The Roles of Leadership 

What defines leadership?  Executives ask this question every time they choose a new leader or train their current leaders.  Organizations must understand the fundamentals of leadership before making decisions about their leadership.  Leaders are not created overnight.  Becoming an effective leader involves considerable time and effort to hone the necessary skills and abilities.  Training helps, but understanding the concept of leadership is critical. 

From more than 12 years experience working with leaders in Fortune 500 companies and organizations around the world, Cornelius & Associates has determined that a leader must take on certain “roles” to be truly effective.  The Role of a Visionary; The Role of Integrity, Honesty and Values; The Role of Releasing Potential and Energy; and The Role of Leading Change (Planned Change and Emergent Change). 

While each role is unique, they are also interdependent.  The skills leaders learn to perfect one role will also help leaders master the other roles.  In the next few newsletters, we will explore these leadership roles- what they are and how to hone your skills for each role. 

The Role of Integrity, Honesty and Values in the Organization 

Leaders must take on the role of integrity, honesty and values.  By taking on this role, leaders invoke trust and respect from their employees.  A recent study by Manchester, Inc., a career management consulting firm out of Jacksonville Florida, entitled “How to Gain & Lose Employees’ Trust” found that while trust levels between front-line employees and their immediate supervisors were very high, trust levels were considered the worst between front-line employees and top-level executives.  This survey also noted that 75% of the companies polled felt trust was declining in their organization.  This illustrates the need for leaders to build trust from the top down. 

Determining Personal Values 

While it may seem odd to discuss your personal values with your employees, it will lead to increased respect and trust in your organization.  Employees need leaders who are consistent and who act predictably.  One way of showing consistency is to act according to your set of personal values.  These values, if properly communicated, will serve as a guide to your employees for the way you behave and the way you make decisions.  Your employees will also appreciate understanding what is very important to you to give them a framework when they are making their own work decisions. 

The first step in this process is to determine and examine your values.  A value can consist of either the way you feel people ought to conduct business (teamwork, work ethic, etc) or concepts and ideas to which you personally attach importance (innovation, rapid response, the customer, etc).  This process may not be as easy as it first appears.  

First, you must select those values that are MOST important to you.  While everyone values being on time, is this one of your MOST important values?  Or do you consider other attributes more important?  There are no right or wrong answers.  If you have problems prioritizing your values, try a brainstorming session where you right down as many of your values as possible in five minutes.  Then go back through and rank your values, and only chose the top three to five to maintain focus. 

The Values Conversation™ 

Now that you have clearly deciphered your values, the next step is communicating these to your employees.  It is time for you to have The Values Conversation™.  Here are some tips for communicating your values:

Emphasize the Impact Your Values Have on the Organization as a Whole.   You must give your employees the bigger picture so they can see a direct connection between your value and the effect it has on the organization.  For example: I value honesty because it will assist the organization in more accurate and less misleading communication.

Emphasize that You will Make Decisions According to these Values.  This is especially important because it gives your employees a guide for your behavior.  This way they can predict decisions you would make based on your prioritized set of values and adjust their behaviors accordingly.   

Give Brief Examples of the Meaning of the Values.   Do not merely recite the value definitions you devised for each value.  The definitions will be easier to understand if you can illustrate them with an antidote, example or story.

Stress Your Expectations.  At this point, stress that you expect certain standards based on your values.  This way they are able to understand the direct connection between your values and their job tasks.  

Ensure Understanding. In most cases, it is not enough to simply ask if your employees understood your values.  Ask them to paraphrase what you have just told them.  This way you can straighten out any confusion before these ideas are entrenched.  

Even if you have many years supervising the same employees, it is never too late to have The Values Conversation™.  One common mistake leaders make is to have this conversation once and let the significance die by never connecting to it again.  This does not mean you should give your values speech over and over again.  Try using everyday opportunities to reinforce your values by explaining the decisions you make and how they relate to your values.  The more frequently you communicate your values, the more ingrained they will become in your employees’ minds.  The most effective way to keep your values relevant and meaningful is to model your behavior to fit your values consistently.  If your actions are always consistent with your values, employees can rely on your behavior and predict your actions and decisions.

Integrity   

The Manchester study on employee trust also found the best way to build employee trust is to maintain integrity.  Sounds easy enough, but what exactly does this mean?  What is integrity and how do we maintain it? 

