Wednesday, September 1, 2010

What Has Traffic Lights to Do with Your Leadership Attitude?

What is your honest opinion about leadership style? There are managers, and there are leaders. Which is your preference? Or, are you just an effective manager?

How do you lead? Simon Roskrow comments.

Our preference leads our attitude. Our attitude is how we view the world. Optimists and pessimists are two major groups of people who differ in their attitudes. Realists versus dreamers are another distinction. If you can conceive and believe, then you will achieve – now, that [ABC] seems to be the attitude for success. So, kids – know your ABC’s well!

Our prejudices lead us to select our style of leading. If we dislike a group of staff, then our way of leading them will be biased. That is why we cannot force children to eat their vegetables if they dislike the taste. There is a world of different when you choose to be a vegetarian – you embrace it openly and without prejudice.

Nutritionists tout the relevance of eating coloured vegetables and fruits. Go for traffic lights! Red, green and yellow – traffic lights.

Which behaviors can you start doing? [Green]
Which behaviors can we do more of? [Yellow]
Which behaviors should we stop doing? [Red]

Does your leadership style drift from month to month based on what you read? Are you strongly driven by articles in HBR? In my experience, most of the general managers and CEOs who read voraciously the bestselling leadership books of the month are not so effective (or likable), until they review their personal and professional values. That is something to seriously consider, and steer towards. Who is driving your bus?

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