Supporting leadership influence and impact (2)

Ability is what you are capable of doing; Motivation determines what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it” (Lou Holtz).

Leadership is essentially concerned with the movement of people along a particular path in order to achieve one or more specific goals and/or attain certain outcomes. As a result, the first and most important challenge of leadership in any form is to creatively espouse a realistic vision. This vision must of course be communicated effectively to people, who will in turn buy into the vision and adopt it as their own. Leadership success is assured when the people are able to run with the vision, with great personal conviction, commitment and consistency.

A vision is useless except there are committed people to run with it. People are especially required to develop the vision beyond the dreams of the visioner. That is why most of what a leader does is to communicate and share vision with his people. For a corporate organisation for instance, it is required and expected of the leaders to clearly communicate and explain the top three things that the organisation is working on at any particular time. If a leader cannot do this, he is not leading well enough. The extent and level of his leadership influence and impact would of course be greatly negated.

Whether it is in the corporate organisation or elsewhere that leadership influence and impact is expected to be demonstrated, the followers must be able to clearly state and articulate the communicated leadership vision. This is what gives rise to effective grounding and sustainability of personal and corporate vision, values, mission and operations in a successfully managed organisation. It is the responsibility of top managers and leaders in this regard to positively indoctrinate their people through constant and relentless communication.

It is highly unlikely that a leader that wants to successfully impact his people and impart certain desirable characteristics in achieving personal and corporate goals can be guilty of over communicating. As a matter of fact, it has been suggested by notable and successful corporate leaders that leaders must repeat several times to employees where the organisation is headed. They must also repeat to the employees how they conceive that the organisation will achieve its goals. Very importantly, they need to again repeat to the employees the specific roles and responsibilities of the employees, in order to achieve desired goals.

In emphasising the role of communication in people management, a leadership expert named William H. Rastetter once declared that “the first time you say something, it’s heard. The second time you say it, it is recognised; and the third time you say it, it is learned”. It is therefore essential for the leader to ensure that his people receive and understand the vision, in a way that it becomes a mutually shared vision. Effective communication is the key to this ever happening and is one of the cardinal principles of leadership coaching.

Quite simply, leadership coaching is essentially about communicating ideas and ideals for positive influence and sustainable impact. The professional coach is there to facilitate and support the process. It must however be remembered that the coach is merely a sounding board, and he is not responsible for setting and achieving goals for the client. That is the responsibility of the client, who in this case is an inspired leader who has a great vision to share with his people. This is however only possible through effective communication between the leader and the people.

It is true that the leader is the primary change agent, but the people are the conveyor of change.

You can read more about the transformational power of coaching at www.ceedcoaching.com.

To illustrate this point, one can consider the action and operation of the conveyor belt at the airports for example. You simply place luggage on the moving device, and the rest of the task of moving the heavy baggage is done by the device. In the same way, the leader initiates, but he must also empower the people to move the change. The dramatic thing is that the conveyor system continues to work until it is stopped externally. What great power it receives to carry on the task!

If you are a leader, the question must be asked if your people can carry on different tasks efficiently and effectively without you being there to hold their hands perpetually. To ensure this possibility, you as an influential and impactful leader must be skilful enough to provide direction through effective and realistic goal setting, practical communication and coach-leadership. The resultant effect is that people become more knowledgeable and confident to run with the vision that has been communicated to them. That is what leadership coaching primarily aims to achieve. You can read more about the transformational power of coaching at www.ceedcoaching.com.

Emmanuel Imevbere