Leadership Behaviors

We've talked about Skill & Will; the two parameters affecting the developmental levels of employees in their life cycles. So to be able to impact the team members’ performance and development, these two need to be impacted.

A leader influences team members to improve their skills and will by using his/ her behaviors…

There are 2 different kinds of behaviors that impact the said parameters. And leaders need to exhibit different kinds of behaviors based on the team members' development level according to their skill & will level.

The behaviors are Supportive Behavior & Directive Behavior.

Supportive behavior is Relationship oriented behavior and impacts the Will levels of team members.

Directive Behavior is Task oriented behavior and impacts the Skill of team members.

Supportive or Relationship Oriented behavior involves listening to people, encouraging them and their efforts, involving them in problem solving and decision making etc.; the extent of the last 2 will depend on their individual skills.

Directive or Task oriented behavior involves clearly telling people what to do, how to do it, where to do it, when to do it and then closely supervising and monitoring them and provide course correction if they err anywhere.

To be able to exhibit the right kinds of behaviors with the team members, the leader needs to stay in touch with the team members and understand them. It requires effort to inspect and identify where they are on the Skill/Will scale. (more about this scale in the next article)

Behaviors help after you have identified where team members lie on the scale. Consequently, mapping them right, becomes extremely crucial. Without comparative accuracy you will not be able to use the right behaviors with them and fail as a leader as they might get behaviors contrary to what they require.

One more thing to remember… there always has to be a mix of both behaviors in a leader. You do not need to be at 2 extremes. Not only supportive or directive; however the extent of Supportive & Directive needs to be high or low depending on the skill/ will level of the team member.

One important question to ask ourselves before we move ahead!

How do you map a person on the scale... based on what?

First thing to do is to identify the skills required for a particular role, job, and task... make a list of all competencies required.

Then check where the person lies, in each of them. This can be ascertained by the specific actions he/ she takes and the output or performance generated.

You may find that they lie on various developmental levels on different skills and you will have to use directive behavior only in those situations where that particular skill which he/ she is low on, needs to be used or exhibited.

Will on the other hand is basically the motivation level of a person and can be ascertained by their behaviors, body language, willingness to volunteer, openness to feedback and various other things apparent from their behaviors.

So to gauge skill levels look at actions, and to gauge will levels look at behaviors.

You will have to be prepared in your mind and be aware of the developmental levels of your team members at all times during every interaction with them to be able to exhibit the right kind of behaviors with them.

Signing off for now… Be back soon with the Skill/ Will scale!!

Ciao!

 

Developmental levels in an Employee Life Cycle

To understand Leadership better, it is first important to understand the various developmental levels in an employee's life cycle.

There are 2 parameters to be considered when you talk about an employee developing within an organization... or under a leader, Skill and Will!!

When we talk about Skills we are talking about a combination of Knowledge & Skill together…

Let’s understand the two separately first.

“Knowledge is understanding or awareness of something through information or facts”

or

“Knowledge is information that you have about something”

- These could be some definitions of Knowledge that you can think of…

“Skill is learning the method of accomplishing a particular task and can be learned through practice”

Or

“Skill is when you learn something through practicing and are able to do it mentally & physically”

- These could be some definitions of Skill that you can think of…

If I have to put it in simple words, Knowledge is the "What" of a particular topic or subject and Skill is the "How" of it..

One of the biggest sources of knowledge is the environment we live in and the experiences that we have had in our lives from the day we were born... through awareness and understanding…

Skill is simply knowing how to do something and can be obtained and improved by consistent practice of the actions and behaviour required.

Let’s take an example of Cooking to understand this better.

The knowledge of cooking is the awareness that I have to take edible products and apply various techniques on them to be able to consume them... the awareness of the various techniques... such as chopping, grinding, boiling, frying, braising, roasting, baking, etc.

The skill is actually, practically take a knife in your hand and chop the onions into pieces... the first time you do it, it will not be uniform... but you have acquired the skill at a nascent level...

As you practice you will get better and develop the skill…

For the purpose of this topic we will club Knowledge & Skills together and call them Skill... so just be aware that whenever I mention skill in the next few articles... I mean both of them together…

So is working knowledge and skill enough to accomplish a task? (And I'm not saying accomplishing it well... just accomplishing it)

Not really!

What really completes the troika of accomplishing a task is the “Desire” to do it… Which comes from genuine willingness to do something…

And that is the Will we are talking about.

So for anything to be accomplished effectively you need a confluence of the three... What, How and Desire…

So to understand the developmental levels of an employee in his/ her life cycle, we would need to map these 2 parameters on a graph and understand where exactly the employee lies in the life cycle with respect to these parameters.

More of this later… Stay tuned…

 

Leadership Decoded

Leadership is the ability to influence a group of people into moving towards a common objective in a coherent and cohesive manner

Two important words here.. coherent and cohesive... 

Coherent is connected with clarity.. in the mind of the leader, in the communication that the leader does with the team and in the minds of each team member..

Cohesion is ensuring that similar components of the whole, stay together.. So from a team relevance, it is keeping the team together to move towards a common team goal..

If you go back to school physics, cohesion and adhesion differ slightly.. cohesion is similar components, adhesion is dissimilar components..

Moving on to the second part of the definition of Leadership..

The second part is the enabler... which allows the leader to be able to influence.. The leader influences by using various attributes within him/ her..

Attributes such as beliefs, values, ethics, character, knowledge & skills... So strength in all 6 is a requisite..

Belief is something you believe or accept irrespective of whether it is true or false. Beliefs are something that you accept without asking for proof.. like Belief in God, for example..

Principles are universal whereas Values belong to an individual... that which is of worth and importance to every individual is his/her value.

Values are like the regulator of a Fan... They can be moved from a scale of 1 to 5 depending on how much importance you place on a certain thing in your life.. And you behave or act accordingly..

And that's why you can work on and improve your personal value system based on your beliefs and ethics if you find that your regulator has been at a low level in certain situations in your life..

You can consciously work and improve your value system to get them as close to principles as possible..

Ethics is one's own understanding of right or wrong, legally, socially & morally. Though it is not only about the morality of particular courses of action, but it's also about the goodness of individuals and what it means to live a good life.

Character is who you truly are. It is made up of various components. It is a combination of our Values & Value systems, Beliefs, Ethics, Culture, Traditions of the community & society, our upbringing and our set of skills & knowledge.

Knowledge & Skills?

To put it simply... Knowledge is the "What" of a particular topic or subject and Skill is the "How" of it..

One of the biggest sources of knowledge is the environment we live in and the experiences that we have had in our lives from the day we were born... through awareness and understanding..

Skill is simply knowing how to do something..

To be continued...

*Situational Leadership is not just important from the point of view of existing and future leaders, but also for professionals at all levels as it helps you plan and organize your careers and growth based on the development level that you are at and the resources and opportunities you will get in the future!