Your Emerging Leadership Journey is the virtual guide for supervisors, managers, and recent graduates to use when planning their business career. Their plan will be based on the assumption that they will be promoted to a leadership position within ten years. For some, this journey can begin as early as the year of their college graduation. Within the book, the leadership essentials are clearly presented and supported by real life examples of success and failure.
The management phase of their career progression begins with knowing themselves, knowing others, and building relationships through emotional intelligence. Direction is provided for taking control of their career journey in order to minimize the time they spend in the management phase of their career. Once this task-oriented management phase has ended, and the candidate has been promoted to their first leadership position, responsibilities will change that entail taking the organization and its team forward toward a common vision. Highlighted in the book are critical factors to becoming a strong leader including the importance of integrity, courage, family, servant leadership, emotional intelligence, and managing for quality. After reading this book, you will be armed with the skills and knowledge to become an effective leader.
Your Emerging Leadership Journey
How to be promoted to a leadership position in less than 10 yearsBy John H. King, Jr. Ronald F. CichyiUniverse, Inc.
Copyright © 2010 John H. King, Jr. and Dr. Ronald F. Cichy
All right reserved.ISBN: 978-1-4401-7194-9Contents
Preface..............................................................................xiAbout the Authors....................................................................xiiiPart I Introduction to Leadership....................................................1Chapter One Your Leadership Vision...................................................5You Will Emerge a Leader.............................................................5Student Transformation...............................................................7What Makes Leaders Different?........................................................8A Perfect Leadership Journey.........................................................9Leadership as a Journey..............................................................11Leadership Is Not a Fad..............................................................12Are Leaders Born or Developed?.......................................................13Preparing for a Leadership Position..................................................14Leadership Lesson from the Eagle.....................................................15Chapter Two The Leadership Journey...................................................21The Journey: Where Are You Now? Where Are You Going?.................................21Personal Leadership Qualities........................................................22Qualities, Keys, and Secrets of Effective Leadership.................................22Five Essentials of Leadership........................................................27Part II Understanding Leadership.....................................................39Chapter Three Know Yourself..........................................................43Your Inner World.....................................................................43The Servant Leader...................................................................43Assessing Your Personality...........................................................47Team-Based Personality Assessment....................................................49Knowing Yourself.....................................................................50Character and Leadership.............................................................52Chapter Four Integrity and Honesty...................................................55Leadership and Integrity.............................................................55Dealing with Pressure................................................................57Organizational Culture...............................................................57Establishing a Code of Ethics........................................................58Seven Keys to Organizational Ethical Success.........................................58Challenges Leaders Face..............................................................61Processes Support Ethics.............................................................61Examples of Ethics Violations........................................................61How to Act in Unethical Situations...................................................62Leadership Lesson from the Eagle.....................................................63Chapter Five Know Others.............................................................65Knowing and Serving Others...........................................................65Other Groups Leaders Engage..........................................................65Serving the Associate Group..........................................................66Serving External Customers...........................................................67Serving Owners and Investors.........................................................68Serving Suppliers....................................................................69Serving the Community................................................................69Serving Your Family..................................................................71Part III Building Leadership Skills..................................................73Chapter Six The Effective Manager....................................................77Questions of the Unknown.............................................................77How to Handle the Unknown............................................................77Effective Management.................................................................78Learning from Successful Leaders.....................................................80Steps to Making Change...............................................................82Defining the Managing for Quality Model..............................................83Quality Should be Integrated into All Parts of Your Organization.....................83Three Important Expectation Sets.....................................................84Expectations in Decision Making......................................................84Customer-Driven Organizations........................................................85Internal Customer Teams..............................................................85Associates First or External Customers First?........................................85External Customers...................................................................86Welcoming Customer Complaints........................................................87Constructing Your Team...............................................................88Steps in the Decision-Making Process.................................................88Management's Role....................................................................89The VANO Manager.....................................................................90Chapter Seven Leading with Emotional Intelligence....................................93The Emotionally Intelligent Leader...................................................93Managers and Leaders Use Emotional Intelligence......................................93EI, Self-Esteem, and Temper..........................................................95IN, OUT, RELATIONSHIPS...............................................................96First Three Pillars of EI:...........................................................100Fourth and Fifth Pillars of EI:......................................................100Comparing High and Low EI Groups.....................................................101Chapter Eight Planning and Building Your Career......................................107Managing Your Career Progression.....................................................107Developing Power Through Attitude....................................................108Planning and Action..................................................................110Generational Differences.............................................................113Building Strengths and Key Competencies..............................................117Assertiveness........................................................................119Balancing the Age Gap................................................................121Networking...........................................................................121Part IV Leadership: Final Steps......................................................125Chapter Nine Managing Change.........................................................129Leading Others.......................................................................129Leading Change.......................................................................130Fun While You Work...................................................................132Thinking Positively..................................................................133Importance of Mentoring..............................................................134Five Leadership Competencies.........................................................135Chapter Ten Leadership Possibilities.................................................139Building a Team......................................................................139A Historical Story of Leadership.....................................................140Mentoring Others.....................................................................141Addressing Poor Performance..........................................................142Balancing Family and Career..........................................................142Responsibilities of the Leader.......................................................145Chapter Eleven Conclusion............................................................151Your Next Steps......................................................................151Chapter Twelve.......................................................................157Index................................................................................165
Chapter One
Your Leadership Vision
You Will Emerge a Leader
Here we are in 2009 in the midst of a serious downturn in the country's economy. It is also a period of extended and serious drought in leadership capability. If ever there was a time for those in leadership positions to step forward and change how we lead, it is now. Examples of failure are everywhere in today's leadership circles, resulting from greed, arrogance, and the absence of values in corporate executive suites and political arenas. The downsides of this dilemma are obvious. However, there is a more positive angle which involves students and managers who aspire to become leaders. There will be many leadership opportunities as you progress on your career journey.
