The 5 Roles of Leadership E-Book

Jachtchenko Wladislaw

• Herausgeber: Remote Verlag
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Deutsch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Seitenzahl: 185

Beschreibung

Have you mastered the 5 roles of the ideal leader?  Good leaders know that professional expertise isn't everything. You have to know how to use that expertise effectively, and you'll do that by having the most crucial leadership skills. But leadership skills are often neglected during training, in school, and even at work. Instead, the focus is almost entirely on basic professional skills, leaving essential leadership training far behind. Due to this lack of training, many managers fail to deal with their team in an ideal manner; as a result, they experience internal conflicts, a lack of team motivation, and mediocre communication on a daily basis. So where does a professional go to learn the leadership skills that really help move the needle? This book compiles the world's best 21st-century leadership tools to help you gain success and recognition as a leader, allowing you to take your leadership skills, and your career, to the next level. With his signature concise style, renown leadership trainer Wladislaw Jachtchenko reveals how you can master these 5 roles and become the ideal leader. Role 1 : The charismatic and convincing  communicator ! Role 2 : The always efficient and effective  manager ! Role 3 : The motivating  team leader  who knows how to delegate! Role 4 : The empathetic  psychologist  interacting consistently with each employee! Role 5 : The skilled  problem solver  who manages conflict and implements change! The author makes sure to give you concrete, proven tools and the best practices on every page so that you can take these actionable directives and immediately integrate them into your daily routine. The result:  You will become the kind of leader that people want to follow; the kind of leader who empowers their team and gets things done.

Leseprobe

Introduction: Leadership as a Multidimensional Task

The Five Roles of a Successful Leader

The Convincing Communicator: Rhetoric for Managers

1 Arguments are SEXI

2 Talking is silver—listening is gold

3 Body language is king

4 The voice sets the mood

5 Creating an open feedback culture

6 Clearly communicate your organization’s values and vision

The Effective Manager: Productivity Techniques & Time Management

1 The Eisenhower principle

2 The not-to-do list

3 The ALPEN method

4 The Pareto principle

5 The SMART formula

6 Physical fitness

7 The yes trap

8 The blocking method

9 The salami technique

10 The time diary

The Motivating Team Leader: Leading Teams & Motivating Employees

1 Leadership styles

2 Skillfully leading meetings

3 Be a team leader, be a group leader

4 Correct delegation

5 Conducting successful negotiations

6 Motivating employees

The Empathetic Psychologist: Personality Types & Team Building

1 Personality types according to the 4-color model

2 The performance review

3 Team building

The Skilled Problem Solver: Conflict Management & Change Management

1 Professional conflict management

2 Professional change management

Conclusion: Self-motivation as the Key to Success

10 Reading Recommendations

About the Author

© 2021 Wladislaw Jachtchenko

This work is protected by copyright. Any use requires the exclusive consent of the author. This applies in particular to reproduction, utilization, translation, and storage of the work and processing in electronic systems.

For questions and comments:[email protected]

First edition 2021 Remote Life LLC, Powerline Rd, Suite 301-C, 33309 Fort Lauderdale, Fl., USA

Cover design and book layout: Wolkenart–Marie-Katharina WölkTranslation and proofreading: Gateway Translations Inc.Editorial Team: Maximilian Mika Graphics: Marie Mika

ISBN Print: 978-1-955655-17-0

For more information about the publisher, please visit: www.remote-verlag.de

Introduction: Leadership as a Multidimensional Task

Being a leader is a multidimensional task. Effective leaders embody and master the five roles that great leadership entails in any industry:

Role 1:The Convincing Communicator

Role 2:The Effective Manager

Role 3:The Motivating Team Leader

Role 4:The Empathetic Psychologist

Role 5:The Skilled Problem Solver

This book will empower you to integrate these five roles into your daily work life and become the most effective and personable leader you can be.

As the Convincing Communicator, you’re charismatic in convincing your employees and business partners in any situation. To do that you need the body language and voice of a leader as well as argumentative persuasion techniques you can apply to convince others of your point of view. Communication is never a one-way street, however, so superb listening skills are also part and parcel of every successful leader’s rhetorical repertoire. As a professional communicator, you create an open feedback culture in your organization. You communicate values and visions in a way that leaves your employees motivated and eager to come to work. This section provides you with the rhetorical tools you need to master everyday communication with confidence (on page 10).

As the Effective Manager, you are always effective and efficient in your work. And with the help of the proven techniques presented in this book, you’ll be able to increase your output without ever overworking yourself. These techniques for effectiveness and efficiency are easily integrated into your everyday life, and several practical exercises help you solidify them as the new norm for productivity (on page 47).

