Supporting leadership influence and impact (4)
Leadership is persuasion, conciliation and patience. It’s a long, slow, tough work” (Dwight D. Eisenhower).
A popular football club featuring in the English Premiership League had just had a very disappointing season. The team lost more games than they won and therefore finished the football season in an unexpected and embarrassing position on the league table. In order to turn things around in the new season, a new head coach was employed and more money was made available to him to recruit new players to the team during the transfer period, in the bid to excel. The mandate given to the coach was that the team must finish among the top four at the end of the new season and thus qualify for the European Championship League competition.
Remarkably, the new coach succeeded in his new assignment and was able to restore much confidence to the team, management, fans and other stake holders. Explaining his winning strategies, the coach pointed out that his main challenge was not getting the best eleven players unto the field to play. His biggest challenge was in getting the eleven to play as a team under a captain that would lead from the front. He therefore had to seek out and choose a captain that had certain leadership characteristics that he considered critical to leading the team to achieve the itemised goals.
The coach in this regard had four distinct qualities that he looked for in his new team captain and leader of the pack. The first quality is idealised influence. The second quality is ability to inspire and motivate all team members. The third quality is intellectual or mental stimulation for innovation and creativity. The fourth quality is recognition and development of individual and personal excellence. To some people, this may appear a bit too academic and theoretical, but as far as it relates to the football club, it worked.
Importantly, this can also work in any other sphere where strong and impactful leadership is required for transformation. The first quality of idealised influence ensures that the leader remains an ideal model, as he inspires others around his most cherished principles of success. The second quality is required to rally others to achieve specific goals. The third quality helps to stimulate creative thinking, which makes people seek opportunities for personal development. The fourth quality encourages and facilitates individual brilliance, which in turn translates to team brilliance.
The real success of this coach, his captain and the football team centred around the creation and utilisation of positive energy channelled most effectively toward achieving a common desired goal. What was most important for the team was that the captain, being the leader of the pack remained the fulcrum of the team energy. Energy in this regard of course refers to, and describes passion, drive, enthusiasm, zeal, excitement, mental strength, presence of mind and resilience. All of these make a person to be personally inspired and to act decisively in the quest for goal achievement.
A leader without energy can hardly inspire himself or motivate others to achieve something worthwhile. In actual fact, the role of a leader in driving change and facilitating all-round performance enhancement is to build the energy of people around his own energy. Truly, personal energy is really what keeps the leader awake at night strategising, and wakes him up early in the morning, full of ideas and thoughts on even better ways to attain set goals. Coaching leaders is all about building personal energy.
The creation, sustenance, and flow of energy in this regard remain among the most important objectives of coaching. This is because nothing important can ever be achieved by someone with no personal energy. As a matter of fact, most successful leaders influence others and get results by remaining energised. This is the reason why they are able to finish what they have started, and can fulfill their mission. It is simply because they are driven to articulate their vision and act on this vision purposely, as a result of their tremendous energy. This is what is behind true leadership influence.
Personal influence exerted by the leader in this regard builds leadership credibility, which is critical once a person is in any leadership position. Leadership credibility is of course established and maintained through leadership personality. It is for this reason that the effect of leadership personality is suggested to be twofold: The first is giving direction. The second is creating and influencing true followership. In summary successful leaders need to say two things to their people. This first is: “This is where we are going” (direction). The second is: “This is why and how we need your support in getting there together. You can read more about the transformational power of coaching at www.ceedcoaching.com.
Emmanuel Imevbere