Authenticity

Be authentic to yourself.  This first requires self-awareness.  You must know what you want out of life, who you are, what you feel, and what your positive characteristics are, as well as the negative qualities.  You can’t be true to yourself if you don’t have a clear sense of who you are as a person, a supervisor and a leader.  Another important factor in self-awareness is the ability to accept feedback about your behaviors and actions.  Instead of throwing up a defensive wall, you can learn a lot about how others perceive you by listening to them, whether the feedback is positive or negative.   Lastly, by behaving consistently with your values you will reinforce their importance and impact with yourself.  This way you do not lose sight of what is really important to you. 

Keeping Commitments

A commitment is anything you have agreed to do or, on the other side, it is anything you have agreed not to do.  You will build trust and respect with your employees and peers if you always keep your commitments.  In fact, keeping your commitments is so essential to building trust, you should always try to go out of your way to keep the commitments you make.  In a perfect world, we would never have to break a commitment.  But, in life obstacles and challenges beyond our control sometimes force us to break our commitments.  Here are some steps to take in those situations where you will not meet a commitment:

For a commitment that is not working (changing, not breaking commitments):

1. State the problem.
2. Listen openly to the reaction.
3. Get involvement from the person to solve the problem.
4. Reach a new commitment.

Here’s an example illustrating these steps: 

Supervisor: I told you that you could have Friday off for all the overtime you have put in.  Unfortunately, we had a new project come in with a deadline fast approaching and really need your skill set to make the Saturday deadline.  

Employee: Well, I already made plans to leave town on Friday and my wife and I have not been able to do this in a while because I have been working so many weekends. 

S: I have already asked everyone on our team if we can handle the work without you, but you are the only one who knows the 3-R machine.  What can we do to solve this problem? 

EE: We still have three days before Friday.  I’ll stay late and train Jack on the machine well enough to get through the project by then.  He would just need to know the basics. 

S: That sounds like a solution.  Are you sure Jack will be able to handle this? 

EE: I know he can, he is smart and a quick learner.  But, if for some reason he is not up to speed when we leave Thursday, I will stay Friday. 

S: I appreciate you are willing to make that sacrifice.  If you end up needing to cancel your plans, I guarantee I will give you two days off in a row next week to make up for your sacrifice.  And, starting next week, I am going to cross train certain members of our team so we don’t find ourselves in this situation again.  Thank you for working with us on this.

For a commitment you absolutely have to break:

1. Take ownership of the commitment.
2. Show empathy.
3. Explain rationale.
4. Listen openly to reaction.
5. Offer an alternative solution.

Here’s an example illustrating these steps: 

S: I told you we were going to hire an assistant to help you with your administrative tasks.  Unfortunately, hiring is no longer an option.  I understand the reason you need an assistant because you are often here late hours working on paperwork, orders and scheduling.  I deeply regret not being able to alleviate some of your work by hiring a new employee. 

EE: Well, the administrative tasks are the most burdensome of my workload.  It is just boring work and it doesn’t take my education level to complete the tasks.  Someone with no experience or education could handle it, and then I get stuck doing it. 

S: I understand your frustration.  It can often be tedious performing tasks you feel are under your skill level.  At this time, our department has to make budget cuts and new hires were the only place to cut without comprising product quality.  

EE: I know times are tough, but I don’t know how much longer I can keep working late hours to get this stuff done.  I am at the end of my patience. 

S: I think I have an idea you will like.  What if we take all of your duties and divide them between your team.  You will still be expected to do some administrative work, but the rest of your team can handle many of these responsibilities.  Up front, it will require some training on your part to get your team ready to handle the duties.  What do you think? 

EE: I like that idea.  Just because my team members don’t have the same experience I do, doesn’t mean they can’t handle this paperwork.  It is very routine and I could train them fairly easily.  I would like to start delegating as soon as possible to relieve this situation. 

S: How about if we meet tomorrow morning to discuss task responsibility and time frames? 

In both the above situations the supervisor finds themselves in a situation where they are forced to either break or adjust a commitment.  Because they followed an effective procedure and kept open communication, in both cases the employees does not feel jilted.  This method may take a little more time and effort, but in the long run, your employees will still trust and respect you, even if you do occasionally have to go back on your word. 

© 2004 Cornelius & Associates