Topic Text: Leadership Competencies
Leadership for Intelligence Professionals
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Learn to Lead |
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Welcome |
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Leadership for Intelligence Professionals |
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Course Syllabus |
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Course Topics |
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Introduction to Leadership |
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Leadership Traits |
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The Leader's Character |
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Types of Leaders and Styles of Leadership |
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Leadership Competencies |
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Followership, Leadership and the Staff Officer |
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Leadership in Intelligence Coordination: Leading Teams |
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Leadership in Management |
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Supplemental Materials |
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Supplemental Materials |
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Self-Assessment |
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Self-Assessment Guidance |
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Worksheet |
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Personal Leadership Development Plan |
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Plan Guidance |
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Example |
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Two Student Examples |
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Student Example: Calendar Style |
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Personal Leadership Philosophy |
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Philosophy Guidance and Example |
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Student Examples |
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COMMUNICATIONS |
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Learn to Lead
learntolead@earthlink.net
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Leadership Competencies
(March 2010)
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Introduction Introduction The last topic concluded that the future is uncertain, but certain to pose a variety of challenges in terms of the state of the organization you may be called upon to Lead. Thus, you must be prepared to be the appropriate “type” of Leader that any state of an organization and its associated major task requires. To do so, you must develop and sustain and improve all of the five core traits and other personal qualities. Those traits and personal qualities have been identified (In topic: “Leadership Traits and Qualities”) and the means of developing them has been suggested. (In topic: Leadership Types and Styles”, “Self-Assessment”.) Likewise, you may find that the people of the organization may or may not be ready and willing or committed and competent enough to take on the tasks required. Thus, you must be prepared to deliver your Leadership in a “style” that is most appropriate to the people and their ability to respond to the task at hand—the situation. To do that, you need to have or develop a number of other skills and behaviors. This topic focuses on some of the skills and behaviors required to do so.
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Definitions Definitions Webster’s says that: -“Competent” is “having the requisite qualities or abilities” -“Competency”: is “…a sufficiency of means…” Montgomery Van Wart says more generally that: For ease, traits, skills, and behaviors can all be called competencies…..Job competencies are the traits, skills and behaviors most important for a specific position or class of positions. As defined by the OPM, a competency is: …an observable, measurable pattern of skills, knowledge, abilities, behaviors and other characteristics that an individual needs to perform work roles or occupational functions successfully. To clarify: to have the “job competencies” for the any “specific” position of Leadership or the general “class” of leadership, you need not only the five core “traits” and other qualities that permit you to be the required “type” of Leader, but you need a variety of other “skills” and “behaviors” so that you can use any “style” of Leadership. The sum total of your traits, skills and behaviors are your leadership competencies.
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Kinds of Competencies and Skills Kinds of Competencies Montgomery Van Wart groups competencies into “task-oriented”, people-oriented” and “organization-oriented” categories. To advance in your chosen field, you have worked hard to develop the task-oriented competencies that you need to do your job well as a military specialist, counter-terrorism analyst, interrogator or software engineer, or supervisor, etc. Likewise, many of you have now begun to work equally hard to develop the organization-oriented competencies, needed to become an effective, creative, and decisive manager, staff officer or executive. Since, as you progress further in your career, your most important job will be Leadership and, since Leadership is about inspiring people; to become an outstanding intelligence Leader, you must work just as hard to develop the people-oriented competencies, required to do that job well. For example, you must develop the social, empathetic and inspirational competencies—i.e., personal traits and behaviors—required to inspire people; plus the delegating, feedback, communication, participating and team building skills required to Lead diverse groups of professionals. This is extremely important for you to remember as aspiring public Leaders because Van Wart’s findings from an Office of Personnel Management (OPM) survey show that federal supervisors appropriately, “…divide the bulk of their high priority attention relatively equally between people and tasks.” However, when, as managers, they are required to give some attention to organization-related issues, the priority they give to tasks only drops slightly but the priority that they give to people drops significantly. Even worse, “The profile is quite different for executives. Their top priority attention goes to organization-oriented behaviors followed closely by task oriented behaviors; relatively speaking they give scant attention to people-oriented behaviors.” Further, as executives “…focus on organization-oriented behaviors actually increases…[their] people oriented behaviors decrease….” These findings suggest, what most of you have already recognized, that senior intelligence professionals sometimes do not devote enough time to Leading people. This may be because, as Desmond D. Martin and Richard L. Shell say in the course text: An employee who has a large personal investment in academic and/or specialized training is likely to see the application of those acquired skills the most vital part of their life. When promoted into the management hierarchy many of these employees tend to feel that their greatest contribution can still be made through the application of their acquired specialized skills. As a result, the greater portion of their work time is devoted to performing non-managerial tasks. Generally, when a manager does this, the organization suffers. Perhaps if federal executives would reduce the priority attention they gave to task-oriented behavior—i.e., micromanaging—they would have the time to give priority attention to the people of the organization, and could even spend more time on their organization-oriented activities so that they would not need to cause their subordinate managers to take time and attention away from people to help out with organization-oriented activities.
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Emotional Intelligence Emotional Intelligence Task and organizational competencies are normally acquired and developed based on education, training and practical work experience. Success in those efforts is usually determined by peoples' innate intelligence and their desire and ability to learn. Their intellectual capacity to do so is often reflected by their Intelligence Quotient (IQ). On the other hand, people-oriented or inter-personal competencies or behaviors are normally acquired and developed based on family or cultural socialization and life experience. Success in developing those skills is usually determined by peoples’ personality and commitment to self-improvement. That level of social maturity is frequently described in terms of “Emotional Intelligence” and measured by “Emotional Quotient (EQ)”. Emotional Intelligence is a concept first defined by John D. Mayer, a Professor of Psychology at the The originator defined Emotional Intelligence: From a scientific (rather than a popular) standpoint, emotional intelligence is the ability to accurately perceive your own and others’ emotions; to understand the signals that emotions send about relationships; and to manage your own and others’ emotions. Goleman, the popularizer, originally defined Emotional Intelligence as:: Emotional Intelligence–[is] the ability to manage ourselves and our relationships effectively–[and] consists of four fundamental capabilities: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and social skill. Each capability, in turn, is composed of specific sets of competencies . [i.e., certain behaviors and skills that must be mastered.] He described the four “fundamental capabilities”: -Self-Awareness: Recognizing who you are and who you want to be. In later versions, Emotional Intelligence was said to consist of “five components”: “Self-Awareness”; “Self-Regulation”; with “Motivation” and “Empathy” replacing Social Awareness; and “Social Skill. Of the capabilities or components, Self-Awareness is the basis for all the others and is, therefore, considered the most important for developing Emotional Intelligence. Goleman further has defined Self-Awareness as the: Ability to recognize and understand your moods, emotions and drives as well as their effect on others. He also says: Self-awareness means having a deep understanding of one’s emotions, strengths and weaknesses, needs and drives....People who have a high degree of self-awareness recognize how their feelings affect them, other people, and their job performance. Once you understand yourself, it is then possible to begin the development necessary for controlling your feelings and managing the way you behave and relate to other people. That is Self-Management or Self-Regulation, which has been defined as the “ability to control or redirect disruptive impulses and moods.” It includes “the propensity to suspend judgment, to think before acting.” Goleman says it also: ...is being able to motivate oneself and persist in the face of frustrations: to control impulse and delay gratification; to regulate one's moods and keep distress from swamping the ability to think; to empathize and hope. When you have undertaken a Self-Assessment (For guidance go here____.) you will have taken the first step in this process and will have undoubtedly gained greater Self-Awareness. From that Self-Assessment, in addition to identifying personality characteristics that will provide strengths and weaknesses contributing to building the core traits (as was suggested in the previous topic “Types of Leaders and Styles of Leadership”) you will likely also have discovered some other characteristics or behaviors inherent in your personality or temperament that can cause problems at the interpersonal level for your leadership efforts. For example: perhaps, because of your personality or temperament you are excitable and not very patient; or perhaps you are overly sensitive and take disagreement as criticism; or possibly you are shy and not very outgoing in a group. All of those behaviors can affect the way you deal with other people and, thereby, affect your Leadership. You probably don't want to, and usually can’t, change your personality. Indeed, while some, including Goleman, have listed personality characteristics such as “empathy”, “intuition”, “optimism”, “self-confidence” and “tolerance” that contribute to Emotional Intelligence, Mayer pointed out that …diverse personality traits, however admirable, don’t necessarily add up to a single definition of emotional intelligence….Certainly these personality traits are important and (sometimes) enhancing them can be useful. But recent research makes it clear that these characteristics are distinct from emotional intelligence as it is scientifically defined. In essence, having or developing Emotional Intelligence is not so much as having certain personality characteristics, as understanding which ones you have or don’t have, knowing what affect they can have on dealing with others and then controlling them or using them as appropriate to facilitate your relationships with others. Based on a Self-Assessment, you will understand what you need to do to exercise Self-Management/Self-Regulation or, just, self-discipline in your dealings with and reactions to others. Thus, your next step should be to create a Personal Leadership Development Plan to begin to develop and practice those Self-Management/Self Regulation competencies. (For guidance, go here____.) As you are developing your Self Management/Self-Regulation competencies so that you can deal with other people in a way that facilitates good inter-personal relations and Leadership, you should also be thinking about building your Social Awareness or your knowledge and ability to understand people and what motivates them. Because of your past organizational affiliation—military, civilian, defense, non-defense, intelligence, other national security—you have already developed a level of Social Awareness that allows you understand empathize with and motivate people in organizations like yours and who are like you. In the future you will have to work with a broader spectrum of people from other kinds of organizations and, thus, will want to understand their organizational traditions, ways of working and their individual professional needs and wants so that you can better empathize with and motivate them. In short, as you become more senior you must also have greater Social Awareness of a broader more generalized type because you will have a need to empathize and motivate a broader and more diverse group of people. Thus, in your Personal Leadership Development Plan you should include a commitment to take opportunities to broaden your contact with a broader spectrum of organizations and people and learn about them. Based on that Social Awareness you will be able to develop the Social Skills so vital to Leadership. Some of the “competencies” —some behaviors and some skills— listed by Goleman that you will need are to: -effectively delegate tasks in ways that empower and enable followers, -develop people through feedback and guidance, -communicate effectively, -manage conflict and, -build relationships which create bonding and teamwork.
