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Finding Your Most Effective Leadership Style John Harris Vice President, OMICRON

Finding Your Most Effective Leadership Style John Harris Vice President, OMICRON

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Finding Your Most Effective Leadership

Style

John HarrisVice President, OMICRON

Learning Objectives

Learn about successful leadership characteristics, approaches, and styles.

Understand your style and how to use it effectively.

Agenda

What is Leadership and why is it important BEST Leadership Styles Leadership Styles Exercises

Leadership lessons from CIO Forum

CIOs: Jay Ferro, American Cancer Society Kevin McCarthy, SWM Calvin Rhodes, State CIO Bill VanCuren, NCR

Have a clear vision and consistent focus Communicate often Listen – know where your boss is headed

Leadership lessons from CIO Forum

Find a mentor Leadership is situational Learn from difficult situations Create high expectations Get out of the way Be consistent – true to yourself Be transparent Blend people, process and technology

skills

What % of your IT career would you say you were well led?

20% never

10% about one-third

65% less than one-fifth65% less than one-fifth

What is Leadership?

What is Leadership?

Leadership is a process by which a person influences others to

accomplish an objective and directs the organization in a way that makes

it more cohesive and coherent. Kenneth Boulding in The Image: Knowledge in Life and Society

What is Leadership?

Leadership is not something you do to people it is something

you do with people

Blanchard, Zagarmi and Zagarmi 1994

Understanding Leadership

Leadership is the essential ingredient that turns visions and plans into reality

Effective leaders harness the energies and gain the commitment of their people towards great achievements

What Makes An Effective Leader?

The factors that make an effective leader can be classified under three headings:

Traits or characteristics they exhibit

Behaviors that they show

Situations they find themselves in

Traits Approach

According to this approach leaders are born not made

Traits include Intelligence Initiative Self confidence Maturity People skills Organizational capability

Behavioral Approach

There are two groups Task related behaviors

Planning, resourcing and getting things done

People related behaviors Gaining support Gaining commitment Motivation

Situational Approach

The leadership style shown is dependent upon the situation in question due to:

The nature of the task The expectations of the followers The characteristics of the followers

Authority arises in the situation due to: Knowledge Position Personality

What Makes An Effective Leader?

Current thinking is that an effective leader possesses key characteristics from the Traits approach

Skills and behaviors from the Behavioral Approach

Use these in conjunction with appropriate responses from the Situational Approach

Why leadership is important to the organization

The organization needs to have leadership because leaders provide:

Direction Motivation Inspiration

These allow ordinary people within the organization to produce extraordinary results over the long term

Share some examples of effective leadership from your experiences?

• School• Sports• Military• Business – peers, executives, managers,

subordinates• Volunteer activities• Religious

• Why were they so effective?• How did they impact you?

BESTLeadership

Style

Leadership Style

Can be defined as The way in which you carry out your functions

as a leader

A consistent pattern of behavior

A behavior that has been developed by you consciously or sub-consciously over time

BEST Personality Types

James H. Brewer developed the BEST personality profile based on four personality types:BoldExpressiveSympatheticTechnical

BEST Leadership Assessment

Your personality affects your leadership style

Learn the styles, strengths, and challenges for each

Be aware of the affects on others Discuss when each style is best

used

BEST Leadership Assessment

The BEST Leadership Style assessment can be taken by purchasing the instrument for $4.95 from http://bestinstruments.net

Due to time and resource limitations we will approximate our leadership styles using a key word list.

BEST Leadership ApproximationCheck the words from each column that best fit your behavior style

Count the checks in each column and record the number at the bottom of the page

The column with the highest number is an approximation of your dominant style

BEST Leadership Assessment

Column 1 2 3 4

Leadership style

Bold Expressive Sympathetic Technical

Personality Type Behaviors

Bold Expressive Sympathetic Technical

FirstImpressions

DirectnessandConfidence

Friendliness Calmness Organization

Basic Drive To havepower

To influence To maintainharmony

To be orderly

Personality Type Behaviors

Bold Expressive Sympathetic Technical

Leadership Strengths

Making quick decisions

Getting results

Persuading others

People oriented

Loyalty

Accommodating

Attention to detail

Accuracy

Leadership weaknesses

Bluntness

Won’t listen

Takes too many risks

Not objective

Emotional

Wastes time talking

Won’t change

Not creative

Too accommodating

Too rule-oriented

Slow to make decisions

Personality Type Behaviors

Bold Expressive Sympathetic Technical

Non-verbal indicators with leading

“Go to hell” lookRestless

SmilingTouching

“Soft” lookHelping ways

Well groomedNeat

Leadership problems

Stress carrier

Intimidating

Doesn’t always consult or delegate

Not enough structure

Leads by emotion

Not always objective

Reluctant leader

No urgency

May not be decisive

Can forget people

Can’t deal with conflict

Leadership Styles in the Movies

Apollo 13 was the seventh manned mission in the Apollo space program and the third intended to land on the Moon. The craft was launched on April 11, 1970 but the lunar landing was aborted after an oxygen tank exploded two days later, crippling the service module upon which the Command Module depended. Despite great hardship caused by limited power, loss of cabin heat, shortage of potable water, and the critical need to jury-rig the carbon dioxide removal system, the crew returned safely to Earth on April 17.

The 1995 film was directed by Ron Howard. The film stars Tom Hanks, Kevin Bacon, Bill Paxton, Gary Sinise, Kathleen Quinlan and Ed Harris.Gene Kranz, flight director

Leadership Styles in the Movies

Failure is not an option - Describe the situation. What is Kranz’s leadership style? What is style of the team? How does Kranz modify his style? Why was this approach so effective for the situation?

Square peg in round hole - Describe the situation. What was observed style of lead engineer? Team? Would bold have worked well here?

DiscussionHow do/should leaders modify their

basic personality types?With your group, discuss the following

situation and how you would respond as the leader.

Leadership challenge

ABC company recently implemented a new ERP system. There have been many problems and support issues associated with the implementation and the Help Desk has not been effective in addressing the issues. The CIO determined that a big part of the problem was a lack of leadership from the help desk manager. She fired the Help Desk Manager and hired you. The first thing you did when you started was to interview the team. You determined that most didn’t receive consistent and effective leadership from the previous manager or from anyone on the team.

Leadership challenge

Next you hired a trainer to deliver a leadership development course for the team. Part of the training included a leadership style assessment. Your style is expressive and it has served you well in other jobs. Your new team is made up of 50% technical, 20% bold, 20% expressive and 5% sympathetic. You must now get the team working together to begin to reduce the service outages and issues. Your CIO expects to see improvement in one month. Will you make any adjustments to your leadership style? What leadership techniques will you use to maximize the performance of your team members?

BEST Leadership Summary

It is important to adapt your behavior to the situation and person.

This minimizes conflict and builds stronger relationships.

It increases trust, confidence, and productivity.

Take Aways

What is your observation about leadership?

What is your key take away (what will you do differently)?