Your emergence as a leader will occur in a relatively short period of time if you can take the lessons from this book and put them into practice as you proceed on your personal and professional journey.
Our convictions about leadership and learning led us to author this book for two reasons. First we wanted to share our leadership experiences with as many emerging leaders as possible, because we were fortunate to have become leaders at a fairly young age. We did this in spite of not being exposed to any leadership curricula while matriculating in the undergraduate or graduate learning environments. Had we taken a course in leadership, we probably would have been more successful, not to say we did not enjoy success, but rather the success would have been accelerated because there would have been a shorter learning curve.
Secondly, we needed a book to support the students in our Emerging Leadership class. After teaching Managing for Quality for eleven years, we decided to move on to leadership by sharing our experiences in career advancement. We were confident that we could enhance the efforts of students and managers to become leaders at a relatively young age. So, in 2006 we simultaneously embarked on researching and writing this book and launching the leadership class.
Twenty-eight students had committed to take the new Emerging Leadership class at The School of Hospitality Business at Michigan State University in the fall of 2006. This was the first time a leadership class had been offered that targeted graduating seniors and focused on how to make the transition from student, through management, and on to leadership in less than ten years. This would seem to most managers and students to be extremely optimistic, and perhaps unrealistic. After all, the majority of undergraduate students perceive the journey as a long-term challenge, with little or no control over the eventual outcome. Our objectives for accelerated career advancement are based on our personal experiences and the experiences of other leaders whom we admire. We know how we achieved our leadership positions, and we want to share the keys to this success with others. The Emerging Leadership class was a new approach and was based on our personal model. Our intent was to teach the students how to assertively succeed in reaching a leadership-level position in an organization through a planned and strongly focused approach. Some managers have been successful, but this has been the exception. At the completion of that first semester's emerging leadership course, our students were actively pursuing career positions and were much better prepared for their initial position assignments and their leadership journeys. We were and are confident that many in the class will achieve their objective of a leadership position within the ten-year time frame. Students who have been successful in accomplishing the transition without this class are very fortunate, but we know many more could duplicate this success if they were thoroughly prepared to do so. There were thirty students in the second leadership class in the fall 2007 semester and an additional thirty in the fall 2008 semester.
At the first class session of each semester, we conducted a brainstorming exercise to determine the students' expectations of the class. Some examples of what they hoped to gain from the class were to learn more about themselves and position themselves to become leaders, make a name for themselves and get their careers off to a good start, apply all of their courses completed so far to their leadership, surround themselves with leaders, build their leadership skills, become more competitive in business, learn how to earn respect rather than simply command authority, learn how to lead people twice their age, and fine-tune their leadership skills. Expectations articulated during the first class also included being an effective leader rather than just a boss, being a more effective communicator, using leadership to improve the skills of associates, learning how to motivate people, rubbing elbows with wise leaders, gaining perspectives on leadership, and setting themselves apart from other leaders.
