why leadership matters

{ excerpts from the participant's handbook }

"Leadership is not what's in the books and it's not the ability to jump through hoops of fire, either. It's small changes that have an effect over time."
-Julian Barling, Psychologist, Queen's University's School of Business

Society typically thinks of leaders being born, not made. After all, a Churchill, Gandhi or Martin Luther King could not be created in a classroom. But Leaders Path is not setting out to create clones of famous demagogues. Everyone in a successful organization needs leadership characteristics. What Julian Barling meant in the quote above was that leading people is not about compensation; it's about building relationships. Sadly enough, respect for others and the ability to listen - common relationship skills - are not often associated with leaders.

There are many aspects of leadership. For instance, leadership consists of self-awareness, group skills, presentation ability and an understanding of the societal role of business leaders. All of this goes toward creating an individual who is self-motivating. Self motivation is about being someone who doesn't require direction and is capable of operating in a world where innovation flows from the bottom up as well as the top down.

The two elements of leadership most in demand are how to deal with major change and how to pull together autonomous groups inside an organization, which must collaborate to reach organizational goals. It is this push-and-pull world of business leadership that can confound us. People are often asked to work together in teams with no clear level of hierarchy, role clarity, and sometimes across two or more organizations functions or levels.

The Leaders Path Institute program doesn't transform soft- spoken types into Jack Welch, the legendary CEO of General Electric. Leaders Path Institute is in the business of enhancing leader’s abilities. Jack Welch’s are born, not made; but there are not very many GE’s to be run.

Consider these inescapable facts:

…Research shows that most workers leave jobs due to mismatches with their immediate supervisors or their duties. Another study showed that 70 percent to 80 percent of employees' perceptions of their employers are directly related to their opinions of their bosses (Orlando E. Blake, CPT, PhD Leaders Path Institute Newsletter, February 2005).

The world of work is changing. According to research by the Trends Research Institute:

• Downsizing will continue to grow as the global and domestic economy changes – even though research has shown they should resist the urge to purge
• Companies are obsessed with short term profits at the expense of long term growth
• “Change to Win” formed by the breakup of the AFL-CIO has pledged to organize 50 million American workers whose jobs cannot be shipped overseas or replaced
• The future is dictated the “Five-O” Formula: Open Markets – Online Commerce – Overcapacity – Overproduction – Over Population

Since 2003 the economy has added 4.5 million jobs requiring higher skills and higher education. However, according to a Skills Gap study sponsored by Deloitte, 81% of the respondents said that they could not find people with the necessary skills. What are the top three skills that are lacking?

• Leadership
• Management & Supervisory
• Communication & Interpersonal

Which groups are experiencing the biggest skills gap?

• Executives
• Senior Managers
• Middle Managers/Supervisors

Source: ASTD, Training & Development, June 2006

According to Chris Argyris successful organization has at least two interrelated essentials:

• Intellective capacity (ideas and things) – Refers to things that a company does. It is assessed by measures of how well an organization accomplishes its goals, i.e., profit and loss, product quality, inventory turnover, etc.
• Interpersonal competency (relationships among people) – Self worth, self responsibility and commitment are all outcomes of increased interpersonal competence.

What Does This Mean to You?

It is interpersonal relationships between people working in organizations that affect the overall competence of an organization to achieve optimal performance.

So why does leadership matter so much?

How will you manage as well as lead in the workplace of the future?
How will you prepare yourself and your organization for the changes that are inevitable?
How will you relate to the people in the workplace?
How will you build trust and commitment to organizational realities?
So why does leadership matter?