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Why Develop Your Emotional Intelligence? Why Develop Your Emotional Intelligence? While it is often assumed that a person's IQ can serve as a predictor of task and professional success, Goleman's perspective is that, at best, IQ contributes about 20 percent to life success and the other 80 percent comes from EQ. Joseph Nye cites the originators who “suggest it plays a more modest role”. Nevertheless, Nye says: “There is general agreement that emotional intelligence is an important component of leadership.” To emphasize that importance, in one of “A Dozen Quick Take-Aways” that he offers, Nye says: “…emotional intelligence and practical knowledge are more important than pure IQ in judgment.” Goleman says;
It is not that IQ and technical skills are irrelevant. They do matter, but mainly as “threshold capabilities”; that is, they are entry-level requirements for executive positions. But, my research, along with recent studies, clearly shows that emotional intelligence is the sine qua non of leadership. Without it, a person can have the best training in the world, an incisive analytical mind, and an endless supply of smart ideas, but he still won’t make a great leader. Regarding the research to which he refers, Goleman says ...analysis of data from “competency models” relating skills and performance of personnel from 188 companies showed that....when I calculated the ratio of technical skills, IQ and emotional intelligence as ingredients of excellent performance, emotional intelligence proved to be twice as important as others for jobs at all levels....Moreover...emotional intelligence played an increasingly important role at the higher levels....In other words, the higher the rank of a person considered to be a star performer, the more emotional intelligence capabilities showed up as a reason for his or her performance. Montgomery Van Wart points out; …generally, the higher in the organizational hierarchy, the more the leader is called upon to move from a primarily dominance on task behaviors, to interpersonal behaviors. But, sadly, as already noted, when Van Wart analyzed the 1997 survey from OPM that he found that of “150 narrowly defined competencies that supervisors, managers and executives in the federal government identified as being crucial or very important”, the “overall priority” given to “people-oriented competencies” was lower than that given to “task-oriented competencies” or “organization-oriented competencies”. But, fortunately “…the most critical interpersonal skills”— “motivating” and “developing staff” —were given top priority by federal executives and supervisors. That is encouraging because motivated people and a well developed staff are the basis for organizational success. Leadership is about people! Those intelligence professionals who have not yet focused on the development of their interpersonal skills should know that. …a survey revealed that leaders are most likely to overestimate themselves regarding self-awareness, which refers to the ability to recognize how their emotions affect and are influenced by others… Thus, they should heed the warnings Marshall Goldsmith. The higher up you go, the more your problems are behavioral and interpersonal. Your people skills are what set you apart, and changes in your behavior are the most important changes you can make. All other things being equal, your people skills (or lack of them) become pronounced the higher up you go. In fact, even when all other things are not equal, your people skills often make the difference in how high you go. Goleman and his collaborators, Richard Boyatzis and Annie McKee say: No matter what leaders set out to do, whether it is creating strategy or mobilizing teams to action, their success depends on how they do it. Even if they get everything else just right, if leaders fail in this primal task of driving emotions in the right direction, nothing else will work as well as it could or should.
A recent U.S. Army War College survey supported this conclusion. The authors surveyed members of four divisions that had spent a full tour serving in Operation IRAQI FREEDOM and asked them to identify in their senior commanders “those behaviors that are crucial for contemporary leader effectiveness.” The study listed the “Big 12” most critical leadership behaviors. One of the study authors, Lieutenant General Walter F. Ulmer, Jr. USA (Ret.) said that the study showed that even when tactical and technical competence were excellent, interpersonal skills were critical. Likewise, Army Major David S. Abrahams, while a student at the Army Command and Indeed, as Montgomery Van Wart points out: Because leadership is about dealing with people, social skills are a major pillar of a leader’s skill set. In fact researchers who study derailment find that weak social skills are among the most common sources of executive career failure. As it turns out, people are rather unforgiving of social ineptness, lapses, or even innocuous oversights of courtesy by leaders This emphasis on interpersonal skills as critical to success in Leadership is not unique to Emotional Intelligence or to Goleman. Malcolm Gladwell points out that: “…psychologist Robert Sternberg calls “practical intelligence”…things like knowing what to say to whom, knowing when to say it, and knowing how to say it for maximum effect….it’s not knowledge for its own sake. It’s knowledge that helps you read situations correctly and get what you want. And critically, it is a kind of intelligence separate from the sort of analytical ability measured by IQ. Nor is it really new. Montgomery Van Wart points out that at the turn of the twentieth century, John D. Rockefeller, when asked what quality he most valued in his chief aides, replied “I will pay more for the ability to deal with other people than any other ability under the sun.” Likewise, while the concept of EQ has been developed by psychologists and stated in more scientific terms, it is essentially what Dale Carnegie emphasized almost 50 years ago. He stated that 15% of success can be attributed to professional knowledge and 85% to the “ability to express ideas, to assume leadership and arouse enthusiasm among people.” And, why should that be surprising? After all, Leadership is about people. Here are Carnegie's suggestions:
The good news is that, unlike IQ which remains relatively fixed throughout life, your EQ can be improved, because it is simply based on your personality and experience over which you do have some control. Thus, Goleman’s emphasis is that those who want to be Leaders must develop their Emotional Intelligence by recognizing and understanding themselves in order to better understand and influence others.