Student Transformation
Near the start of each semester, we asked the students to write us a letter, dated at the end of the semester, detailing why they believed that they deserved an A in the class. This exercise helps them visualize what they are willing to do in the class to earn a top grade. Here are several excerpts from their responses:
"In addition to completing the required components and earning top marks, I have added countless tools to my arsenal of leadership metaphors, action plans, schools of thought, and shared them accordingly. I feel I will be an ambassador of young leadership within The School of Hospitality Business." "I achieved my goal of learning about my own values and was able to find a position which fit my objectives and career path. This has been a great experience, as I have been able to venture into myself and find out who I really am." "This class has brought about a passion and inspiration in me that I never before experienced in a classroom setting. Thank you." "This class and the work and lessons learned help in building me as a person and as a student. I have not done work with this type of learning experience ever in any class." "I truly value the lessons in wisdom conveyed to me in this class. We are not required to take notes, but I did because I knew it would be useful information throughout my life." "This class is a whole different dynamic because it revolves around teaching young leaders to be the best that they can be in the real world. It is not going to matter a year from now what grade you got, but rather if you are utilizing/practicing the skills you learned from this course. A grade is just a letter that is rather insignificant in the grand scheme of things." "I have developed as an individual, and become the person I wanted to be. This course was structured in a way that my answers were not right or wrong. One day I want to be a powerful leader, and, thanks to this course, I have already begun my transformation into that position."
"I gained valuable leadership and communication skills through active participation in class. I learned a lot about who I am and how to inspire peers and colleagues in a mutually respectful way." "I particularly liked the brainstorming activities we experienced as self-directed teams. They taught me the importance of listening to other people's opinions and ideas." "Most importantly, I was also able to gain ideas and thoughts from thirty other classmates, as well as two knowledgeable professors, who are all in the hospitality network and passionate about the same things I am."
These statements have been very inspirational and enlightening to us as professors and authors. They used the term "transformation of self," referring to themselves as totally different individuals at the conclusion of the semester. It was clear to us that they had begun to change dramatically during the three and a half months of the class. The metamorphosis had started. They were much more mature; they now look at the management and leadership opportunities with more understanding and willingness to start the journey.
Basically, there are three sets of traits and skills that all great managers and leaders must possess. These are emotional intelligence (people skills), business acumen, and personal values. Leaders see the organization much differently than managers. Managers see the tasks at hand while leaders see the organization in its broadest context. Believe it or not, these three sets of traits and skills are largely in place in many people when they reach their midtwenties. Many in-depth discussions took place during class, and, as the semester progressed, they became more confident and at ease when challenging the professors and their own views. Their communication skills developed by leaps and bounds, which enhanced their confidence in their own abilities to state their own points of view. This was clearly manifested in their success with the interviewing process with many interested hospitality organizations.
What Makes Leaders Different?
Leadership examples point to some common themes. They reveal that many of the successful "leadership stars" were simply in the right place at the right time as they progressed up the corporate ladder. The truth of the matter is these individuals possessed an unusual number of management skills, understood the differences between management and leadership, and had a clear vision of what they wanted to be doing at their five- and ten-year career intervals. Typically, management involves learning task-oriented skills, while leadership entails more global responsibilities such as organizational culture development, large-scale changes, and inspiring the associates in an organization toward their vision. Until now, educators, corporate mentors, and consultants have concentrated on management skills including quality, customer focus, idea and feedback generation, developing partnerships, empowerment, and alignment of personal and organizational values, visions, and missions. This has been one of the contributing factors that led to the current shortage of leaders. We need to counter this challenge, and hopefully our leadership book and curriculum will serve to develop many new aspiring leaders.
A Perfect Leadership Journey
Rob was a recent college graduate with six months experience in a management position. When celebrating the holidays with family at home in the Midwest, he and several friends decided to pick up and move to the west coast. They had no idea where they would wind up and, particularly, what job opportunities there would be out west. They did know that Michigan was not their first choice for the long run. Weather was definitely a factor.
They reached the west coast the first week in January and settled south of Los Angeles. Rob found a management position within a week. It was similar to his first management position except that it was one step up the ladder. He was now going to be a department head in a sizeable health-care facility. It was not exactly what he was looking for, but it was in the hospitality industry where his interests were. He was in this position for a little less than a year when he received a telephone call from a large national food distributor. The organization's executive team had observed his management potential and was interested in continuing his management journey as part of their sales team. He accepted the sales position, and his performance was exceptional. After five years in sales he was promoted to his first leadership position, regional manager, at the age of twenty-nine. He was subsequently promoted twice, but the important point was his promotion to a leadership position eight years following graduation. This happened because he knew he wanted a leadership position in sales, was willing to work very hard, and had a plan.
