Common Sense Leadership

By Billy Arcement

As I read about leadership and management topics and observe events in my consulting services that occur within organizations, I sometimes wonder where some of today’s managers and leaders get their rationale for making decisions regarding people. It’s almost like they have lost plain old common sense when it comes to relating and working with the people they lead and go out of their way to create chaos. Here are a few ideas I’ve picked up during my 50+ years of being thrust into leadership and management roles that I hope prove valuable to you as you strive to bring your common sense leadership into your world of work.

Provide clear direction. Too often leaders assume workers understand their instructions regarding job details. Never forget that it up to the person sending the message to make sure that those receiving it understand the meaning. Never assume, and always be very explicit with your directions. Ask for feedback to be sure understanding is clear and, if necessary, provide training to shore-up skills to get the job done right. Don’t set up people to fail. Remember their failure does reflect on your leadership abilities.

Recognize and reward good performance. We all like to experience feelings of importance. Genuinely be appreciative when workers get the job done right, on time, and at minimum expense. Use staff meetings and on-the-spot encouragement to let people know you appreciate their efforts. When appropriate, and consistent with organizational policies, offer a reward. It can be as simple as a sincere thank you, a lunch with you or as rewarding as a promotion with more responsibility and pay. Recognize and win!

Strive to remove tension in the workplace. Research shows that too little or too much tension has the same result—suboptimal productivity. Maintaining the proper tension is a balancing act for leaders. One must recognize that when tension is too low employees tend to relax, not take on challenges, reduce their efforts and lower their productivity. Like wise, when tension is too high, the workplace becomes prone to employee accidents and sicknesses. Anxieties and stress begin to dominate the workplace thus also losing productivity. Common sense leaders strive to find the proper middle ground. One must always have their antenna up to pick up worker signals. One must also understand that leadership style is a tension builder or tension reducer.

Learn to emulate the traits great leaders possess. Extensive research into what qualities great leaders possess has identified the following as important abilities. Use your common sense and see to it that these traits become part of your leadership style. It’s a good list to start creating a bold, new approach to leading others.

Vision, purpose, and direction: Do you know where you want to take the organization, why you want to get there and how you will do it?

Technical / Administrative skills: Do you have the understanding and tools to get the job done and can you keep the activities flowing in an effective and efficient manner?

Cognition / idea presentation / thinking skills: Can you process the information (knowledge) needed in a way that is understandable and are your people able to sufficiently utilize their thinking abilities to help smooth the path to success?

Drive and motivation: Are you willing to persist and strive to overcome obstacles and moments of discouragement in order to accomplish the vision?

Trust and respect (in both directions): Have I earned respect and trust rather than demanding it?

Teamwork and collaboration: Do I have a good understanding that I cannot do everything alone?

Ability to empower and enable performance: Am I willing to trust that people can help and do I support training to grow their skills?

Capacity to coach, appraise, and reward performance (give feedback): Do I recognize the difference between good and poor performance?

Workers rank these abilities in order of importance to them. As part of the research, workers were shown the above list and ranked the list in order of importance to them. As you carry out your common sense approach to leading, look at how these workers ranked the list and then run the same research with your team of workers. That approach is clearly common sense leadership and might make for an interesting discovery. Capacity to coach, appraise, and reward performance Ability to empower and enable performance Teamwork and collaboration Trust and respect Vision, purpose, and direction Cognition / idea presentation / thinking skills Technical / Administrative Skills Drive and Motivation

Never forget people are watching. I’m always amazed at leaders who continually alienate workers, demonstrate an untrusting management style, grab power and control by stepping on others, and in general are not people persons. These individuals clearly have lost their sense of direction. They lack real common sense when it comes to leading and relating to others. Workers watch your actions much more intently than they listen to your words and the end result is a high tension, low productivity working environment when there is incongruency.

Maximize the skills and talents of those you lead. If you have someone who brings a skill set to the table and you ignore seeking ways to utilize those skills, you are clearly shortchanging yourself, the organization and your worker. Common sense leadership knows that blending all the skills and talents of team members makes for a more effective, efficient, and energetic team. Do you have a clear understanding of all the gifts you’ve been handed and, are you putting these gifts into play? Common sense says that is how it should be done.

Closing Thoughts

We have a leadership crisis in this country at every level. I don’t know why except to think that we have become a very impersonal society where we seldom place the needs of others as an important part of our interactions. Self-centeredness dominates and servant leadership is a rarity.

I recently came across this survey of characteristics for the next president of the United States. As you consider your vote for our next leader, why not use the list as part of your screening process. Information on the survey is found on the NextNationalCEO.com website.

Insightful Judgment, Visionary, Trustworthy, Gets Things Done, Inspires Others, Good Judge of People Influences Others, Courageous, Confident, Energetic.

Billy Arcement, MEd., is a Professional Speaker, Consultant, Leadership Strategist and President of The Results Group. He wrote the books, Searching for Success and Journeying on Holy Ground. Learn more about his services at www.SearchingForSuccess.com 2008. All rights reserved. Use by permission.

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Managing Leadership Stress Before You Manage The Rest

By Brian Marshall

"Stress stresses like nothing else". Stress is perhaps one of the most over-used words of the present generation. It’s over use is justified as more than half the population has been under its wrath at some point of time or the other. While almost all jobs are stressful, some are considered more than others. Jobs at executive levels come with more responsibility and more responsibility brings about more stress. Managers and leader, who sit at the top rung of the ladder, are often saddled down with a lot of stress. Managing leadership stress is important not only from the individual’s perspective but from the organization’s too!

Contrary to what was believed earlier, stress is not just a state of mind. High levels of stress trigger off numerous other problems, both minor and major. When one is in a stressed out condition, a chemical called noradrenaline is released in the body. This also produced when one is very angry. Noradrenaline causes a person’s blood pressure levels to shoot up. Other ailments associated with stress are fatigue, irritation, stomach ulcers, headaches, insomnia etc.

The managers and bosses sitting high up on the ladder are often bogged down with the pressure of ensuring that the teams under them run smoothly. Managing people is not an easy job but managing leadership stress need not be too difficult if a few basic steps of managing leadership stress are followed.

EXERCISE

The work culture today involves long hours of work without any physical activity. One should take a break every few hours and move about in order to exercise the cramped muscles.

DECIPHER WHAT CAN BE CONTROLLED AND WHAT CANNOT BE

The leaders should keep it in mind that not everything is under their control. Getting disappointed because of something outside their control went wrong is not the right approach.

OFFER PRAISE

It is very important for the managers to praise the people working under them to extract the best possible work for them. Optimum productivity of all workers is the key to both the success of the organization and reduced stress levels of the managers.

SET PRAGMATIC GOALS

It is very important for managers to have pragmatic goals. Unrealistic goals and unusually high expectations not only stress the leadership but also make the work force dissatisfied and ultimately, less productive.

MAINTAIN A BALANCE

Maintaining a balance between professional and personal life is one of the links towards maintaining a stress free life. Care should be taken that the two never overlap.

Managing leadership stress is not as difficult as it might sound. In fact, it is harder said than done. Maintaining a good lifestyle and adhering to the above mentioned rules are the secret behind it.

Brian Marshall is a regular contributor on problems related to stress management in work places. With a MBA in HR Management, he takes avid interest in all aspects of HR management. He is credited with pioneering work in the field of managing leadership related stress. Read more of his work at http://www.managing-stress-articles.com Managing Stress

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