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Social Awareness: Understanding People Social Awareness: Understanding People In 1943, Abraham Maslow wrote an article entitled "A Theory of Human Motivation". He depicted the primary needs that motivate people as a pyramid: with a base of essential needs that all people have:
Maslow's pyramid of needs also can be used to describe what people need and want to receive in order to be motivated in an organization. First of all, they need to work in a safe and healthy environment. Once there they need to feel that they were specially selected to be hired into the organization and convinced that they have a secure career. Then they need to feel that they belong to a quality organization and have role in assuring the quality of the organization. And they need to be appreciated and valued for their work and be given the opportunity to do something they consider meaningful and fulfilling. More recently, Stephen Covey has reemphasized this same set of needs, in his own unique style: He says that what "lights the fire within" people "inspires them" is the opportunity:
But, as Maslow's pyramid emphasizes, this is a "hierarchy" of needs. As Martin and Shell say: Maslow arranged these needs in a hierarchy, with the lower needs taking on predominant importance; once satisfied, the next level of needs assumes greater importance. People will not respond and be motivated by their higher level needs (or wants) until their lower level "physiological" and "security" needs have been met. These are foremost on peoples's minds and apparent on a daily basis in the workplace. In that regard, Frederick Herzberg found that there are, indeed, two categories of needs: "hygiene factors" and "motivators" and people respond to them differently. Hygiene Factors = job security, working conditions, policies and procedures, supervisors, co-workers. These fall into the "physiological" and "security" needs at the bottom of the Maslow pyramid. It was Herzberg's view that when "Hygiene Factors" or environmental factors such as ...an annoying boss, a low salary, an uncomfortable workspace or stupid rules. [Are] Managed badly [they] make people miserable and they certainly can be demotivating. But, even if managed brilliantly, they don't motivate anybody to work harder or smarter. While hygiene or environmental factors are what people complain about, when you fix them, it will only stop them complaining. It will not motivate them to improve their performance. As Herzberg recognized that it is only "Motivators" that will stimulate people to higher performance: People are motivated, instead, by interesting work, challenge and increasing responsibility. These intrinsic factors answer peoples' deep-seated need for growth and achievement. Thus, if an organization wants motivated people, it must first insure that it provides an organizational environment that meets peoples' lower level physiological and security needs: a healthy and comfortable working environment, steady job, and potential for a career. But, having done that, the managers should not expect people to be motivated to do more than come to work and do their job. If the organization wants to motivate people to improved higher levels of performance, it needs Leaders who will meet peoples' higher level wants for belongong, esteem and self-actualization. Lee G. Bolman and Terrence E. Deal emphasize the same ideas. They suggest that "Leading is giving" and, that beyond job security, there are "four gifts" a Leader must bestow on the people of the organization to meet their higher level needs:
Overall, people want a secure job and career and to be heard and considered on organizational issues and be given the opportunity to develop their talent and to use it to make a contribution to the organization. This is confirmed by a survey that found that 75% of all employees said they want to work in an organization on a "long-term basis" and 90% said that "true success is about being trusted to get the job done." But, while all people are the same in terms of their basic needs and higher level wants that will motivate them to improved performance, they are also different in important ways that Leaders must understand as they interact with the people of the organization.
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Generational Differences Generational Differences
Much is now being made by popular commentators of the generational differences in the workforce these days, especially about the differences between the generation now coming of age and entering the workforce and those who must Lead and manage them. Some believe that the workplace will become a “psychological battlefield” in which “bosses will have to be half-shrink and half-diplomat”. This is of special concern to the Intelligence Community which suffered a Post-Cold War ten-year hiring drought and has recently undertaken a five year hiring binge. For that reason, Leaders and aspiring Leaders need to have a better understanding of the nature of the generations now in the workforce. William Straus and Neil Howe who “pioneered” the study of generations with their 1991 “seminal” book: Generations: The History of Since that time, as others have built on the work of Strauss and Howe, they have slightly adjusted the dates that define the generations. But, as Strauss and Howe admitted when they originally set the generational dates: “Like all other social categories…generations can be imprecise at the boundaries.” Recent commentators have also changed the names of the most recent generations. Thus, today it is commonly considered that the generations that make up the American population are:
-The Silent Generation: The children of the Greatest Generation (which has almost totally died out) who are now in retirement and aging. -The Boom Generation (Boomers); now in their 50s into their mid-60s who are senior in organizational tenure and often rank. -Generation X (Gen Xs); now in their late 20s s and into their late 40s who are the bulk of mid-level employees. -Generation Y (Gen Ys); some now in their 20s who are the new employees entering the workforce and others still in school who will be the employees of the future. (Sometimes, today, this generation is discussed as having two parts with the younger wave, those not yet of working age, called the Millennials.) These generations are not all the same size. Because of the way various authorities calculate the generational time-period and because of the “baby boom” after WWII, the Boom generation is the largest generation. They constitute about one-fourth of the population….inevitably, they have created a kind of bottleneck, in the work world, in politics, in power. The frustration this poses for the young and talented should be obvious.
Generation X is only about half the size of the Boom generation. Generation Y, the children of the Boomer generation is almost as large as the Boomer generation. “The class of 2009 will be almost the largest in The combination of Generation Y eagerly advancing up the professional ranks and Baby Boomers often refusing to retire has, over the course of a few short years, dramatically shifted the composition of the work force; each of these generations is roughly twice the size of Generation X which lies between them. This unbalanced composition of the workforce is even more exaggerated in the Intelligence Community workforce, Boomers are currently the largest generational component and will continue to be if they postpone retirement in order to rebuild their retirement accounts. Gen Xers are the smallest component, not only because of the smaller number of people in their generation, but because fewer were hired in the downsizing of the post-Cold War era. As more and more Gen Yers are hired, during the current hiring boom, they will eventually become the largest component of the Community workforce. One might say that, when it comes to leadership opportunities in the Community, Generation X is caught in the middle. Based on their theory of the sequential nature of four types of generations and their study of history, Strauss and Howe named and defined the “peer personality” of each of those four generations at various stages of their life cycle. Having done so, they forecast the peer personality-based characteristics and relationships that they expected the three generations in the American workforce would have today. To see those forecasts by Strauss and Howe as what the current characteristics and relationships of the three generations now in the workforce might be and to and gain a better understanding of the workplace situation and tensions that may influence the career prospects of your generation, go here ______.From that summary, you have probably recognized that the generation to which you belong will significantly influence your opportunities for achieving a Leadership position and will determine the nature of the Leadership that you will be called upon to exercise. Most recently, commentators have focused on describing the generational characteristics of the Generation Y/Millennial generation. In a description of the Generation Y that seems to make them a perfect fit for the Intelligence Community, Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams say that: The Net Gen spends time searching, scrutinizing, authenticating, collaborating and organizing….The Net Gen’s modus operandi is networking. Likewise,the former DNI, Mike McConnell understood much of that. He told members of this new generation of hires that he saw them as: The best educated, most technically literate of any generation of Americans. You know no limits. You feel like you’re entitled to everything. You are highly creative and technologically advanced. You believe anything and everything is possible. You crave teamwork, you crave fun, and you demand social relationships with everyone to include your boss. Likewise, s · More team oriented and naturally collaborative · More likely to take initiative to reach out and across boundaries · Less sensitive to organizational constructs · IT-savvy... · Fast learners, able to search and discover information adeptly · Less likely to reflect on the significance of data and communicating import (“telling the story”). All those, except the last, sound like outstanding characteristics for the intelligence professional and just what the Community needs today.
Other commentators have had plenty to say about both the good and not so good characteristics of Gen Yers with which Leaders should understand, to check them out, go here_____ .
Jennifer Deal argues that, overall, the different generations are more alike in terms of their basic needs and higher level wants that will motivate them to improved performance.
…..The Generations now of working age value essentially the same thing….Here are 10 intergenerational truths: 1. All generations have similar values. 2. Everyone wants respect. 3. Leaders must be trustworthy. 4. People want leaders who are credible and trustworthy. 5. Internal politics is a problem at any age. 6. No one really likes change. 7. Loyalty depends on the context, not the generation. 8. It is as easy to retain a young person as it is to retain an older one. 9. Everyone wants to learn. 10. Almost everyone wants a coach. Likewise, a recent survey reinforces that view. While there is a: “…stereotype of young workers as being afraid of hard work---more American Idle than American Idol.…a survey of 4200 young graduates from 44 countries…found that they want many of the same things from work as previous generations, including long tenure with a small number of employers. And they are willing to put in the hours to get them, if they are treated will. While despite generational differences, all people in the organization have the same human, organizational and leadership needs, not all generations are alike in the relative emphasis they place on those needs because of their tenure in the workforce. One recent survey found that people of different generations and, therefore, with different lengths of service in the workforce, place their priorities differently. In early years, learning new skills starts out as more important than pay and career path, but declines with length of service. Desire for a secure career path and pay or promotion increases in importance until mid-career, when expectations for all those things decline. At that point a desire for respect becomes most important. Another survey found that beyond the broad agreement on a desire for long-term employment and for trust: current Gen X employees—those who have about 10 up to 20 years of service and have acquired a mortgage and are getting ready to send children to college and have suffered from recent economic events—“greatest psychological need” was “security”. On the other hand, the newest Y employees—those just entering the workforce and, increasingly, postponing marriage and focusing on career success—place priority on opportunity to “develop skills” and “seek promotion”. In summary: Generational differences loom large in Leadership. Aspiring Leaders, especially those of the much smaller Generation X, will have to understand the attributes of Boomers in order to persevere and achieve Leadership and understand the attributes of Gen Yers in order to exercise and, perhaps cede much of it during a coming crisis. On a more detailed level of exercising Leadership to motivate the individual, the Leader will need to understand which basic needs and wants to emphasize in seeking willing cooperation and support from their followers.
