| Who is writing your leadership story? | |
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I was at a dinner party recently and I started a discussion about Leadership, just for something different. The friend that I was talking to raised his concern around the way that many Leaders often expect their team members to adapt their overall identity and behavior to align with their own expectations.
He also noted that if this does not occur, the Leader will then be very quick to categorise the team member into a number of different buckets like ‘Trouble Maker’, ‘Low Performer’, ‘Underachiever’, ‘No Potential’ etc. I also find it interesting when a Leader says, ‘He / She have always been that way, they will never change!’
It was during this conversation that we became aware that many Leaders are inadvertently writing and mapping out their people’s journeys for them and they expect them to comply. Based on my work with Leaders, I then started to think that this often happens all the way to the top of an organisation. What happened to good old empowerment? Has it really been replaced by control? Hmmm, did we ever have empowerment? We really should.
Further to this, I come across Leaders who are afraid to take risks, particularly in terms of implementing simple changes that may make a significant difference to the performance of their teams. This ultimately results in the underdevelopment of current and emerging Leaders, particularly when it comes to being innovative and ‘Thinking Outside the Square’
Who is writing your Leadership Story?
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