As the Team Leader, you effortlessly motivate your team and delegate appropriate tasks to your employees. You set clear directions and ensure that company plans are successfully implemented, even in the presence of unforeseen difficulties. Above all, the question of how you can consistently motivate individual employees is essential for day-to-day work. However, the arts of leading groups effectively, negotiating successfully, and adapting your leadership style to the maturity level of each employee are also crucial leadership skills (on page 77).

As the EmpatheticPsychologist, you’re aware of the different personality types and approach each employee empathetically according to their character. In this section, you will learn the essentials about various types of people and how to find common ground even with difficult employees. Employee performance reviews are the key to connecting with your employee, so learning how to conduct them successfully ensures your success. And you can’t forget about team building—both when hiring new employees and within the existing team, your goal is to ensure that employees see themselves as a team and work together as one (on page 132).

As the SkilledProblem Solver, you resolve any conflicts within your team and are responsible for change management. Because necessary and sometimes unpopular decisions must be implemented in the interests of an organization, your success as a leader depends on your ability to manage conflicts and initiate necessary changes. The problem-solving tools presented in this section will help you fulfill this role with professionalism (starting on page 158).

Mastering these five roles is, of course, a big challenge. But believe me: You definitely want to take it on, because becoming an ideal leader will bring you inner fulfillment and continuously better feedback from employees and customers. By setting off on the path to mastering the five roles of a leader, you commit yourself to constant improvement.

This concise and easy to understand book is designed to teach you the best tools for mastering the five roles of leadership in just a few hours. You won’t find any pseudo-scientific banter or endless footnotes here; we get right down to business, starting with talking about the five leadership roles in more detail.

The Five Roles of a Successful Leader

The first and most important role of a leader is the Convincing Communicator. It’s true for every manager: communication is not everything, but without communication, there’s nothing. For most of the day, managers are busy communicating with employees, customers, their own bosses, by phone, email, face-to-face, and in video conferences. Being able to communicate successfully is obviously invaluable, and it’s no secret that not all managers have tapped into their communication potential. This chapter therefore goes over some special rhetorical tips for helping you better manage your everyday communication.

The Convincing Communicator: Rhetoric for Managers

Chapter overview:

Arguments are SEXITalking is silver—listening is goldBody language is kingThe voice sets the moodCreating an open feedback cultureClearly communicating values and visionsArguments are SEXI

Managers are supposed to be naturally convincing. But what is the best way to convince someone of something? With a convincing argument, of course. Yet most people are not actually familiar with the elements that make up a persuasive argument. The first tool I would like to introduce is called the SEXI model. With this model, you can improve your argumentation skills and convince your colleagues and customers faster in just four steps.

First stage of the argument: The Statement

Every good persuasion process begins with a thesis, what we call the statement. With a statement, your employee or customer gets to know the starting point of your thought process. It’s a good idea to formulate your statement as clearly and concisely as possible at the beginning of a conversation. Nothing too fancy, in other words, because your audience simply doesn’t have time to listen to a long story. No matter the role or position, everybody has crowded schedules these days (we’ll get to the topic of efficient to-do lists in the Techniques for Efficiency and Effectiveness section). And even without the added pressure and stress of a deadline, people just like to be informed right away.

Second stage of the argument: The Explanation

This second stage of the argument follows immediately after the statement. The explanation gives reasons for why the statement is correct. In my 15+ years of being a coach, I’ve noticed that this second stage of argumentation is the most difficult one to master for most managers. Their explanations are often only two or three sentences long. This is problematic because many facts in everyday life are anything but clear and unambiguous. We therefore have to put greater effort into convincing the other person of a new idea.

And yet, it’s relatively easy to see why many of us have incomplete and inadequate skills when it comes to explaining things. After all, we ourselves think that what we are proposing as a statement is a pretty good idea already. But what we forget is that, for the other person, this is usually an entirely new idea. They need good reasons to accept the statement favorably.

You see, ever since childhood, we’ve all had a strong need for explanation. As children, we were constantly asking why, why, and why, and rightfully so. Today, we still want to understand exactly why something happens one way and not the other. For example, if you as a manager decide that there will be no remote work in your organization or department from now on, then your employees are going to immediately ask: “Whyyyyyy???”

You need to provide a good explanation. This is where most managers make the following mistake. Instead of sticking to one kind of justification and elaborating on it really well, they bundle together a bunch of justifications without going into depth with any of them. The explanation ends up sounding something like this:

Dear employees,

since a few of you have been raising the topic of working from home again, I would like to comment on it directly. Employees in our department will no longer be working from home because maintaining constant contact with colleagues is not guaranteed, teams are drifting apart, and we are unable to verify actual working hours. Moreover, eliminating remote work is also in your best interest because it allows you to better separate work and personal life. Studies have also shown that working from home can lead to sleep disorders. Given these reasons, I hope you understand.

