The question is ‘How do I go from being a manager to a leader that people want to follow?’ Firstly don’t read too many US style leadership business books. Fundamentally we are different to Americans, we have a different culture and a different way of looking at and dealing with business and leadership. Michael Hawker, former MD & CEO of IAG & current Chairman of the ARU once said in an interview article “Leadership is being able to encourage people to follow you to a place that is better than where they are. Management is the operation and processes. Some people are better leaders than they are managers and vice versa.” He’s right in that a lot of people can manage operations and processes. Why? Because they usually don’t involve people, and based on that quote, management sounds so mundane, but LEADERSHIP is where it’s at! Here are the top 5 Leadership Qualities that all Australian managers should have to be great Leaders.
1. They adopt a captain-coach leadership style
Given our nation’s sporting history, is this a surprising quality to you? According to the authors of The First XI – Winning Organisations in Australia (John Wiley & Sons Australia 2012) we Aussies want our leaders to be coaches – people who spur us on and encourage us to improve our performance. We want our leaders on the field during the game showing us their captaincy skills rather than leaders who sit in an office sending emails and setting us BHAGs (Big Hairy Audacious Goals).
2. They build effective working relationships
Today’s leaders cannot succeed without building effective working relationships. You can no longer manage from your office in isolation, you have to get out there and spend time with your people. Talk to them, praise them for a job well done, and give them feedback on the stuff they need to work at. Listen with an open mind, ask questions like “What do you think?”. Your direct reports want a cause to follow and a good working relationship with you.
3. They know how to have difficult conversations with their team
Great leaders know how to, and do actually have those awkward and difficult conversations with their direct reports – you know the ones around underperforming or negative behaviours in the workplace. Unfortunately the thing that plays against us as Australians is that we like to be liked and we want to be mates with our team and generally as a culture we aren’t all that good at giving honest to goodness constructive behavioural feedback.. Having difficult conversations and being good at it is definitely a skill and a quality worth having and the good news is that you can learn and get better at doing this.
4. They walk the talk
Great leaders not only believe in what they say, they both live and they drive it. They don’t expect people to do things that they themselves would not do and their direct reports know that. With great leaders, there is no compromising of values. People will work for you if they respect you, know what you stand for, and know that they can count on you to do the right thing at the right time.
5. They display trustworthy behaviours
Following right along from walking the talk, great leaders display this quality. When a direct report or team member displays trusting behaviours, that is, sharing something that puts them in a vulnerable position, you as the leader need to display trustworthy behaviours. But what is a trustworthy behaviour? The trustworthy behaviour is you not using it to an advantage either by telling it to others to appear knowledgeable or by hoarding it as “ammunition” to be used later. When someone displays a trusting behaviour and it is violated, the relationship is seriously damaged. It takes four to six times longer to restore trust then it took to originally build it!