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Gender Differences Gender Differences The gender composition of the workforce has been changing for sometime and, especially, in the mid and upper levels of the Intelligence Community. It will continue to change based on the changing gender composition of university graduates. Thus, it behooves any Leader to understand the differences in behavior that differences in gender bring to the workplace and the different types of Leader, leadership styles and competencies required to respond to that behavior. As the prestigious National Academy of Sciences recognizes: Sex matters. Sex, that is, being male or female, is an important basic human variable that should be considered when designing and analyzing studies in all areas. Certainly when designing and analyzing the approaches to take when seeking to motivate their followers, Leaders should certainly consider gender. While men and women are all alike in terms of their basic needs and the higher level wants that motivate them to undertake a career and commit to the organization, they also behave in different and important ways that Leaders must understand as they interact with them in the workplace and seek to motivate them to higher levels of performance. For the reasons that scientists believe that there are behavioral differences because of gender, go here____. Regardless of the reason, differences in brain wiring and chemistry, nurture or hormones, it is clear that at the practical level, men and women often take different approaches to achieve the same results. Just one commonly remarked on difference is navigating. “Women tend to rely on remembering landmarks, whereas men rely on their geometric skills to work out direction and distance.” Or, as most married couples probably have discovered, when apparently lost, women want to stop and ask for directions, while men want to figure it out with a map and continue driving. While the wide availability of GPS guidance systems for personal navigation has solved that problem, such differences in the male and female problem-solving approaches have implications for the intelligence professional Leader. Leaders should understand that their men or women followers might take a different approach to dealing with a seemingly intractable analytical, technical or bureaucratic issue and, therefore, different professional guidance and a different style of Leadership might be appropriate depending on gender. In terms of other workplace characteristics: The new feminism contends that women….are less aggressive and more consensus-seeking, less competitive and more collaborative, less power obsessed and more group oriented….Peninah Thomson and Jacey Graham, the authors of “A Woman’s Place is in the Boardroom”, assert that women are “better lateral thinkers than men” and “more idealistic”…. Sandra Tsing Loh cites: anecdotal truisms that women are more consensus-minded and team-oriented, and are better at reading human visual cues, interpreting feelings, and maintaining relationships and relationship networks than men. Those latter characteristics suggest that women have a higher innate EQ than men. As a result they also likely expect their Leader to have a high EQ and will respond better to Leaders with high social awareness and social skills. A Leader with high EQ will recognize and be prepared to deal with the differences in how men and women react to anger and stress. Studies have shown that while there is “no difference in the…frequency of incidents of feeling angry….women tended to report anger that was more intense and prolonged.” But, when angry, while both men and women seem to be equally “aggressive”, men tend to rely on “physical aggression” whereas women rely on “social aggression”. But, in an office setting it is not especially wise for a person to be physically or socially aggressive when angry. Containing that anger, however, builds stress. In reacting to stress, the same male physical and female social reaction still seems to apply. In such situations, based on the work of Deborah Tannen it is commonly said that: “Men walk, Women talk.” Or, as John Gray says, “Men go to their caves. Women talk.” More specifically, for men it is a “fight or flight approach to avoid verbal conflict by withdrawal from a difficult situation”. On the other hand, for women, it is a “tend and befriend” approach which leads them to start “asking for directions” and to “seek social support during stressful periods”. Whether these different responses may be wired in the brain and created by hormones or be the result of social influences, an analysis of more than 1000 behavioral and biological studies by Professor Laura Cousino Klein has indicated that there may be a valid basis for believing that such gender differences exist. A wise Leader will understand these responses when delivering critical feedback on performance. As will be pointed out below, critical feedback should take place “immediately” after a failure. But, “immediately” may mean waiting at least until the male has had a chance to leave the office to take a break and run or go to the gym and hit the bag; and the woman has had a chance to phone a friend and vent, which may mean waiting until the next day. Likewise, when the critique is given, a Leader may want to consider that men usually have been raised and trained to operate in a hierarchical structure, to compete and to make points directly. Further, as indicated above, they may like to figure out the route to improvement for themselves. And, so critical feedback is most effective when delivered from boss to subordinate, couched in terms comparative to the performance of others and stated clearly, but without much specific direction on how to improve. On the other hand, women are often raised to operate in an equalitarian structure, to be supportive of others and communicate indirectly. So, critical feedback can be most effective when delivered from team Leader to team member, couched in terms related to supporting the performance of the team and delivered considerately along with casual suggestions and subtle guidance on how to improve. Given the publication dates (mid 1990s) of the books from which the foregoing descriptions of the responses of men and women to anger and stress were drawn, they likely represent the behavior patterns of those in the work force during the 1980s and early 1990s—i.e., the Boomer Generation, those now nearing retirement and the older members of Generation X who form the bulk of the workforce today. Most likely, those generalizations will not represent the behavior of the new hires from Generation Y. When it comes to Leadership, it appears that, as human beings, men and women have much in common but also behave differently. They share the core leadership traits but use different leadership styles. A recent study found that, in a survey, 69 percent of a group comprised equally of men and women: …ranks women equal or better than men in seven of eight leadership traits....including honesty, intelligence, compassion and creativity. Others have also found differences in leadership types and styles as well. Judy Roesner, of the McKinsey, the most venerable of management consultancies, has published research arguing that women apply five of the nine “leadership behaviors” that lead to corporate success more frequently than men. Naill FitzGerald, the chairman of Reuters and a former boss of Unilever….proclaims “Women have different ways of achieving results, and leadership qualities that are becoming more important as our organizations become less hierarchical and more loosely organized around matrix structures.” Joseph Nye points out that: In terms of gender stereotypes, the masculine leadership is assertive, competitive, authoritarian, and focused on commanding the behavior of others. The female style is collaborative, participatory, integrative, and aimed at coopting the behavior of followers. Despite all the scientific and anecdotal evidence of gender differences, Janet Hyde, a professor of psychology and women’s studies has “…collected all the important meta-analyses that have been conducted on differences between the sexes.” She has done a statistical analysis and has concluded “…on the whole men and women are much more alike than they are different.” Thus, it is important for a Leader to know each person as an individual. But, as a starting point for that individualized understanding, a general “social awareness” of the affects of gender is important.
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Professional and Personality Differences Professional and Peronality Differences But, is not just people of different generations or genders that you will be Leading in the Intelligence Community, it is “professionals”. Do the following observations by textbook authors Desmond D. Martin and Richard L. Shell describe you, or more importantly, do they describe those you will be leading? Professionals as a group tend to have a strong sense of self worth…. ….they are particularly concerned with ego and status needs…. Professionals attempt to protect their status position by exhibiting behavior purposely designed to influence others to perceive their work as being difficult and important and they resist all kinds of communication that downgrade the importance of their work or the abilities that they possess…. Thus, while other peoples’ basic psychological, security and belongingness needs may be fulfilled if they are treated fairly and with equality, given a good job in an organization they can respect, it seems that the psychological, security and belongingness needs of professionals require that special attention be given to how the Leader nurtures their ego and enhances their sense of special status in the organization. If not, they may spend more time working to convince others of their importance than performing to prove it Furthermore, Martin and Shell say that studies indicate, and you personally are well aware and understand, that: …professionals prefer large amounts of autonomy and work best in an environment that is conducive to responsibility, growth, and recognition. They expect considerable freedom and autonomy in performing their work. Also, they expect and respond well to interesting and challenging assignments. They seek recognition for good work, and a relatively free environment in which they can set out to attain or achieve that recognition. This suggests that Leaders must also pay special attention to the esteem and, more importantly, the self-actualization needs of professionals. Because as Martin and Shell have noted, and you may have observed in some of your organizations: There is much evidence…to support the conclusion that many environments do not provide this freedom or the much needed recognition. Consequently, many professionals become frustrated…. When an employee is frustrated because of an environment that is impeding personal needs satisfaction, and that environment is fostered by an upper level management….One adaptive response is to strengthen informal group ties with professional colleagues…. Groups of professionals constitute greater threats to management efficiency and effectiveness than do individuals. They can either upset or enhance cooperation with the organization because they can facilitate or reduce motivation among their members. In short, while professionals have the same basic needs and wants as anyone else, they expect and require that the Leader give more attention to meeting them. And, to achieve desired behavior and results from professionals, the Leader must. Leading professionals is a tough job. Finally, while all people share basic human needs, their personalities are different which causes them to behave in different ways within the organization. Despite generation or gender, it is best to know people as individuals, to know their individual personality, and treat them as they would like to be treated. It has been reported that: About 20 years ago scientists established that combinations of five basic dimensions---extroversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism and openness to new ideas and experiences account for all personalities….The five dimensions can be reliably be measured with questionnaires. Armed with the resulting data, scientists are showing that personality predicts such important outcomes as health, job performance and academic success….In some cases the trait plays a direct casual role, as when a lack of conscientiousness torpedoes workplace success. In others, the connection is indirect, as when being disagreeable leaves you with no social network, which can cause stress…. Intelligence Community organizations use a variety of questionnaires to assess the personality of employees and provide feedback so that employees can understand their personality and its specific characteristics so that they can work to build on their strengths and overcome or compensate for weaknesses. This course emphasizes the use of the Myers-Briggs Test Instrument (MBTI). In addition to using the MBTI for their own Self-Assessment (as recommended above), aspiring Leaders may want to study the Myers Briggs material to understand personality types in general and the different characteristics of each that shape the behavior of that type person in the workplace. It is safe to say that, by being informed and sensitive to the differing personality types and their characteristics, even without knowing the specific personality types of their followers; as Leaders get to work with and know their followers, they will be able to identify the follower’s general personality type and, thereby, understand how to work with and Lead that person on an individual basis. For example Martin and Shell point out that: A major characteristic of professionals who are internally oriented [ISTJ administrators and INTJ analysts] is the tendency to take personal credit for job success and responsibility for future job performance. Professionals with internal orientation exhibit a strong relationship between motivation and overall job satisfaction, i.e., satisfaction with pay, promotion, supervision, etc. Consequently managers need to pay attention to these variables as they impact on performance among professionals with strong internal orientations as compared with other subordinates that are externally oriented…. who are more likely to be ESTJ-organizers or ENTJ-strategists and can be motivated by more direct, external approaches, requirements and challenges.