Do you notice anything? The manager didn’t even begin to explain any of his five justifications for eliminating remote work. He merely listed them off. An explanation like this convinces (pretty much) no one. It would have been much better instead to explain one or several of these justification points in detail, which would make his overall explanation that much more convincing. My 10-sentence rule has proven effective for these kinds of situations: If you have a justification for your statement, explain it in about ten sentences. For example, the point stating that “maintaining constant contact with colleagues is not guaranteed” definitely requires explanation. Why is contact not guaranteed? What exactly is preventing constant contact? How does a lack of constant contact affect internal processes in the department? What specific, concrete damage might result from this? These and other questions should be explained in the ten sentences.

So, if you put a reasonable effort into explaining individual justifications in more detail, your persuasive power will increase immensely, and you won’t need to keep explaining things. The Ancient Romans had already figured this out, by the way: argumenta ponderantur, non numerantur – arguments are not counted, but weighed!

Third stage of the argument: The example

The third stage of the argument is the example that illustrates reasoning. I do not need to explain what examples are. Good examples, however, are: (a) verifiable; (b) easy to understand; and (c) generally well-known to all.

By verifiable I mean there is evidence that this specific example did in fact occur. The good example should be easy to understand because too much complexity tends to confuse rather than enlighten the audience. And generally well-known to all means that an obscure example from Papua New Guinea builds less emotional connection with the audience than, say, a familiar example from a competitor in the same city. You should also plan five to ten sentences for the example so you’re able to present it in an easy-to-follow manner.

Fourth stage of the argument: The Impact

The fourth and final stage of the argument, the impact, has to do with relevance/importance. This stage is about showing why the argument is relevant to your staff or the customer. Ideally, you should be making references to the general, everyday importance of the topic, its usefulness to the audience in getting them to do this or refrain from doing that.

If you forget this fourth step, you may convince people of your argument’s rationality, but they will probably just wave it off afterwards and simply say: “So what? Why do I care about what that guy standing up there just said? It doesn’t affect me after all!” And this is exactly what this fourth stage of argumentation is about: Your listener should realize that what you’re saying indeed affects him and his (work) life directly, so he should get busy changing his thinking or behavior. In short: You convince with the first three stages of the argument, and animate with the fourth.

EXERCISE #1: The imaginary speech

Using the SEXI model, prepare a speech explaining to your staff in detail why there will be no more remote work at your organization (speech length: approx. 3 – 5 min.). After completing your speech, please do a little research on the Internet and find some good reasons for not having employees work from home. With this in mind, analyze the speech you gave: Did your speech give the best reasons? Were the reasons sufficiently explained and justified? Did you provide a good example? Did you make the topic relevant to your audience? If you have to announce a big decision soon, remember the SEXI model and apply it consistently from now on.

Talking is silver—listening is gold

Persuasion is one of the most important skills of a good leader, of course. But what about listening? How important of a skill is listening? And are there different ways of listening? To get right to the point: Yes, there are actually seven ways to listen . A seemingly mundane, everyday activity is actually more complex than we thought. Let’s take a closer look at the seven ways of listening:

Empathetic listening

At the top of the list is empathetic listening. It’s a sincere attempt to not only understand what your conversation partner is saying, but also get a good feel of what drives him in the first place. Knowing this, then, allows you to help him.

Example:When your employee tells you, his manager, about a dispute with his colleague, you not only understand what the background of the dispute was, but you also empathize completely with your employee’s position, listening to him long enough to then give him a concrete suggestion for a solution. You do not avoid the situation. Instead, you create a relaxed and familiar atmosphere and focus 100% of your attention on your employee. The goal of the highest level of listening is to genuinely help the other person.

Active listening

Active listening is an honest and active attempt to understand the other person.It’s a matter of paraphrasing what has been said, and asking questions to make sure you have really understood what has been said. That way, you avoid misunderstandings.

Example:Your employee tells you about a dispute with his colleague. You try to fully understand the employee by actively asking what the background of the dispute was. You ask specific questions about information the employee might have omitted; you leave no stone unturned, even if the employee preferred leaving something unsaid (unconsciously or not). Thus the second highest level of listening is about understanding the other person one hundred percent.

Attentive listening

Attentive listening is a rather passive attempt at understanding what the other person is talking about. At this level, you listen attentively but make no effort to actively seek out information and clear up any ambiguities by asking specific questions.

Example:When your employee tells you about an argument he had with a colleague, you, as the manager, try not to miss any information. After the employee has finished, you assess the situation without investigating further. This third highest level of listening is about understanding the other person for the most part.

Interruptive listening

At this listening level, we listen to the other person but interrupt him when we feel that the specific information is rather unimportant, thus limiting his flow of speech.

