership profile and their personal values. While it is obvious to see how these types conflict and compete internally, we believe the key to success is to:

1. Find the company whose primary leadership culture matches your own.
2. Learn how to deal with each leadership style to make the best of what you find.
3. Learn which sets of leadership advice match the style that maximizes your future success.

We believe the leadership style that leads to maximum organizational transformation, company competitiveness, and the greatest teaming alignment is what we will call the Transformative Leader. Future blogs will give advice on how to transform a company under a transformative leader while recognizing that most companies will have the complexities of multiple leadership types and cultures. Therefore, the transformative leader’s success must include applying their style while developing a gradual change mindset and encouraging other leaders to join them on a journey that ultimately rewards everyone. Even if the transformative leader is the new CEO, transforming an established company is not for the faint hearted but may be the right thing to do – if the board is standing aligned behind him or her.

For start-ups, mergers and acquisitions, high change, and high growth environments, applying Transformative Leadership principles is usually the key to higher returns for investors. However, even in an organization with a mixed leadership environment, the transformative leader can apply transformative leadership principles within her own organization while needing to deal with other leaders according to their styles.

Next time we will discuss “What is the Primary Paradigm Shift for Transformative Leadership Success?”

 

How Successful are Today’s Leaders?

With all the college courses, books, seminars, blogs, articles, and speeches on Leadership, “How successful are today’s Leaders?”

According to the Gabriel Institute:

• 60% of Company Failures are due to People Problems. My observation is that 100% of companies have had or currently have people problems. Is that a leadership issue?
• Actively Engaged Employees Make Up Less Than 1/3 of the Workforce. Does that mean two thirds of the workforce are not following the leader and are not helping the company compete? Is that a leadership issue?

My personal rule of thumb is that typically, less than 20% of employees are doing 80% of the work. You might recognize this as the Pareto Principle.

What would happen if leaders learned how to actively engage two thirds of their employees rather than only one third? Or if 40% of their employees were working hard versus 20% or less?

That still leaves a lot of people who are not contributing…and what is worse is that idle hands can create a lot of problems.

The result is often internal turf wars, silos, politics, and internal bleeding that sucks up money, resources, and energy that you need to compete in the marketplace…especially in today’s global environment. What if leaders could reduce internal conflict and redirect those resources to their company’s mission?

Even if leaders have employees wanting to work, if their employee’s personal motivations, passions, drive, energy is not aligned with the company, how much potential is being lost?

In my opinion, all of these issues are Leadership issues.

That is why we created Human Investment Leadership™. It is a new way to help solve these issues. In other words, Human Investment Leadership™ can help companies decrease failures and increase their competitive edge.

How? By focusing on three major gaps in organizations.

Stay tuned! We will be discussing how leaders can address fundamental root causes that, if implemented, could dramatically increase how many employees will be willing to follow their leadership.

 

What does Respect Have to Do with Leadership?

We have talked about behavioral profiles and roles. Understanding and implementing these principles alone can dramatically improve your competitive edge. If you are the leader, it is a lot easier to lead individuals and teams who want to follow rather than stray cats or those requiring constant attention.

Another secret to leadership and performance is that everyone needs to feel respected for their contribution as part of the team.

It is easy to show respect for superiors, the top sales person, the financial genius, or assumed stars. However, just as with sports teams, the stars never achieve the most by themselves. It takes a team where every member of that team is appreciated and respected for the role they play and for the value they bring.

The challenge is that every behavioral role wants to be respected in different ways.

Let me put it this way: When I was creating a global team, I assumed that treating everyone the same way that I wanted to be treated was fair and the most effective leadership style. After all, I led by example and I treated others by how I wanted to be treated by my superiors. I WAS WRONG.

Now I understand that each of the ten behavioral roles want to be treated / respected differently. Now I understand those on my team, my peers, and superiors who I was not connecting with and assumed they were the problem. Well, in some cases, they were the problem but, in other cases, I confess that I might have been the problem. Through ignorance, not intent, I treated everyone the same. How fair was that! But in reality, not everyone wants to be respected in the same way.

Now, I am learning how to appreciate and show appreciation in ways that fit how others want to be appreciated. At least now I am no longer ignorant but I am still in the process of applying what I learned..

As a leader trying to motivate your team, would it be important to understand how they want to be motivated – or do you think that one style fits all?

As a follower trying to please your leader, would it be important to understand how they want to be respected – or do you think that one way fits all?

As a job seeker interviewing decision makers, trusted advisors, influencers, peers, subordinates, and gate-keepers, would it be helpful to understand their potential roles and how to show them respect?