In summary: It is only a well-developed Social Awareness that will allow a Leader to understand that, while all people are the same in terms of their needs, they place different priorities on those needs depending on their generation, and time of service, gender, their status as professionals and individual personality. Leaders must remember the Golden Rule and treat others as you want to be treated—with security and fairness, kindness and respect, opportunity to learn and advance, and make a contribution. But, they also remember the Platinum Rule and make sure that they treat people as they would like to be treated, by generation, gender, personality. To understand people Leaders need to get out among the people of the organization, get to know them first hand, relate to them in a personal way, listen to their concerns and desires, and let them know that they are valued and that their work is appreciated. It cannot be stated enough times, that there is nothing more inspiring or motivating to people than for them to realize that the Leader knows who they are, knows what they are doing, thinks it is valuable and well done. The most inspiring words that you can use as a Leader are the person’s name followed by “great job” and “thanks”.
Remember this: The Golden Rule: -Like you, all people want to be treated with: --Security and Fairness --Kindness and Respect --Opportunity to develop and use their talent --Opportunity to make a contribution. The Platinum Rule: -But, they also wanted to be treated as they would prefer by -Generation -Gender -Professional standing -Personality And, -Most of all, they want to be treated as: -Individuals
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Motivating the Organizaton Motivating the Organization All organizations need to be motivated as an entity to perform at a high level to achieve common goals. In all organizations that is the motivational role of the senior organizational Leader. In the largest organizations, this is often a Transformational Leader, who is not in direct daily contact with the bulk of the work force. These Transformational Leaders are required to bring organizational change, improvement and revitalization but also insure that the people of the organization are supported and cared for. To accomplish that, Marcus Buckingham says that: Great leaders discover what is universal and capitalize on it. Their job is to rally people toward a better future. Leaders can succeed in this only when they can cut through differences….and tap into the very few needs we all share. Thus, the senior organizational Leaders, their staffs and their senior subordinate Leaders focus on assuring that the organization meets all of peoples’ needs as emphasized by Maslow. As senior Leaders, commanders and executives, they do this primarily by assuring that organizational policies meet peoples’ lower and mid-level level needs. The organizational physical environment should be healthy and comfortable to work in to meet peoples’ physiological needs and job security and career progression practices ought to be clear and standardized to meet peoples’ security needs. But, most importantly, “motivate” means “to move” and so before an organization can be motivated, it needs to know to where it is going to move. To motivate the organization as a whole, senior Transformational Leaders need to involve the people of the organization in developing a shared vision or definitive set of goals toward which the organization is to move. This can be done by providing what Gary Neilsen and Bruce Pasternak call the “decision rights” and all the “information” required that will allow them to participate in the development of the vision or the goals for improvement. This step attempts to meet peoples’ belongingness needs so they feel a true sense of ownership in what is their organization. Further, that effort must be backed up by an organizational structure and strategic plan with specific realistic and practical set of delegated organizational assignments for implementation that provides the empowerment needed by the people so that they can take the opportunity and responsibility to make the vision or revitalization reality. While senior Transformational Leaders are pushing for change or revitalization by meeting peoples’ belongingness needs, they also need to insure that they do not neglect peoples’ esteem and self-actualization needs. If people are motivated to move their organization to a new vision or set of improvement goals and then find that they do not get the credit for doing so or if they find that they do not have the support to do so, they quickly become unmotivated. Thus, the senior Leaders should not neglect playing a role in meeting the esteem and self-actualization needs of the people. While actually meeting with the people on a daily basis to motivate their efforts by building their self-esteem and arranging for the training, resources, mentoring and other assistance to meet peoples’ self-actualization needs will be the direct day-to-day responsibility of lower to mid-level Transactional Leaders, it is the responsibility of the senior Leader to insure play a supporting role. This is especially important during the time of stress and turmoil of implementing change or making continuous improvement. In such times the people need to know that, despite the organizational focus on change, their esteem and self-actualization needs will be met. Thus, the senior Leaders should be out in the organization to meet peoples’ getting to know people and what they are doing, showing appreciation for those efforts and thanking them for the commitment to the organization. At the same time, by listening they will come to know whether the policies and practices of the organization are providing the support that will satisfy the self-actualization needs of the people enough so that the vision and plan will succeed. Specifically, senior Transformational Leaders motivate the organization by focusing on peoples’ -Physiological Needs by: --Establishing a healthy and comfortable work environment. -Security Needs by: --Setting policies that create job security and career progression. -Belongingness needs by: --Developing a shared vision to provide people the opportunity to help define the goals of the organization. -Esteem Needs by: --Assuring adequate and fair award recognition, advancement based on performance. --Walking, knowing, interest, recognition, pats on the back. -Self Actualization Needs by: --Providing necessary training and resources required to enable people to take the opportunities and responsibilities offered and succeed. --Offering personal development by mentoring staff, seniors. This approach to organizational motivation is based on the recognition that Leadership is about change and people and that, to be successful, the senior organizational Leadership needs to focus on both. But, Nigel Nicholson describes the resultant situation often faced by organizational Leaders. Everyone knows that good managers [Leaders] motivate with the power of their vision, the passion of their delivery, and the compelling logic of their reasoning. Add in the proper incentives, and people will enthusiastically march off in the right direction...[But] The people who might respond to such inducements are already up and running. It's the other folks who are the problem. And, as managers know from painful experience, when it comes to managing people the 80-20 rule applies... Apparently, the 80/20 phenomenon in organizational motivation is apparently widespread in the business community. A Gallup Poll found that: -26% of employees were engaged in their jobs -55% were not engaged in their jobs -19% were actively disengaged Based on the above, in a generalization it could be said that in most organizations, 20% are effective followers fully engaged in their jobs and performing; 60% are survivors, yes people, or sheep, showing up and only minimally engaged in their jobs; while 20% are alienated employees. Therefore, it could be hoped that the organization-wide motivators of shared vision and appropriate policies combined with the personal inspiration of top level Leaders could sustain the motivation of the top 20% and increase the motivation of the middle 60%. Nevertheless, there will often be the 20% of the organization who are chronically unmotivated followers whose attitude and poor work affects the morale and performance of the entire organization. These people will require the “hands-on” efforts of lower and mid-level Leaders. Apparently, this 80/20 rule also holds true for the Intelligence Community. In October 2006 and again in October 2007 and 2008, (2009 has not been released yet) the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) conducted an annual Intelligence Community Employee Climate Survey, using the same questions as the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) regular Federal Human Capital Survey. The survey measured four separate indices that provide “a baseline assessment of employee satisfaction [and, thus, presumably organizational motivation] across the IC and within individual components of the community.” Overall, from the 2006, 2007 and 2008 surveys the “most favorable responses” to individual “survey items” suggest that slightly more than 80% of Community employees are engaged with their jobs or neutral and can be motivated. Nevertheless, from the “least favorable” responses, about 20% of employees are not satisfied with the policies or procedures in their organization suggesting that more than organizational level motivation is needed. When all the responses are combined into five topic indices, the results are as follows (The 2007 and 2008 survey reports provided less detail): Community Motivation Level -Overall Job Satisfaction; --2006: 74% positive, 15% neutral = 89% can be motivated, 12% negative. --2007: 72% positive. --2008: 73% positive. “This single item provides an overall indication of how satisfied employees are with their jobs.” -Leadership; --2006: 62% positive, 21% neutral, = 83% 15% negative. --2007: 62% positive. --2008: 63% positive. “These results show a majority of IC employees continue to view their IC leaders moderately favorably;…many respondents across the IC look for stronger leadership, especially at senior levels.” -Performance Culture: --2006: 58% positive, 20% neutral = 78% 17% negative --2007: 57% positive --2008: 58% positive “…measures whether high performers are recognized, rewarded, and promoted and whether…agency effectively deals with poor performers …there is much room for improvement.” -Talent: --2006: 64% positive, 19%, neutral = 83% 16% negative. --2007: 65% positive --2008: 67% positive “…measures organizations’ abilities to recruit and continuously improve top talent.” The 80/20 issue is why it takes both Transformational Leaders and Transactional Leaders to motivate the organization. Senior-level Leaders need to focus on providing the vision and policies designed to meet the higher level “belongingness”, “esteem” and “self-actualization” needs (above) that will motivate the 80% of the organization. The role of the lower to mid-level Leader, then, is to sustain the motivation of the middle 60% by supporting and implementing the motivators put in place by senior Leaders on an individual and daily basis while also spending the time required to increase the motivation of the 20% of the people who are unmotivated or remove them.
