Friday, March 29, 2024

DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVES: Leadership – a role or how we behave?

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Good leadership, well-applied will ultimately define the success of our sector. 
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It will help us change, adapt and face the multitude of challenges coming our way.

We need well-applied leadership that spans our farms, communities, industry and boardrooms.

One thing is getting in the way of leadership driving success and profitability in our sector but we don’t really understand it.

Not enough of us have a shared view of what good leadership looks like, apply it well or believe it is everyone’s responsibility to live it.

We come by these beliefs honestly. We’ve been led to think leadership is more a role or a position. It’s Richie McCaw on the rugby field, Dean Barker at the helm of his America’s Cup boat or John Wilson at Fonterra.

We also have a view that it’s mostly men we see and recognise as leaders.

When we focus on leadership as a role or a position of authority, it makes it harder to see what leaders do and recognise the behaviour they consistently apply that led to success.

The role not the behaviour becomes the hero. In doing this we lose the opportunity to recognise and adopt good leadership behaviour and practices and to see those as the heroes.

Leadership is both a craft and a science. It’s a set of applied behaviours and an understanding of human behaviour.

When we understand this, everything changes because leadership then belongs to us all rather than being the sole domain of one person in a position of authority.

Seeing leadership in this way makes it possible for everyone to learn to live these behaviours. It removes the myth that leaders are born and allows the dream of learned leadership to take shape and flourish.

Leadership requires people to take responsibility for how they show up and therein lies the challenge because taking responsibility means we might need to change the way we think.

Being leader-like and applying leadership behaviour is easier for some, which is why the born-to-it versus developed argument continues. That is because personality determines how people recognise and experience leadership – who you are is how you lead.

I’ve seen people try really hard to lead successfully. They have a vision for the future, a definite leadership requirement but their unmodified behaviour and personality get in the way.

One of my leadership heroes is eminent American physiologist Robert Hogan. He developed a system for measuring personality based on three key areas – strengths and competencies for leadership or how leader-like you appear to others, core values or the keys to what motivates you and risks or derailers, those very unleader-like qualities that others see and experience when we are under pressure.

When we understand how we appear to others then modify our behaviour we change everything. We understand our personality, adapt it for the situation and the people we want to influence and lead and our big vision is shared and lived by all. We are leading.

Hogan believes personality, when related to leadership behaviour, is best understood from the perspective of the person we are leading, rather than ourselves. It makes sense. 

It matters not what we think of ourselves as leaders (identity) but what others think of the impact of our leadership (reputation).

 

Leadership is a resource for a group, not a source of privilege or position. 

Leadership is a resource for a group, not a source of privilege or position. We need to start thinking of it as the ability to build and maintain high-performing teams. We need to think about it and base its success on the performance of the team.

That team could be onfarm, maybe it’s your family, the school board of trustees, the Beef + Lamb Farmer Council, your Fonterra networkers’ group – wherever people come together for the purpose of achieving something. 

When we understand ourselves, how we lead, take steps to understand the impact of our behaviour on others and adapt it, then our ability to articulate our vision and bring people with us goes from aspirational to inspirational.

So what are the key leadership behaviours people expect?

They want to know “can I trust this person, do they have integrity, are they competent, do they demonstrate good judgement and do they have a vision for the future?”

If you can prove to your team they can trust you in every situation, that you have their best interests at heart, that you will help them get ahead in life, get along and find meaning and you to live these behaviours consistently then you are leading. But you need to know and understand this from their perspective.

In our day-to-day interactions with people on our farms and in our communities each of us has a choice about how we behave. As members of a team each of us has a responsibility to that team to function and perform.

Leadership behaviours understood and consistently well-applied will lead to the success of farms, families, communities and our industry.

Leadership is the responsibility of all of us. It’s how we show up. It’s how we succeed for our sector.

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