If we can agree that we are in a leadership deficit and that leadership is meant to cause dramatic and useful change in a global operating environment. We should then also agree that our approach to leadership should change in dramatic and useful ways. Read the Complete Article
Leadership, Management, and Supervision
Lean Leadership
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Today, organizational leaders are under pressure to create operational and administrative settings with the ability to react intuitively where creativity, learning and collaboration are the cornerstones for enhancing the staying power of the organization. If today’s leaders are required to be strong, inspiring, and effective, then the dilemma the courts are faced with is, how are tomorrow’s leaders groomed? Even more basic is who are those leaders? How does the system identify a potential leader and teach how to be a leader in the proper setting? The struggle, especially in today's organizations that have achieved some level of success, is the ability to articulate the need for a change which oftentimes gets lost in the celebration of doing well. Long-term success is generally facilitated by “out of the box” thinking which is in turn is facilitated by leaders who are innovative, creative and collaborative.
Some organizations subscribe to one of the many schools of thought listed below or believe that leadership can be taught like running a machine or that it cannot be taught, but is an inborn trait. These disparities add to the confusion and hence the mystique of leadership. There are many good characteristics of each of these approaches, however, adhering to one single style focuses an organization and prevents it from reacting and altering course when their external environment dictates. The preferred direction then becomes a hybrid which provides for the employment of the best practices of all these models.
Webster’s defines leadership, “as the principal member of the group in an organization endowed by cooperative ideology with a heroic to mystical character and one who governs with a minimum of formal organizational restraints and one who claims to be above the group interests.” Leadership is not Management. As referenced above, the Webster’s definition contributes to the confusion surrounding leadership since it subtly suggests that everyone in a leadership position actually provides true leadership. Similarly, it also suggests that leadership and management are synonymous, or at the very least, related. Clearly, to properly define leadership, we must first be able to differentiate it from management. According to John P. Kotter from the Harvard Business School, management is comprised of three main tenets:
VIPGroup™ will help by defining and aligning constituencies. The business leader lines up all the relevant stakeholders with the vision and strategies previously created while motivating and inspiring others, energizing people to achieve the vision no matter what the obstacle. These types of leadership processes can produce dramatic and significant change within an organization while aiding adoption to a challenging or new environment. Leadership should complement management, not replace it. Effective leadership produces useful change through fundamentally sound direction setting. A leader is first and foremost a visionary, not a magician. He/she is also a broad-based strategic thinker who is willing to take risks while motivating people by satisfying their basic human needs through empowerment. Since change is a function of leadership, then being able to create highly charged behavior is essential for dealing with change and its associated barriers. The first distinction that needs to be addressed is the difference between Direction Setting (Leadership Element) and Planning (Management Element). Some examples training modules:
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On a cautionary note, we have seen where direction setting can lead to a lack of closure which is very unsettling to the average manager and disastrous to an inexperienced leader. In an effort to reduce exposure to this pitfall, we suggest that effective direction setters exhibit five consistent traits. (1) Constantly challenge the status quo by asking basic questions and creating the atmosphere for new alternatives. (2) Search for answers for these queries (not give them) and test them against a wide-array of information and proven systems or mechanisms. (3) Exhibit decisiveness, regardless of the endless, broad, and in depth amount of data available to them. Hence, they do not succumb to “analysis paralysis”. Leaders are willing to and even be abstinent about eliminating self-imposed constraints to solve problems. (4) Display flexibility, and not rigidity, concerning decision-making. Leaders are willing to revisit a decision, if necessary, and restructure it. (5) Leaders who exhibit these traits in setting directions produce the desired actions of the vision and strategies. Direction setting and planning are distinct efforts yet interdependent components.
Without good planning, a vision can lose touch with reality over time. Without solid direction setting, one loses the focus essential for intelligent planning. VIPGroup's Approach to your Leadership needsVIPGroup™ has experience in working with a variety of service companies both installing and providing ongoing support for leadership and managerial training, project management, engineering, supply chain, operational excellence and regulatory programs. This provides participants a tremendous knowledge base to draw upon during the training, ultimately providing the transfer of that knowledge to your Leaders. Our professional staff are educators as well as instructors which supports our value proposition "transfer of knowledge". We accomplish this through a collaborative partnership in "value‐creation" by assisting clients in defining goals and objectives, identifying the appropriate tools and techniques and then deploying sustainable results generating solutions and training.
VIPGroup™ has developed a unique leadership approach which has proven successful in many fortune 500 companies, in public forums and with associations. For organizations to compete in the new digital millennium they will need superb leadership talent which can only come from a learning organization which promotes and supports a culture conducive to the attainment of shared visions and strategies, while creating value and maximizing customer satisfaction. All Leadership/Management/Supervisory courses taught by VIPGroup™ are customized to the needs of our clients and their staff. Coaching plans are designed from staff interviews, assessments and appraisals to create personalized plans for each staff member. 
Just a Few of Our Client Companies |
Why do companies embark on change efforts if the road to success is long, difficult and mostly likely to lead to unsustainable change? They embark on this effort because the payback is tremendous when you succeed. Read the Complete Article