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Motivating Individuals Motivating Individuals Before moving on to discussing motivating individuals it must be noted that the Intelligence Community is planning (when Congress approves) to move to a performance-based system for pay and promotion. That is a long established scientific management technique or an organization-wide policy intended to put into place a motivator for the people of the organization as a whole. The concept is not new to the federal workforce or the Intelligence Community. For twenty years, senior executives and others have been given bonuses, awards and promotions based on their performance in meeting established objectives. The concept has been used in the National Geo-Spatial Intelligence Agency (NGA) since it was created. Eventually it will be applied more widely across the workforce. Whether it will be an appropriate or useful organizational motivator is debatable. A recent book by Daniel H. Pink, once Vice President Al Gore’s speechwriter, says that “What really motivates people is the quest for autonomy, mastery and purpose, not external rewards.” He argues that such “extrinsic motivators” as bonuses and payment for performance are no longer appropriate for today’s entrepreneurial and knowledge workers and can kill creativity and motivation. He suggests that “intrinsic motivators” such as the freedom to control one’s own efforts and reap the rewards of a job well done are more appropriate. These views may originate from his observations of Vice President Gore’s efforts at introducing the management concept of “reinventing government” by the “National Performance Review”. Rather than offering financial incentives, that effort attempted to make a number of federal agencies more “performance-based” and “results-oriented” by flattening the bureaucracy through buy-outs of managers and offering front-line staff who dealt with the public more flexibility, decisionmaking authority and autonomy in doing their jobs. According to government statistics, productivity in agencies such as the Social Security Administration, the Internal Revenue Service and the National Park Service improved considerably. On the other hand, a commentary on Pink’s book in The Economist makes the case by industrial examples “…that pay for performance can increase productivity dramatically”. Further, using business examples it makes the case that “Linking pay to performance does not just increase motivation, it also helps to recruit and retain the most talented.” Thus, it concludes that “…properly managed they can be immensely powerful tools for boosting productivity and attracting the right people.” Certainly in the government, introducing pay-for-performance is easier than cutting bureaucracy. Thus, someday, senior-level Intelligence Community Leaders may be faced with implementing an organization-wide pay-for-performance system. At that time, lower and mid-level Leaders should recall that, as discussed earlier (Topic: “Introduction to Leadership”, Section “Influence and Leadership”), based on his experience in the national security and intelligence communities, Joseph Nye discusses how to influence or motivate people. He describes reward power, such as the power to offer or withhold bonuses and pay for performance, as “hard power”. He describes the “inspirational” ability to shape the preferences of others and get the outcomes one wants by attracting others as “soft power”. Nye acknowledges that, in real world situations, hard and soft power are often combined, sometimes with a soft layer of attraction overlaid on an underlying relationship that rests on payment. He calls this ability to combine hard and soft power into an effective motivational strategy “smart power.” Although, while emphasizing such a combined approach, he states that: “In today’s world…a moral case can be made that leaders should have a general preference for soft power options when possible.” Thus, the once the once the pay-for-performance system is introduced as an organization-wide, hard power motivator, it will be up to the lower and mid-level Leaders to provide the inspirational soft power motivators in order to take a smart power approach to motivating the individuals of their organizations. Thus, it is those soft power motivators on which this section will focus. The job of a manager, meanwhile, is to turn one person’s particular talent into performance. Managers will succeed only when they can identify and deploy differences among people, challenging each employee to excel in his or her own way. To sustain the motivation of the 60% and engage them in their jobs requires the Leader to meet the specific personal “self-actualization” and “esteem needs” of that individual by providing: -a job and work that is interesting to that person, While that may be enough to get and keep the typical follower motivated, Martin and Shell emphasize that because “Professionals are often learners, achievers, independent, status and esteem oriented….” they require even more. Thus they need:
- not only “work that is interesting” but “enriched jobs that utilize all their learned skills”. -not only “training” but “development” -not only “guidance and advice and encouragement” but “participation”. -not only “increased responsibility when ready” but “goal setting” -not only “opportunity for professional advancement and growth” but “upward mobility”. Clearly, people perform best when they are doing something they are interested in and enjoy—i.e., when they are “happy”. Jim Larranaga, the coach of the George Mason University basketball team that performed so well in the 2006 NCAA Tournament, has been quoted as believing that “People perform better when they are happy.” Mihaly Czikszentmihalyi of Claremont Graduate University and one of three scholars working on the “Good Work” project conducted a survey of thousands of people, asking them to log their “mood” at work whenever they wanted to do so. He found that people were happiest or in a state he called “"flow” when they were engaged in work that stretches a person without defeating him; work that provides “clear goals”, “unambiguous feedback” and a “sense of control”. Obviously, training is also important as a motivator of top performance. In 2005 when the government Merit Systems Protection Board surveyed 37,000 federal workers in 24 agencies, the results showed: while 64% said that they received enough training to do their job, 46% said that they would like more training so that they could improve their work. Unfortunately, only 48% said that their supervisors were providing those opportunities. But, you can’t always give someone a job that they find interesting and enjoyable or all the training or liaison travel that they may want, although you should never stop trying. After all, they are “at work”. So, the next best thing that the Leader can do to motivate an individual is to provide encouragement, recognition and appreciation for doing the job that they have to do well. Kouzes and Posner call this “Encouraging the Heart” by “recognizing contributions” thorough showing appreciation for individual excellence and “celebrating values and victories” of the group. As emphasized repeadly herein; there is probably nothing more inspiring for people than for them to realize that the Leader knows who they are, knows what they are doing, thinks it is well done and valuable. The most inspiring words that you can use as a Leader are the person’s name followed by “great job” and “thanks”. For that reason, Leaders must get out of the office and walk around the organization. In giving advice to military Leaders, General Perry Smith told them that they should spend half of the day out of the office walking around. Tom Peters and Nancy Austin call walking around the “technology of leadership” and recommend that Leaders spend 25% of their time “wandering, listening, empathizing, staying in touch.” Most of you have probably heard the advice: “Management by walking around.” That has been a common management technique since at least the 1920s/30s when Elton Mayo and a group of Harvard Business School researchers conducted studies at the Hawthorne plant of Western Electric and found that productivity went up when attention was being paid to people (a motivator) and not because of some environmental or physical change such as better lighting (a hygiene factor). Managers walk around in order to be on the spot so that they can supervise, direct and, hopefully, encourage the people of the organization in carrying out the on-going processes of the organization as necessary. That is their job. They do it by speaking. But, Leaders should be out walking around to do different things. -First of all they should be getting to know the people of the organization: --to show that they truly care about them as people and professionals by listening to their personal and professional concerns and needs and displaying an understanding and caring approach toward resolving those issues. --to tell them that they value and appreciate them for making a contribution and thank and compliment them for a job well done.
To start now practicing to walk the organization to motivate and inspire people in that way, go here for guidance and use the index to go to "Walk to Demonstarate Caring and Be Inspirational_____.
