Leadership is a profoundly personal face to face relationship, trust is established when leaders treat each other as valued. Strategic Effectiveness requires leaders build highly resilient highly effective teams that can weather the impacts of the current global pressures.
High performing teams require authentic leadership, which involves honouring the moral obligation to care genuinely for others in the teams welfare.
“Leaders who are trustworthy create interpersonal relationships based upon open communication, demonstrate personal competence, exhibit by their actions a commitment to others’ welfare, and model unflagging integrity”
Schoorman, F. D., Mayer, R. C. & Davis, J. D. (2007). “An Integrative Model of Organizational Trust: Past, Present, and Future.” Academy of Management Review, Vol. 32, No. 2, pp. 344-354.
Effective leadership involves establishing relationships that unite individuals and engage them as owners and partners. Relationships with team members need to be based on authenticity and empathy.
Many organisations still have leaders that view employees as commodities, with team members easily replaced and in turn there is no long term commitment or investment in developing employees.
“If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him.”
Mahatma Gandhi
Principles of Strategic Effectiveness
Although there are no ‘magic’ solutions to solve the Strategic Effectiveness problems that todays leaders and organisations are facing these six principles can enable leaders to involve others in achieving shared goals.
- Define a Moral Compass: A moral compass includes the values that make up a person’s assumptions, beliefs and values.
- Establish Personal Accountability: Leadership is frequently defined as a set of obligations to empower others to become the best version of themselves. Creating an outcome based approach to completing priorities, with monitoring of progress. Accountability for results is internally motivated but it is also the foundation element for relationships.
- Recognise Dependence Upon Others: Successful leadership requires engaging others in the pursuit of shared goals (Barnard, C. I. (1938). The Functions of the Executive. Cambridge, MA: Harvard College.). Effective leaders recognise their ability to inspire other in pursuit of the shared vision is the key to success.
- Adopt a Servant Perspective: Servant leaders view leadership as a sacred responsibility in the pursuit of worthy outcomes.
- Invest in Constant Improvement: Leaders who invest in their own development and who are committed to constant improvement, honour their obligations to others and to themselves. Great leaders need to polish their ability to establish close relationships with others as they unite the organisation to pursue its goals.
- Acknowledge Own Humanity: Enlightened leadership comes from those who can readily acknowledge their own shortcomings but still constantly strive to improve. Leaders who acknowledge the qualities and skills in others that they lack in themselves and also seek to learn from mistakes rather than being afraid to take risks. By acknowledging their own humanity leader create working relationships that encourage and empower others to commit to the goals of the organisation.
Synopsis of an article from Graziadio Business Review Strategic Principles in a Troubled World, Finding Solution from the Inside Out by Cam Caldwell PhD Published 2020 https://gbr.pepperdine.edu/2020/09/strategic-principles-in-a-troubled-world/