Energy: Extraordinary people have loads of energy and as such they are infectious to be around.

Positive: For them the glass is always half full. Where others see difficulty they see opportunity. They understand that adversity makes you stronger.
Futurists: Vision is such a core component of leadership and yet is still remains the most under used tool of the self leader. Visions are not the sole responsibility of the board room, but are a key component for us all. Extraordinary people look to the future and set themselves powerful, scary goals.
State Management: Extraordinary people spend time developing their emotional intelligence allowing them to access their best, more of the time.

Authentic: People who excel tend to have a strong vein of authenticity running through all their actions. You know where you stand with them, there is no role playing going on and they are thus able to communicate in a powerful, authentic manner.

Personal Development: “Leaders are readers” is a phrase from the past but still tends the test of time. Extraordinary people are constantly looking at ways in which they can “sharpen the saw” (to quote Covey). They understand the need for constant improvement in all they do.

This list is obviously not exhaustive, but it is the basis of an exciting nesw programme Votive Leadership is developing, simply entitled ….

ExtraOrdinary

Of course the opposite is true. Develop an individual’s weakness you end up with a demotivated average employee with nothing to distinguish them to potential followers.

Authenticity is summed up in the phrase:

Be yourself – more – with skill

This phrase was coined by two Insead lecturers, Goffee and Jones in their study of leadership. My programme draws upon their work and the work completed by Professors Zenger and Folkman in America.

Authentic leaders
• Display consistency between their words and their deeds
• Have a capacity to display clear coherence in their various role performances
• Display a comfort with self; i.e. their behaviour has undisputed origins

Be Yourself is about looking at the individual and getting them to identify their “role holder” identities. Some of these are necessary, but others are driven by emotions such as fear and ego. It is about being yourself and not a role holder and allowing your own true qualities to come through. We ask a very powerful question: “What is so special about you that means I should follow you?” It is these special qualities that an individual should really develop. They could be such qualities as “I really care about people succeeding”. We explore Trait Theory and look at the concept of Knowing – Being – Doing and ask the question who are you being when you are doing what you know?

More - is about the leader taking personal risks. It means that you will have to show to your team your weaknesses, but having the ability to use the power of perception to minimise their effect. It is about having an unbending sense of purpose which acts as a guiding star to all your behaviour as a leader and being able to communicate this to the team. It is also about being able to display active listening; listening with the intent to listen and not with the intent to reply.

With Skill – is about a leaders ability to “situationally sense” the moment and choose the appropriate response at any given time. It is about the ability to handle conversations which are going wrong and to influence others through your own ability to state manage and choose the most appropriate behaviour. It is about having the ability to use questions in a most powerful manner. It is also about ethics, followership and vision.

Below you will find a list of questions which we pose to the delegates as we progress through the workshop:

1. Which personal differences could form the basis of your leadership capability?
2. Which personal weaknesses do you reveal to those you are leading?
3. Are you able to read different contexts?
4. Do you conform enough?
5. How well do you manage social distance?
6. Do you have a good sense of organisational time?
7. How well do you communicate?

The answers to these will answer the final question posed by Goffee and Jones:

Why should I be led by you?

At Votive Leadership we believe that engagement is part of each of us learning how to Self-Lead. Self-leadership is something that we believe is a key element of a happy and successful work life and yet is a topic that is rarely taught. From our experience of working in many different organisations, in different sectors, we find many unhappy, disgruntled, disengaged, disenfranchised employees. These tend to be those who are not yet in leadership positions – the “followers” in an organisation; those who are carrying out immensely valuable pieces of work for their organisation.

During October and November 2007, we ran a series of self-leadership programmes for the operations/clerical function of a FTSE top 100 financial institution. Up to 15 people per time were invited to a 3-hour session and overall we worked with around 200 people. Comments that we heard at the start of each of these sessions are typical of those we hear in many organisations:

“We’re just a number these days”
“Management only care about costs”
“It never used to be like this”
“We’re understaffed”

Over each of the 3-hour sessions we listened, empathised, coached and also delivered some hard-hitting messages – but all done in the context of a fun, and dynamic learning experience. At the end of every session we asked attendees to agree or disagree with six key statements. All the answers were collated and the results are shown below:

Attendees were asked – “As a direct result of this programme, I fee more able to:”

*Of those who expressed a choice. A handful of people neither agreed nor disagreedDelivering the above feedback to the leaders at the organisation, the comment that best sums up the power of the above is one leader saying “We would KILL for results like that in our employee satisfaction survey!”

How did we achieve such amazing results? Without giving away too much about our unique proposition, we work with attendees on “correcting” some of the thoughts that they have in their head and also sometimes just tell them how it is. As an example, many of the people we work with have been in an organisation many years and in their head they compare the current state of the organisation, its values and their own job with “how it used to be.” By the end of our sessions they realise that all the time any of us compare our current situation to the past it can lead to feeling disappointed, upset and even angry. We also work with attendees on helping them REALLY understand what, for example, “providing shareholder value” means to them and how it affects them directly.

If you would like to learn more about this specific project or how we can help you increase employee engagement, please contact Votive Leadership.

keith@votiveleadership.com | 07977 519773