-Second, they should be restating the vision and goals of the organization and relating them specifically to the work of the people with whom they are speaking. --They are keeping the people of the organization informed. --Then, they are encouraging feedback and contributions from the people. -Finally, they are sensing the mood and the health of the organization. --They are getting an understanding of what people think and feel. Furthermore, by becoming acquainted with the people of the organization on an individual level the Leader will find that certain people can be motivated in certain individualized ways. Indeed, based on “two large scare, nationally representative surveys” in 2008 and 2009, researchers at the Center for Work-Life Policy have found that: …people, especially Gen Ys and Boomers, are looking for what we call a “remixed” set of rewards: Flexible work arrangements and the opportunity to give back to society trump the sheer size of the pay package. In any organization there are many people who are performing well but who are not the superstars who will repeatedly get the top evaluations, frequent promotions, awards and bonuses. These people can quickly become discouraged and even cynical when, despite their best efforts, they never break through and gain the bonuses and fast promotions they hope for. In a pay for performance system it is tempting for the Leader to try to motivate these good performers by giving elevated evaluations or upgraded positions to increase pay in advance to encourage future improved performance. But, that is falling into what has been called the “great jackass fallacy”. The jackass will eat the carrot, keep on trudging as before while ignoring the stick. This is especially a fallacy in the Civil Service where carrots are easily given: good evaluations, position upgrades, etc. But sticks are limited and hard to use. Subsequent poor evaluations or the downgrading of positions can be fought and characterized as some kind of discrimination and nullified by using the example of the previous carrot. Rather, than pay, there are individualized motivators that can be used recognize and show appreciation to these good performers for their steady performance and also motivate them to up their performance level in appreciation. For some ideas about individualized motivators for these people, go here_____. Then, there are the other people who are performing poorly, performing at a minimal level or not performing at all. In the Intelligence Community, these underperforming people are committed and motivated to service and they are not lazy or stupid as many critics would have one believe. They are usually not performing well because they are no longer motivated for some specific reason: they don’t like their job; they haven’t been given the training to do it well; no one seems to care about their efforts; or in a pay for performance system, having seen the same top performers repeatedly getting bonuses or promotions, they have concluded that it is not worth trying to compete and so they just continue to coast. Thus, these individuals, also need individualized motivators but of a different kind. Nigel Nicholson, in discussing “How to Motivate Your Problem People” says that these chronically unmotivated people can be motivated if the Leader approaches the issue from their point of view and finds out what is really blocking their motivation, not what they are complaining about (Herzberg's “hygiene factors”). This approach emphasizes the critical role of the lower and mid-level Leaders in one-on-one motivation, as described above, and the need for the senior organizational Leader to empower them to carry out that role by insuring that the policies are in place and the incentives available so that they can do so. When it comes to motivating individuals, as Nido Qubein points out; “The best way to get people to pay attention to your goals is to pay attention to them.” He notes that “...all people are motivated but that people do things for their own reasons, not yours.” Likewise, Marshall Goldsmith and Mark Reiter call “self-interest” a “natural law”. They claim that: People will do something, including changing their own behavior—only if it can be demonstrated that doing so is in their own best interest….the hot button is self-interest. Your job as a Leader, especially at the lower and mid-levels of the organization is to find that “hot button” that individualized motivator that will turn the person on to better performance. Here are some individualized motivators for the chronically unmotivated _____. Based on its work, including work in the government, the To successfully accomplish any of these motivational efforts, individual or organizational, a number of key Social Skills are required.
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Social Skills for Motivation
Social Skills for Motivation Ken Blanchard briefly sums up most important motivating skills as being able to: · Delegate by one minute of goal setting. · Provide one minute of praise at the end of each project. · Provide one minute of feedback when mistakes or failures occur. · At evaluation time, coach or counsel. Spending one minute is certainly better than doing nothing. But a Leader will have developed the skills to a high level and will spend all the time required to use them effectively.
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Delegation Delegation As has been highlighted, the basis of Leadership is trust. (See topic "Introduction to Leadership", "The Foundation of Leadership") Initially, that trust is a trust of the people of the organization in the Leader, based on the Leaders reputation for integrity, competence and courage. To sustain that trust, the Leader must not only continue to demonstrate those core traits but must also demonstrate trust in the people of the organization. Mutual trust is required for successful Leadership. As Lieutenant General Gus Pagonis One of the leader's continuing goals is to build trust; and one way to do that is to demonstrate that you are willing to place your trust in someone else. Recognizing and placing value on the intellect of subordinates, granting them autonomy in defining objectives and meeting them is a key motivational device--and it doesn't cost anything. Give them enough guidance so that they don't flounder and waste time, and then get out of their way. One of the best ways for the Leader to demonstrate trust in the people of the organization is by delegation. We all know that bosses should and must delegate. And most bosses think that they delegate; they tell someone to do something. But, do they delegate correctly? Many do not. And, it may be especially hard for intelligence professionals. As Martin and Shell say: Professionals are often promoted into management from the technical functions that they now supervise. While technical knowledge is useful and necessary, particularly at lower echelons of management, these managers must learn when and where not to apply it. There is a natural tendency for those managers, whose educational training and experience is similar to their subordinates, to be highly reluctant to delegate important job tasks and to continue to perform those duties as managers. A strong conscious effort to learn when and how to delegate is particularly important among professionals, because failure to delegate is often regarded as managerial interference by subordinates.
Leaders not only show trust in the person and build the person’s trust in them but also foster improved performance by the person. Recent research by psychologists suggests that …simply putting someone into a weak social position [as happens when a boss “directs” a subordinate to do something] impairs his cognitive ability. Conversely, “empowering” him…sharpens his mind. Experiments show that correct delegation improved concentration, memory, planning ability and fewer errors. Managers, always suckers for jargon, talk a lot about empowering their workers. However, they often fail to do so in practice. This is another reason why they should…. Delegating correctly is important. But, it is a skill that can be learned. For some suggestions of how to do it, go here_____.
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Praise and Feedback Praise and Feedback After a delegated effort is completed, and if the performance was exceptionally good praise is required. Tom Rath and Donald D. Clifton, who are associated with the Praise is a powerful leadership strategy. All sorts of bad things happen when people don't feel appreciated. They whine. They complain. They bring others down with them. But praise is important even when people are just doing their job on a regular and daily basis. It is important for gaining the trust of the people of the organization to let them know that you are aware of what they are doing, recognize that it is a contribution to the organization and appreciate it. Most bosses, and even most good Leaders, don’t give enough praise. In fact, it is impossible to give enough praise. Praising people is easy to do and will make you and them both feel good James Kouzes and Barry Posner make the point that recognizing contributions brings out the best in people. They say that, while Leaders should “Focus on clear standards” and “Expect the best” from their followers, they also need to “pay attention to what’s happening around them so that they can find positive examples to recognize.” And, they should, “Personalize recognition”. Recognition is too often highly predictable , routine, and impersonal. A one-size-fits-all approach to recognition feels disingenuous, forced and thoughtless. Over time, it can even increase cynicism and damage credibility. That is why Ken Blanchard says, praise must be TRUE—i.e., timely, responsive, unconditional, enthusiastic. When you are the Leader of a smaller organization where you know all of the people, personalizing recognition, appreciation and praise is easy. You see them every day and can easily find something that they are doing well, even if it is just getting the task completed on time. When a person is praised for something, they will keep doing it and try to do something else to gain more praise. As you become more senior and Lead a much larger organization where you can’t know all the people at a personal level, you will need to enlist the help of direct bosses or co-workers to make sure that you personalize recognition. But, do it, it pays off even more at that level. To repeat: There is nothing more inspiring or motivating for people than for them to realize that the Leader, especially a senior Leader, knows who they are, knows what they are doing, thinks it is well done and valuable. But, when a person or group has completed a task, in addition to praise for a job well done, they also need specific feedback so that they know why it was well done, what it was that you thought was especially good about it so that they can keep doing it that way, and so that other people in the organization will understand that the way it was done is what is expected of them. Thus, in addition to praise, provide specific feedback to the person or group. - Do it immediately, stating specifically what was so well done, or good about the effort and why it was important for the organization or the consumer. For other people in the organization, hearing others being praised and noting a lack of praise for their own work can be a motivator to increase their efforts. But, it will only be a motivator if the Leader notices and responds with praise to their increased efforts or performance. But, to make an effort to increase one’s performance and not have it noticed or praised can soon become a demotivator. Thus, the Leader must have different levels of praise for different levels of effort and performance and spread that praise around widely. It is usually possible to find something, no matter how insignificant, for which a person can be praised. Unfortunately, sometimes there is poor performance. In such cases there may be a need to critique a person or group. All of us hate to give negative feedback. But, to be a successful Leader, you must develop the skill to do so. When that need arises, -Do it without delay, but do it in private, be specific about what was not good, but objective. More specifically, when delivering a critique, or showing dissatisfaction with performance, and especially if delivering a reprimand, is important to know the person and understand the approach that will help them to respond positively. In that regard, some cautions with respect to timing and style are in order. This is when your development of “social awareness” and understanding people in terms of their generation, gender, and personality and as an individual comes into play. Certainly, in terms of reprimands, one approach will not work with everyone. If the Leader handles feedback informally immediately or without delay at the end of each project or on each occasion when fine or poor performance occurs, and maintains good documentation of those instances, then when formal evaluation time comes, there are no secrets or tension. This technique is becoming more widely understood and used. As reported by Amy Joyce in the Even when it is not negative, a careful evaluation is still a stressful time consuming process. Small wonder that it takes some managers forever to get them done....But the managers I talked to recently seemed to agree that the more they talk to employees along the way the easier it is when the official review comes along.
