Leadership

1.8 Be a warm touch

We sometimes describe people as ‘a really warm person’. We might also refer to someone as being ‘cold and distant’. A leader doesn’t necessarily have to be liked. But they make life so much easier for themselves when they are. The ability to show genuine personal warmth towards employees can be a real advantage.

Showing personal warmth to people must be genuine. Haven’t you noticed that those who only pretend to be personally warm often come across as patronizing and insincere? Insincerity in a leader is usually disastrous. Better to be a cold – but honest – leader than a false, insincere one.

So let’s look at those characteristics warm people might possess.

 They like people. They know that everyone has their faults (including themselves!) but they accept people for who they are.

 They make the person they’re dealing with the centre of attention. They show strong eye contact and listen carefully to what the other person is saying.

“One kind word can warm three winter months”

Japanese proverb

 They take a genuine interest in the lives of others. They know many people take great pleasure talking about their lives and their families.

 They smile and look pleased to see people. They greet people and show that they are genuinely pleased to see them.

 They have open body language. They appear relaxed and at ease when chatting. They stand in a way that the other person finds comfortable. For example, not standing full on to a shy person.

 Their voice has a wide pitch range. Cold people have a very limited range when speaking. A warm person’s wide pitch range conveys real enthusiasm.

 They’re careful not to dominate the other person. They make sure that the other person has an equal input to a conversation.

 They avoid aggressive behaviour. Unfortunately, some people start by showing personal warmth but let it turn into the heat of anger!

 They care about people. When someone is upset they quickly look to help. They show empathy with someone who is having a difficult time and listen patiently.

A leader has to be persuasive. And one of the qualities that can aid their ability to persuade is the degree to which they can build and maintain the necessary personal warmth with their team.

People who fake personal warmth can appear insincere and patronizing.

1.9 Develop yourself or get left behind

Early on in my career I remember a saying on the office wall, “When you stop learning, you start dying.” Years later I discovered it was by Einstein. A man whose life was a perfect example of continuous self-development. So what is self-development and what can we do to make sure we don’t “start dying”?

Self-development is about taking responsibility for our learning. The real benefit is that it keeps our skills relevant – especially in this constantly changing world. It’s an appetite that devours new thinking. And if we demonstrate this appetite, our team will also want to eat from that same table.

case study A director I used to work for would often ask me, “Michael, what have you learned lately?” At first I’d be confused. I must have learned something! I’d think back and mumble a few words about a book I’d read or something I’d been told. In time, I got clever and, when I did learn something, would make a mental note to use it when I next saw my director. After a while I was amazed at how many examples I was storing up! I wasn’t ‘the brightest bulb on the tree’, but I was learning so much. What my director had done was raise my awareness of how much learning I was exposed to every hour of my day.

So how do we develop ourselves? Try these tips.

 Take personal responsibility for your own growth. It’s not the training team or HR’s responsibility. It’s yours.

 Develop a plan that identifies key areas you want to know more about. Keep a learning log where you make notes of important lessons from any book, CD, programme or conversation.

 Get yourself a mentor. Someone who can facilitate your learning.

 Broaden your reading. Don’t just read the same publications. Go for something that’s different. Shake up your thinking.

 Regularly ask yourself, “What have I learned today?” Don’t settle for the obvious. Think about issues in a deeper way.

 Really listen to someone with whom you’re having a disagreement. Ask questions about their point of view. Don’t just turn off! You may emerge with a real insight.

 Tap into other people’s experiences. How have they done things? Be a sponge and absorb all of that free education.

Self-development keeps our skills relevant in a constantly evolving workplace.

1.10 Work to live – live to work

Work-life balance has always been a big issue. Go back in history and you find that many people worked long and punishing hours. Look around the world and you’ll see the same lack of balance in many people’s lives. So what balance should we have?

If you have a problem getting the balance right, then I would point you to the website www.worklifebalance.com. They have three simple statements about this subject:

 Work-life balance does not mean an equal balance. Scheduling an equal number of hours for each of your various work and personal activities is unrealistic. Life should be more fluid than that.

 Your best individual work-life balance will vary over time, often on a daily basis. The right balance for you today will probably be different for you tomorrow. The right balance when you are single will be different if you have a partner or have children.

 There is no perfect, one-size fits all, balance you should be striving for. The best work-life balance is different for each of us because we all have different priorities and different lives.

one minute wonder How well balanced is the time you spend at both home and work? If work dominates, what home activities are suffering? How much do these activities enrich your life? When you’re on your deathbed, will you be grateful for the extra hours you put in at the office?

A wonderful boss I had when I was just starting work told me: “You never get something for nothing. Everything has a price.” Over the years his words have stayed with me. Do what you want to do, but be willing to pay the price for it.

The work-life balance website agrees: “Achievement and enjoyment are the front and back of the coin of value in life. You can’t have one without the other, no more than you can have a coin with only one side. Trying to live a one-sided life is why so many ‘successful’ people are not happy, or not nearly as happy as they should be.”

Yes, the organization and you have a responsibility to help employees achieve a balance. But we all have an individual responsibility to ourselves to ensure that our personal needs and wants are met.

A work-life balance will constantly change according to different factors in your home and working life.

Leadership responsibilities

Is leadership different from management? My conviction is that it is. A company appoints a leader because it has expectations. This chapter begins by clarifying those expectations and examining how to deliver against them. We then explore the range of behaviours required in a leader – taking command one moment, then demonstrating genuine humility the next, employing the right approach that restores a team to its previous effectiveness.

2.1 Transform the abstract into concrete

Leadership theories are everywhere – the Internet, books, television. But let’s ignore the experts’ theories for a moment and get back to the basics. Let’s look at what your company wants from you. After all, they’re the ones paying your salary.

Companies have expectations of their leaders. I believe their expectations are usually that you will deliver the following:

1 Look to the future and anticipate how you think things will look. Can you describe it out loud to someone? What challenges will there be in this future?

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