by Jane Perdue | Leadership, Paradox & Polarity
Feeling like everyone but you is being promoted? Wondering why your team has lost its spark? Questioning how few people at work are interested in your ideas and opinions? Perhaps it’s time for a leadership practice checkup to assess how good you are at managing opposities.
Professor and author Michael D. Watkins offers seven topics for leaders to take into account as they assess their leadership practices. These methods require maintaining an equilibrium between analytical thinking and conceptual mindsets—a fundamental necessity for leading as well as managing effectively. If your career growth and influence are stalled out, reflect on your answers to these seven questions.
- Are you working as a specialist or a generalist?
Vikram Mansharamani notes that “the future may belong to the generalist.” A fast-moving, quickly changing business environment requires the ability to deal with a broad range of uncertainty. “Ideological reliance on a single perspective appears detrimental to one’s ability to successfully navigate vague or poorly-defined situations (which are more prevalent today than ever before).”
- Are you thinking like an analyst or an integrator?
Successful leaders see a wide range of possibility. Strategy advisers Michael Sales and Anika Savage say that these individuals know “how to honor and weave together the thoughts and feelings of others with their own into a line of principled action.”
- Are you functioning as a tactician or as a strategist?
Big picture leaders get out of the day-to-day weeds so they can follow Peter Drucker’s advice for strategic planning: formulate the strategy, implement it, monitor results, and make adjustments.
- Are you engaged as a bricklayer or as an architect?
Leaders assure that “strategy, structure, operating models, and skill bases fit together effectively and efficiently, and harness this understanding to make needed organizational changes,” notes Watkins.
- Are you focused on being a problem-solver or an agenda setter?
Effective leaders know when to step back from being hands-on, aiming instead for shaping the long-term vision. Research from James M. Kouzes and Barry Posner reveals “being for forward-thinking — envisioning exciting possibilities and enlisting others in a shared view of the future — is the attribute that most distinguishes leaders from nonleaders.”
- Do you see yourself as a warrior or a diplomat?
Responding with tact and grace is the hallmark of a humble, win-win oriented leader who has learned to transcend ego. Individuals who have mastered the art and science of functioning this way are author Jim Collins describes as Level 5 leaders: “a study in duality: modest and willful, shy and fearless.”
- Do you position yourself in a cast member or leading role?
Everyone can be a leader even if they aren’t the in-charge leader. All it takes is a mix of daring, compassion, accountability, and a dollop of guts. Being overly meek and blending into the background doesn’t drive results or build engagement.
Savvy leaders recognize that all the combinations Watkins lists may be applicable in any given set of circumstances, ignoring the “or” and correctly applying what Collins calls the “power of the AND.” These smart leaders embrace possibility with openness, practice inclusion without judgment, turn dreams into reality, and inspire others to do the same.
Image credit (before quote): Pixabay
by Jane Perdue | Leadership, Paradox & Polarity
For sure, our brains prefer simplicity. I know mine does!
In a world where we’re pressed for time and performance, we instinctively look for ideas and solutions that support how we think—and ignore evidence to the contrary (the dreaded confirmation bias at work).
Deciding “either/or” is quick, easy, and sometimes an enormous mistake. (more…)
by Jane Perdue | Paradox & Polarity
If you knew a replacement part would add an extra 90¢ in costs and yield only a dime in warranty savings, would you authorize use of the more expensive part?
Probably not.
Managers would crunch the business case and find the spending increase unjustified.
But suppose you knew the additional cost would prevent costly accidents and even save lives. Would your decision be different? (more…)
by Jane Perdue | Paradox & Polarity
At the time I thought it was the coolest thing, ever. Mostly because I wanted my Mom to treat me the same way.
Our next door neighbor let her son, Grant, choose between different options.
Would you like macaroni and cheese or a hot dog for lunch? Will we read a book today or go to the movies? Do you want to sign up for riding camp or take piano lessons this summer?
There was no picking lunch food or activities at our house. (more…)
by Margaret Seidler | Paradox & Polarity
Margaret Seidler
After a 360° assessment that was, shall we say, less than stellar, I looked for a magic bullet to improve my leadership abilities.
What made a pivotal difference and accelerated my own abilities was discovering Polarity Thinking—a set of principles and a mapping tool introduced by Dr. Barry Johnson in 1975.
I found polarity thinking a straightforward way to both document my wisdom and to shine a light on my blind spots.
What is a polarity?
(more…)
by Jane Perdue | Character, Paradox & Polarity
I’m at the Lead Change Group blog today…check it out!
I’ve long believed life isn’t an either/or choice but rather an array of both/and opportunities.
One place where the either/or versus both/and orientation shows up in stark contrast is in working with people to produce outcomes, whether it’s at work, at home, in the community, etc.
Some individuals have an intense heads-down focus on delivering a finished task. Others prefer to build camaraderie and esprit de corps.
A welcome few understand all work gets done by and through people. They practice the art and science of delivering solid results and developing/maintaining relationships by using their heads to manage and their hearts to lead.
Continue reading…
Image credit before quote: Dreamstime
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I discovered I always have choices and sometimes it’s only a choice of attitude. ~Judith M. Knowlton
In the long run, we shape our lives, and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility. ~Eleanor Roosevelt
…the art of living rightly is like all arts: the capacity alone is born with us; it must be learned, and practiced with incessant care. ~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Each problem has hidden in it an opportunity so powerful that it literally dwarfs the problem. The greatest success stories were created by people who recognized a problem a turned it into an opportunity. ~Joseph Sugarman
Too many people are thinking of security instead of opportunity. They seem more afraid of life than death. ~James F. Byrnes
It still holds true that man is most uniquely human when he turns obstacles into opportunities. ~Eric Hoffer
Opportunity is often difficult to recognize; we usually expect it to beckon us with beepers and billboards. ~William Arthur Ward
The paradox is the seed of truth. This germ just needs a fertile ground to flourish and bear fruit. ~Léo Errera
I am afraid all we can do is to accept the paradox and try to accommodate ourselves to it. ~ Willem de Sitter
Whenever the essential nature of things is analysed by the intellect, it must seem absurd or paradoxical. This has always been recognized by the mystics, but has become a problem in science only very recently. ~Fritjof Capra
