Being the Leader They Need: The Path to Greater Effectiveness

By Dr. Larry Kammien

I wrote this book to assist new- or less-experienced leaders in their personal growth and development and to assist in becoming a more effective leader. A motive is to provide thoughts and tools to increase the self-efficacy of less-experienced leaders, ultimately producing results for leaders and organizations everywhere.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jul 5, 2017
• ISBN: 9781543431292

Dr. Larry Kammien

Larry holds a PhD in Organizational Leadership. With over 30 years experience in corporate business, his expertise includes executive coaching, leadership and organization development, design and delivery of training solutions, strategic planning, corporate consulting and facilitation, team building, employee engagement and satisfaction instruments, a broad range of human resource functions, and marketing. His experience spans both domestic and international opportunities. Larry is an adjunct Professor at Webster University in Saint Louis. He is MBTI qualified; PDI Profilor certified; DDI certified; Insights into Personal Effectiveness accredited; Insights Transformational Leadership certified; and Hogan Personality Inventory, Development Survey, and Motivations, Values, and Preferences Inventory certified. He is also co-author of Don't Step on the Ducks.

Book preview

Chapter 1

The Leadership Transition

M ost of us begin our careers in an individual contributor role. This is a role which requires us to focus solely on our performance. Individual contributors are provided individual performance goals to achieve during a stated period of time. Our ability to achieve the assigned goals contributes to our team performance and the overall organizational objectives.

At some point in our career we are provided the opportunity to assume a leadership role in the organization. Every organization does not prepare the individual contributor to assume the leadership role. It is much more than a title change. It is a change in perspective, power, and expectations. Unfortunately, if not provided leadership development, the new leader may initially struggle to perform.

Today there are many methods for the new leader to acquire the necessary knowledge, skills, and abilities to be an effective, successful leader. However, it is far more effective for organizations and the leader to partner in the development process. Collaborating to determine the most effective development plan for each leader will lead to a quicker acclimation and production of results.

The typical leadership career progression resembles individual contributor, front-line leader, leading other leaders, leading an organizational function, leading a division, and finally leading the enterprise. There is a transition from and to each of these leadership roles. Additional knowledge, skills, and abilities are necessary for success at each level of leadership.

Transitioning from an individual contributor to a front-line leader requires skills in the areas of planning and organizing, job assignment, interviewing, motivating, evaluating performance, and coaching. Other areas include skills and knowledge for people development and honing influence skills. As a front-line leader influencing becomes critical to success. Influencing may be in the form of requesting resources, selling an idea, requesting a time extension, or motivating a team member to achieve a result. The leader may be influencing in multiple directions simultaneously.

Challenges exist at every transition during the leadership career. During the initial transition stage, one of the biggest challenges is building relationships. The perspective of the leader must change from self-concern to building relationships which allow the leader to achieve results through others. Effective leaders are selfless. Their success is defined by the success of their team members.

Progressing to leading other leaders requires developing the ability to select qualified leaders and then continuing to develop their leadership attributes and behaviors. The allocation of resources becomes more challenging. Resource allocation at this level is across units and not for a single team. A leader at this level must develop the skills to recognize boundaries between the different functions they are leading, while promoting and maintaining collaboration. One of the biggest challenges for new leaders at this level is accountability. Although accountability is the responsibility of leaders at all levels, it produces a bigger challenge when leading multiple teams.

As leaders move into a role of leading an organization function, their mindset must change. Leaders should always be striving to develop a more strategic mindset. However, at this level of leadership it is required. The mindset must focus on longer term strategy. The strategic thinking must include not only the what but the how of the future. Staying attuned to the latest technology and operational methods available for improving effectiveness, efficiency, and ensuring sustainability. This requires the leader to have a complete understanding of the business model, a value for learning, being open to accepting what one doesn’t know, and demonstrating effective communication skills. At this level of leadership, the leader may be their own biggest challenge.

Ascending to a business leader brings its own requirements and challenges. Depending on the size of the organization, leading a function and being a business leader may be similar if not the same. The business leader focuses solely on the how of the business. The strategic thinking includes growing the business, sustainability of profits, increasing competitive advantage, and earnings and other financial ratios. The level of strategic thinking must continue to develop. The role becomes more complex. This requires the business leader to develop skills for managing complexity. At this level of leadership, the leader must have a clear understanding of the big picture of the organization. Understanding and valuing all functions of the business is critical. This differs from previously valuing the function being led. Business leaders must increase their visibility in the organization. Employees at all levels must be aware of the leader. The leader must earn respect and build trust throughout the organization.

The next, and final, level in the organization is enterprise leader. This leader has the responsibility for the whole of the organization. Most of the skills required to be an