The good news is that now there is a way of learning and applying these principles. They are fundamental to leadership and career success.

If you want to know more, contact me at Jim@JobDoctorsIntl.com

 

 

Update and Invitation for New Year Opportunities

As part of my blog community, I am offering you two free opportunities to start off the New Year. I personally guarantee they will be worth reviewing. They will also explain what I am up to in 2013!

1. Invitation to Event: Revolutionizing Your Company’s Competitive Edge™ – Introducing Human Investment Leadership™

A No Charge One Hour Webinar. Live on 2/12/13. Then recorded for later availability.

Human Investment Leadership™ is the New Model for Increasing Productivity, Innovation, and Your Competitive Edge by Closing the Gap Between Your Business Vision and the People Supporting You.

Company Teams Aligned with Leadership Direction and Empowered by Motivated Employees is the Key to Being Better Than Your Competition.

2. Invitation to Newsletter: Revolutionizing Your Personal Competitive Edge™ – Introducing Personal Investment Leadership™

A No Charge Bi-Weekly Newsletter that includes articles, guest articles, recorded and live webinars, and announces future events.

Personal Investment Leadership™ is the New Model to Increasing Your Personal Marketability for Promotions and Jobs versus Your Competition. Includes: The Secret Formula™, Jobpreneurship™, Understanding Political Landmines, and much more.

If you are interested in either of the above invitations, just Click Here.

The link will give you the information and sign-up access to the webinar and the newsletter sign-up. The newsletter is on the upper right of the webpage.

If you prefer to simply sign-up for the webinar, just Go Here.

If you have any questions, please let me know. My email address is: Jim@JobDoctorsIntl.com.

Have a Prosperous 2013!

Jim Villwock

How Can A Behavioral Role Fit Impact Sales Success?

Different sales jobs require different behavioral role fits. We need to define the sales job before we recommend which role best fits the job. In this blog we are limiting our scope to product sales that are commodities or easily defined. We are not discussing complex solution, intangible, or strategic sales. The recommended roles are different depending upon the type of sales.

Most sales teams have direct roles and support roles. These profiles are distinct. Teams who support sales teams often have different behavioral role fits. You can design which roles fit on which team companywide. However, for this discussion, let’s limit the scope to a person who sales with the classic sales profile of going out, thinking short-term how to close the deal, and then go out for the next catch. We will call this the direct sales role.

The support role is someone who is usually on the sales team but instead of enjoying the deal prefers to focus on the details, to provide support, to schedule meetings, to fill out reports – activities that the direct sales person usually dislikes and puts off like going to the dentist.

However, a strong sales team needs both roles to maximize results. By having the right role in support of several direct sales people, it allows everyone to do what they enjoy doing the most. Each person does what they are best at doing.

How do companies traditionally make mistakes? First, by putting the wrong person with the wrong sales profile on the wrong sales team. Again, there are other roles for channel sales, intangible sales, complex solution sales, strategic sales, etc. You first have to define which role fits which job. Second, by eliminating support roles and expecting every sales person to do everything – including what they hate doing. Morale goes down, sales results go down, and turnover goes up. Third, by assuming a good sales person would make a great sales manager – whose primary daily tasks are in the office doing paperwork, filing reports, tracking results, training, and mentoring their sales team.

The worst tragedy that I see is when the top sales person is income capped or moved into sales management where their behavioral role is not a fit. Usually a competitor benefits from those decisions.

Every job in a company can be assigned a role fit appropriate for each team based upon their job and teaming relationships. It does not matter whether it is finance, HR, customer service, research, production, or any job. The C-Suite can intentionally determine what is required for their unique business, sign-off on the plan, have tactical teams implement the plan, and then monitor the measurable results.

The best news is that with only ten basic behavioral roles, once definitions are understood, this process is not hard to implement.

At a minimum, you can see why a behavioral role fit has a direct correlation to sales success.

Are People Born to Perform a Specific Role?

You have heard the concept of hiring right and placing the right people in the right seat. Sounds obvious, doesn’t it? So, how can you do that?

We already discussed major types of employees (Politicians, Entitlement Employees, and Value Workers). Now let’s shift to roles of employees. We acknowledge that much of what we know is from one of our Best of Breed Partners. We are simply applying their tools to our solutions.

Are people born to perform a specific role – to sit in a “right seat?”

With the right education and experience, we believe the answer is “yes.”

For example, one of the behavioral roles is a Visionary. These are the innovators, those who connect the dots, see gaps and discover how to close them. They are long term focused and 100,000 foot strategic thinkers. They challenge the status quo and ultimately offer a fountain of ideas.