Also, there were many distinctive leadership qualities he possessed, which he instinctively used in every step of the short career journey. In addition to being an excellent communicator, he lived his vision every day. Because he felt so strongly about where he wanted to be, he was passionate, confident, and respected by his team, primarily because of his ability to help others.
Now, ten years later, Rob has formed his own company and reached the goal of most who would like to be entrepreneurs. He is now able to apply all of his leadership capabilities to his own organization and reap the financial rewards. This is not to conclude that he has completed the learning cycle of his leadership journey. In a recent conversation, we discussed the extent of what he believes lies ahead in the world of learning.
Rob's initial career vision was for a period of ten years. Now, his vision for himself, his team, and his company has a time frame that will take him to his retirement years.
In our experience, most great leaders are not superheroes. They possess a few outstanding and obvious strengths that they use to achieve results. They also balance their roles and responsibilities across many areas of responsibility and leadership competencies. Rather than devoting time and great effort in only correcting weaknesses, these leaders build on associates' strengths. Jim Trinka wrote, "Good has become the enemy of excellence, because good managers and leaders do not have the time to become great, and that good is good enough." We do not agree.
Again, you do not have to be a superhero to be considered a great leader. You only need to possess about five profound strengths, and those will create a "halo effect" that overshadows perceived weaknesses. Rob's success is the exception and far from the norm. Most young aspiring graduates will encounter barriers in the corporate world that prevent them from becoming leaders at a young age. The most common barrier is the paradigm of the relationship between experience and advancement in the organization.
Leadership as a Journey
These two examples of achieving leadership positions at a relatively young age merely point out that it can be accomplished, not how to go about getting there. This will be described as we proceed with the process of detailing the leadership journey. If you are soon to be a college graduate, young and in a management position, or a current supervisor or manager seeking to be a leader, you can benefit from learning more about this leadership journey. This is a virtual guide to outline each step toward achieving your dream, if in fact it is a leadership position. We are not talking about the latest management or leadership fad. This is about what works as described by those who have been successful leaders for decades.
Leadership Is Not a Fad
We opened each class with a Leadership Eye Opener which we quote from Oren Harari on Colin Powell's American Journey. The first one is: "Too often people are assumed to be empty chess pieces to be moved around by grand viziers. This explains why so many top managers immerse their calendar time in deal making, restructuring, and the latest management fad. How many immerse themselves in the goal of creating an environment where the best, the brightest, the most creative are attracted, retained, and, most importantly unleashed?" Take note that age, experience, and time with the organization are not mentioned. Like a thoroughbred race, it is not who is in front at the various quarter poles that is important. It is who will eventually win the race and bring the most success to the organization. Recognizing people's potential, encouraging them to develop and seek their leadership positions, and having the courage to give them promotions, regardless of age, are the essentials for assuring leadership succession. How long it takes is entirely up to you. Our students now know themselves at the time of graduation. They are also prepared to know others, and how to build effective, lasting relationships between leadership and their associates.
There are other factors involved in making the right decision in promoting an individual to a leadership position. First of all, no one should move directly from being a student into a leadership position without the essential experience in management. Only when one has mastered the management skills should that individual be considered for a leadership position. These management capabilities will be presented in chapter six.
So, what do leaders do? Basically, they take the organization and its people from one place to another that is closer to the "vision" of the organization. This movement is supported by the relationships between the leader and those who choose to follow. The relationship becomes the foundation on which to build the organization, because it is the people who make the organization successful. The relationships are the enablers of people to achieve excellent results on a consistent basis. The leader has the ability to understand a situation from the points of view of the people, also known as associates.
These associates choose to follow the leader because they share the leader's vision and values, and they have total trust that they are being led to something better and improved. They share the leaders' aspirations and are excited about the possibilities that lie ahead. They form teams that drive change without fear and are recognized for their many wins, regardless of impact. In essence, the leadership and associates create an organizational community.
Leadership is also an in-and-out proposition. The leader exports power and authority, and imports ideas, all without concern or consideration for keeping score in a grand balance of trade. Eventually, the many teams within the organization become a flotilla that takes the organization forward toward the vision and success.
In contrast, when others refer to your organization as the Queen Mary, it is not a compliment. Changing direction or turning around the oceangoing ship the Queen Mary is no easy task, especially if you are sailing in a sea with small, more agile organizations. Effective leaders of larger organizations have been successful in bringing flexibility, quality, empowerment, speed to market, partnering, and in adding value to their organizations.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Your Emerging Leadership Journeyby John H. King, Jr. Ronald F. Cichy Copyright © 2010 by John H. King, Jr. and Dr. Ronald F. Cichy. Excerpted by permission.
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