Example:Your employee tells you that making a new website for your company would be a good idea. You know, however, that he’s no senior designer, but an industrial engineer, so he wouldn’t have the competence to comment on this matter anyway. You therefore interrupt him, frequently looking at the clock because you have another appointment soon. Before long, you’re already making your way towards the door—a clear signal to the employee that the conversation should be wrapping up now. This fourth highest level of listening is about generally understanding the other person.

Projective listening

At this level, you’re not listening to the other person completely, but sporadically. You only pick up key phrases while the rest is overheard or overlaid by your own thoughts. In your head you latch onto these key phrases and add what the other person probably wanted to say.

Example:Your employee tells you he’s working a lot of overtime on a current project and that he quite likes the project—as long as he has nothing to do with the client directly. You’re expecting the employee to complain about the overtime, so you single out the buzzwords “overtime” and “nothing to do with the client.” In your head, you interpret this as the employee not finding anything positive about the project. You completely miss the fact that he indeed likes the project for the most part. This fifth stage of listening is about understanding the other person selectively and only to a certain extent, your own thoughts clearly taking precedence in the conversation.

Pretending listening

At this level, we look at the other person but don’t actually listen. Instead, we just pretend that the person has our full attention.

Example: You’re on the phone talking to your employee about a project timeline—but in reality, you’re thinking about a mediocre sales call you had with a potential customer ten minutes ago, where you made a few mistakes. The employee’s info on the timeline seems unimportant to you, so you just mutter the occasional “Mhhh …” and “Aha …” but you’re not reflecting on what he’s actually saying. This sixth level of listening is about making the other person feel like you’re listening when in fact you’re not listening at all.

Ignoring listening

Although you’re hearing what the other person is saying, you’re not paying any attention to the content. The other person talking is more like a distracting background noise. You don’t even bother to catch anything specific.

Example: Your assistant comes into your office for a moment and speaks to you, but you’re busy writing an important email and want to word it perfectly. Not once does your focus leave the screen. But it doesn’t matter: In ten minutes you’ll forget that your assistant was even there at all, let alone that he was trying to tell you something important.This seventh level of listening is about letting the other person talk, but indirectly signaling that you’re not really listening to him at all.

Listening is a multi-faceted phenomenon, and everyone has experienced these seven types of listening at some point. However, the distinctions clearly show that empathetic listening and active listening take energy and time. So naturally you ask: is it even worth spending that kind of energy and time? The “seven levels of hierarchy” thought experiment can be a great help here.

The “seven levels of hierarchy” thought experiment

Imagine you’re a manager with six levels of hierarchy below you. You form the top (seventh) level. Now, imagine that at each level down the hierarchy, 50% of relevant information is lost due to careless listening. So, on the first level there is 100% of information, on the second level there is only 50%, and it keeps dividing in half from there. How much information do you think is left for you at the top (seventh) level? Got a number in mind? The answer: only 1.6% of the original 100% of info gets to you at the top (seventh) level! This thought experiment comes from a colleague of mine, Thomas Zweifel. Here’s a graph to illustrate it:

The graph clearly shows one thing: the higher the manager is on the hierarchy (up to level seven), the more important active and empathetic listening skills become in order to get the full story, 100% of the info. What’s also clear is this: If the manager wants access to more relevant information, he must go to the “source”, i.e., pose direct questions to the first or second level as well. Only having “strategy sessions” in the board room is just not enough. After all, who can make a sound decision with merely 1.6% of the info behind it?! Hence the saying: Talking is silver—listening is gold.

EXERCISE #2: Listen to a TED Talk

Listen to a TED Talk without taking any notes (www.ted.com). If you don’t know which TED Talk, I recommend the one by Simon Sinek titled “How great leaders inspire action” (just enter it on YouTube). TED Talks, if you’re not familiar with them, are approx. 20-minute-long presentations by various leaders in their respective fields with great ideas for the world.

And now for your task: Listen to the talk and, afterward, take pen and paper and write down as many details as possible. Then listen to the talk again. Did you remember all the major points? What about the examples? Did you note down the presenter’s justifications? The beauty of this listening exercise is that you can easily check your skills and train yourself to listen carefully without needing any extra coaching, as there are hundreds of good TED Talks to check out. Added bonus: You’ll greatly improve your listening skills while getting plenty of clever ideas—and not just for your working life.

Body language is king

Thousands of books have been written on professional body language. I myself regularly hold two-day events with managers on perfecting their body language. But this book isn’t just for show. It’s a practical manual, and let me tell you, you can improve 80% of the effect you have on others (keyword: Pareto principle) if you practice these three body language tips:

Why is eye contact so important?

The first body language rule is about eye contact. Eye contact builds trust, suggests competence, and radiates self-confidence. But the most important reason is that eye contact allows us to observe exactly how the other person is receiving our message. Whether the other person is looking away, embarrassed, frowning, or even shaking his head—we can observe the smallest body language reactions with eye contact and adapt our speech accordingly.