On the other hand, a Visionary has a hard time communicating at 10,000 feet, picking the best idea to actually make it happen, and being patient enough to see the project through before wanting to go to the next problem.

Can they be invaluable to a company? As an entrepreneur or an intrapreneur they are the ones who create new innovations, new processes, or new solutions that can lead company growth, crush the competition, and even create new industries. They just see things differently and are often opposed by those who do not like change or who feel threatened.

Typically, Visionaries eventually get frustrated with Politicians and Entitlement Employees and start their own companies. The biggest loser is the company that they leave but the company political networks are often glad to see them go.

If only a company could recognize them, nurture them, and surround them with other people whose roles help select and implement the Visionaries best ideas. Then everyone could win – especially the company who is competing in the marketplace.

Actually, we can identify them prior to hiring or within the ranks. We can help design which seats fit who they are, where they would enjoy contributing the most, and the team that can surround them for maximum company benefit.

If they are just out of college, we can identify the career and development track to help them grow in understanding the business, how to better communicate, and how to add more value to the team. Handled carefully, Visionaries can have the highest ROI and competitive impact on a company. Handled poorly, they leave. Put on the wrong team, they and the team suffer. Put on the right team with everyone understanding their role, the team can help them learn the business while they can help the team with new ideas that can make their work easier and more effective.

The same concept is true for another role – Strategic Thinkers who, while not Visionaries, can understand the significance of a Visionary’s idea and then see which ideas make the most sense for the company to develop or integrate. Another role is someone who can strategically understand the selected idea but tactically assign the teams required to implement the idea.

Ultimately, these three roles are what often make up the C-Suite as the CEO and direct reports. Now we can tell, even before they graduate from college, who the next generation of leaders might be. Combined with understanding how to develop the Value Worker profile, you can see how a company can select and maximize their potential for success. Then, with the right profile and the right role fit, development programs become highly focused investments with high potential results.

These are only three simple examples from ten identifiable roles. Every seat in the company can now be designed and filled with people whose profiles and roles that they were born with can fill. The result is happier people, higher productivity, lower turnover, greater teaming, and motivated people who want to be aligned with company direction because they want to add value and now sit in a seat where they can contribute in a way that best fits them.

Next time we will discuss a typical sales team and how role selection can transform their results.

Announcing Our New Human Investment Leadership™ Blog

 

I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving! We had a fabulous time with our family and granddaughters.

Now, back to work!

Career Intelligence Newsletter – for Careers and Jobs

Our prior blog was called “Jobprenuership™”. The focus began on helping individuals with their career success – whether working, in transition, or starting their own company.

That focus will continue through our Newsletter Series called the, “Career Intelligence Newsletter.” If you have not yet signed up, we encourage you to do so by going to any of our other web pages and looking on the right hand side to sign up. As an alternative, you can click here to get started!

The Career Intelligence Newsletter is for any individual, whether an executive, employee, job seeker, or small business owner. We will be offering paradigm shift thinking articles, free webinars, and making announcements of special events and offerings. We encourage you to sign-up today! This content is beyond traditional thinking. It can help Revolutionize Your Competitive Edge™.

Human Investment Leadership™ Blog – for Companies, Organizations, and Leaders

As we defined HIL™ on our home page, there are three major gaps that companies, organizations, and leaders typically face. The three gaps are in Leadership, Aligned Teaming, and Motivated Value Employees.

First, the Leadership gap is understanding at the leadership level how to structure the company, communicate inwardly, and get motivated employees all adding value in alignment with outward company objectives. We call this C-Suite paradigm shift, Human Investment Leadership™ (HIL™). However, under this umbrella, we also include the two tactical programs designed to support HIL™. The tactical programs address the Aligned Teaming and Motivated Value Employee gaps.

Second, the Aligned Teaming program starts with the premise that leadership is easier with teams who want to follow rather than a hoard of stray cats. We call this program Teampreneurship™, which is a process to design every team seat with the right behavioral role fit and with team players. Combined with HIL™ communications and monitoring, the result is usually dramatic improvements in lower turnover and increased productivity.

Third, the Motivated Value Employee gap starts with the premise that the team player sitting in the right role on the right team still needs to understand the business and how to add value for company success. Our program, called Jobpreneurship™, is designed to not only fill this gap but to also empower the employee with the career development tools to align their personal success motivations with company defined success, resulting in aligned mutual success.

You are investing in your employee salaries and benefits. Are you getting a good return on your investment?