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Coaching and Counseling Coaching and Counseling Often, just giving feedback on poor performance is not enough to improve the performance. The person may not be able to correct or improve their performance without help. The ability or competence of the people to do the job is a reflection of their aptitude. Their willingness or commitment often reflects their attitude toward their personal life, the organization, or the job itself. Thus, in addition to the Leader selecting the leadership style which is appropriate for the follower readiness of most of the people who will undertake a task, the Leader may also have to improve the readiness or development of some of the people. To do requires the Leader to improve the aptitude or attitude of some people. Aptitude problems require coaching. When a single failure occurs, after the informal feedback session, it may be necessary to arrange for a coaching session for the people or group. If the Leader decides that this is required, it is should be arranged soon after the poor performance is noted. If there is simply a need to familiarize the individual or group with organizational procedures, standards or provide guidance and background on substantive issues, a senior expert in the organization can be tasked to do so. On the other hand, additional training may be required and that will have to be arranged with the training department and take place over time. Training should not be denied or, at least, repeatedly denied, because of the press of business. Senior Leaders, however, should be involved in coaching of another sort. It is the responsibility of those who have developed themselves into Leaders to help others develop their leadership talent. That is critical to the future of the organization and for the people of the organization who continually need good Leaders. Too often, civilian intelligence professionals are promoted into leadership positions based on their technical expertise without having any leadership education, training or coaching. That can only harm the organization and make life miserable for the people of the organization. This can be done on a mentoring basis or by regular coaching sessions. But, too often, those relationships focus on technical, managerial and bureaucratic—i.e., promotion—requirements rather than Leadership development. Stephen Cohen notes that: …recent research shows that only 23 percent of new leaders—or employees who advance from being individual contributors to managing others—receive the formal coaching they need to achieve their potential. …without that investment in their development, more than 40 percent of new leaders fail to deliver what is expected of them. New leaders would benefit most from coaching in emotional intelligence skills to gain self-awareness, build management social skills and become more empathetic toward others and more understanding of themselves. New leaders don’t need coaching in technical and general management skills as much as they need guidance in how to treat others. An experienced Leader is the person best equipped to coach on those social skills for motivation. The opportunity to coach new Leaders and subordinate staff, even or especially those who are performing well can occur during the annual goal setting process. For some suggestions on how this can be done, go here _____. Attitude problems require counseling. When a person is observed to exhibit continually poor performance or have other serious work-related issues or problems it may be tempting to give a poor evaluation and let it go at that. But, the cause is more likely to be attitude than apptitude. The cause of the poor attitude may be evident, or it may not be. And the real attitude problem may be caused by factors largely beyond the control of the individual. A counseling session is required to get to the root of the problem. While it may be postponed for more observation and informal discussion with the individuals immediate supervisor, it should occur prior to the next evaluation being decided or given.Counseling must be tailored to the organization and the individual. That requires, first of all an understanding of the organization’s personnel and personal guidelines. In the mixed military-civilian organizations of the Intelligence Community, especially military Leaders must understand that, while in military organizations dealing with military subordinates, their personnel counseling responsibilities regularly extend beyond normal work-related issues, that is usually not the case in civilian organizations. Then it requires sensitivity to the generational, gender, personality and professional status of the individual as well as other factors such as race and ethnicity. It also requires a sensitivity to the personal life situation of the person. It does not mean that people should be spared counseling for any of those reasons, or that the counseling should be different in substance because of those differences. All people should be treated equally and get counseling when they need it. Sensitivity does mean, however, that the delivery of that equal counseling should be tailored in a way that it will be most willingly accepted and responded to by the individual. Having noted and documented the feedback and the coaching and counseling given to the person during the period, deciding on the formal evaluation to be given is relatively straightforward. Further, delivering that evaluation can simply become a reminder that those occurred and because of that the evaluation is as given. For suggestions on coaching and counseling, go here_____.
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Communication Communication To do all of these things: delegate, praise, provide feedback, coach or counsel, you must be a good communicator. As Martin and Shell say: …communication makes the organization work. It determines the direction the organization will take and impacts on both the motivational level of employees and the understanding that employees have of organizational purpose and goals. Communication in essence, is ….a fundamental management task. Montgomery Van Wart emphasizes, “communication is a fundamental part of the process and therefore a key skill in the leader repertoire.” He cites Lieutenant General Paul Van Riper, USMC, formerly a Director of Marine Corps Intelligence, as saying “effective organization men are masters of language.” It is important that a Leader be a clear, logical and dynamic speaker to inspire or motivate people. But, communication is a two-way process. As emphasized by Terry Pearce, it means not only talking to the people of the organization but listening to them as well. Martin and Shell emphasize that the ability for followers to provide the Leader with: …feedback is necessary for effective communication among professionals. Since professionals usually have a large investment in their education, they are sensitive to interpersonal relationships that do not permit their involvement. Consequently, communications that limit [their opportunities for] feedback are often ineffective. So, if you want to get feedback you have to drop any “façade” and encourage your followers to provide unfiltered information by asking questions. Thus, the best Leaders do not talk “at” people or even talk “to” people. They must talk “with” people. That is where the second part of communication—listening—comes in. Listening is an important skill that many people must develop to support their leadership efforts. Leaders need to use "active" listening or, even better, "empathetic" listening. Those manners of listening require a skill that must be developed because it does not fit the way most of us have been listening in the past. For some tips on listening, go here_____. Once you have listened to what the person has to say, you must respond. In many cases, your response can just be “Thanks” and appreciation and a comment showing understanding. On the other hand, you may be inclined to say that you will think about it, consider it, or look into it, implying that you will take some action. If you do that, then you must get back to the person with an explanation soon. This point on feedback is important. As Marshall Goldsmith points out: Leaders who respond to feedback, promise change, then do nothing different are perceived...as less effective. Raising expectations without delivering results is a formula for increased dissatisfaction and decrease respect. Even a little follow up has a positive impact. Martin and Shell highlight that professionals are very often turned off when managers do not respond to their suggestions. But, if you respond to the feedback you receive, even privately, that will become known and appreciated throughout the organization.
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Time Management Time Management As can be see from the foregoing; learning, practicing and using these skills can be time consuming. Given that the senior of any organization is in demand for a myriad of meetings, for performing a wide range of management activities and for liaison outside the organization, how does that person get the time to be a Leader? The answer is time-management. Time management is a skill that is critical to Leadership, but it is so specific to each person and each position that it must be relearned every day and practiced and used full-time. The bases for effective time management in Leadership are: · A focus on Leadership vice management. · Prioritization of activities. · Delegation of less important tasks. · Maintaining a daily/weekly schedule developed on that basis. · The courage to stick to that schedule despite pressures to be at the beck and call of outside persons and issues, even seniors or the daily crises. Martin and Shell “summarize” effective time management in a similar way: 1. Establish clear-cut goals for yourself and your unit. 2. Set time priorities in accordance with those goals…. 3….a willingness to delegate authority to subordinates. 4. A proactive planning stance is preferred to a reactive or ‘fire-fighting’ stance…. 5. In both setting priorities and being proactive, it is often necessary to refuse some specific requests for help by both superiors and subordinates…. 6. Take steps to avoid time wasting…. 7. Finally, both a to-do list and a daily time log…can be helpful…. As Peter Drucker has said If there is any one “secret” of effectiveness, it is concentration....Concentration--that is, the courage to impose on time and events one's own decision as to what really matters and comes first--is the executive's only hope of becoming master of time and events instead of their whipping boy. As the senior member of an organization, you are indispensable as a Leader. You are not indispensable for the all the other functions of an organization. Others can help. Delegate!
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Conclusion Conclusion
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- References to Topic Text: Leadership Competencies
References to the Topic Text: Leadership Competencies - Student Comments or Constructive Criticism
Student Comments or Constructive Criticism
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