Leadership

Earlier this week I led the first day of a two day workshop on leadership. The second day is a month from now after they’ve tried to practice what I taught. The particular model I spent most of the time presenting is called Situational Leadership© . Part of the theory behind SL© is that,
-people want to give their best
-people want to learn and grow
-people want their work to be meaningful
Those of you who read the news or watch TV news may want to take exception to this very lofty view of human nature. Or if you have much workplace experience, you may not be so sure this applies.

I’d like to offer a different view. First, news is almost exclusively focused on the sensational and the seamy. So you aren’t going to see many stories about the ordinary joe or jane who is, in fact, described by these three beliefs. Second, the problem in the workplace may not be joe or jane. SL© says it is likely to be the leader who fails to believe these three truths and, therefore, fails to treat joe or jane as if they are true. SL© teaches that the effective leader of people begins by caring enough about them to see them as human beings who have varying levels of skill and readiness for specific tasks, but who can be directed, coached and guided into high levels of self directed performance that creates value for the organization and meaning for the person.

As I explained how the effective leader adapts his/her leadership style to the person being led, situation by situation, I also taught what and in what manner the effective leader talks to joe and jane. As I modeled some of these, I would role play the more coercive and angry ways leaders often talk to followers and then say, “But because I don’t like to be spoken to that way myself, that’s not how I’d do it.” Then I would model the more relationship developing way I would do it. “See,” I’d say, “The rule is pretty simple. If you don’t like to be dealt with in a particular way, you can’t deal with others that way.”

“Perfect sense,” they’d say. “Yeah, I hate being chewed out.” “You actually said the same thing the second time, but it was so much ‘nicer’”, they’d say. Yeah. So much more humane. Or if you’re a spiritual person, you might say, “It’s much more loving.” But, hey, we all know we can’t be loving in the workplace. Heck, people will think we’re softies and run all over us. Right?

Peace,

Jerry+