Sound complicated? Actually, our processes are well defined and integrate with your people to fit within your business model, culture, value system, and organization.

As a result, the new title of this blog is being changed to reflect the focus to Human Investment Leadership™ and talk about each of these gaps in future blogs.

We hope you like our change. We hope you sign-up for our newsletter – which can help individuals from the CEO down. We think you will appreciate the focus of this blog being on the company perspective for company success.

 

 

America’s Election Tipping Point Impact on You

Yesterday’s American national election has a global impact.

The result will be bigger government, more regulations, higher taxes, more spending, and more debt.

Whatever your political or social views, elections have consequences.

So, what is the future impact to you?

For some opportunities! More government jobs. More work for lawyers, CPAs, HR, and regulation compliance workers.

However, for most people, higher taxes and regulation will likely create greater unemployment, less private capital for liquidity, and fewer consumer dollars. Since American’s consumerism has been the global engine for economic growth and since personal and governmental debt is on the edge, global demand for products and services will continue to create more competition for the fewer remaining disposable dollars – at company and individual levels.

That means both companies and individuals must Revolutionize their Competitive Edge if they want to survive and thrive. In other words, there is no more business as usual. Yet those who understand and are ready to invest in their companies and themselves to become more productive and competitive will have the greatest chance for success.

How will the American Election impact you?

 

What is the ROI for Value Workers in Your Company?

What is a Value Worker? Simply put, it is an employee who constantly seeks to add value to themselves, their team, and the company.

Instead of being self-focused, they are team focused. They seek to personally grow in order to add more value to the company. Their passion is to resolve problems, improve productivity, and exceed expectations. They see participating in teams as a way to leverage greater value than they could generate as an individual contributor. As a manager, they seek to show appreciation and respect to team members and others who are also striving to help the greater team and the company become more valuable, profitable, enjoyable, and competitive. They acknowledge the work of others, respect the contribution of others, and prefer to organize and empower. As executives, they continue this pattern across functions believing that doing so will help everyone win together. They see their competition as the external company competition. They see suppliers as virtual members of their team so that the virtual supply chain wins more than their competitor’s virtual supply chain.

Do they sound like a cost or a benefit for your company? Usually the question is better put, “How much benefit or Return on Investment can they provide?”

If you invest in helping Value Workers grow, how much more can they contribute?

Which employee would you prefer? A Politician, an Entitlement Employee, or a Value Worker?

However, Value Workers can be limited and impeded in their quest.

Being team focused on achievement means they are usually very focused on Results. If Entitlement Employees are on their team, conflict may soon ensue. Often the Value Worker is blamed because they are more aggressive in wanting to get things done. Effectiveness goes down. Value Workers are often blamed and their limitations on being able to add value creates personal frustration that leads them to either leaving the company or giving up having to fight against those pulling them down.

There is an even greater risk. If Politicians are on the team, are peers, or superiors, the Value Worker may not get the credit for their work, may be sabotaged, or may be stabbed in the back. Why? First, that is a typical M.O. for a Politician who wants to get ahead by climbing over others. Second, the Value Worker is often Results oriented while the Politician is usually Relationship oriented – more likable, with more connections, and more visibility at higher levels.

In other words, while the Value Worker is busy focusing on teams and results, the Politician is focusing on developing a political network of influence and power throughout the company. The larger the company, the greater likelihood that the Politician will win even as the company loses.

Do these scenarios sound familiar?

Often the Value Worker is tolerated as long as they produce, are controlled by the Politician, and do not threaten the Politician. However, when downsizing occurs whom do you think is usually let go? Is it usually the Value Worker who produced but has limited relationship networks and management visibility or the Politician who has a strong network of influence and power? Remember, the Politician is usually likeable, included on trusted teams, can take credit for the work of others, and blames others for their own failures.

Can a Value Worker learn to develop Relationship Skills? Can they learn to develop internal networks, increase their likeability, and learn how to use politics to add even greater value? Fortunately, “Yes!” Mentoring and coaching can help them develop faster to become the future value producing leaders of your company.

As the current leader of your company, you control the company culture, hiring, and winners in your company. You can create incredible value, tolerate entitlement mindsets, or enjoy the relationships with politicians. If your company is big enough to absorb the costs and inefficiencies, you may not have to worry about what is happening beneath you.  If you are in a smaller company, even one Politician or Entitlement Employee can become a serious issue.

Our three-profile model is simplistic. Most organizations are complex but now you can begin to see how you can revolutionize your competitive edge…or not.

We have the tools, resources, and methodologies to help you if you choose to Revolutionize Your Competitive Edge.

 

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