Article 16: The Many Skills Needed By Leaders

PREFACE:
The art of leadership requires many skills. To fully understand these skills requires us to know the difference between talent and skill. The free online dictionary tells us that a skill is a “Proficiency, facility, or dexterity that is acquired or developed through training or experience.” In contrast talent is a “Natural endowment or ability of a superior quality.” (http://www. thefreedictionary.com) So a skill is developed while a talent is attained as a “gift.” Each of us has a certain natural ability in each area I outline as a skill important for leadership but our skills in these areas can surpass our talent if we will do three things: value the skill, practice the skill, and seek open and honest feedback regarding our use of the skill.

I have noticed that some people just aren’t very good listeners, or are not very good at logical thought, or have difficulty developing a coherent plan, or just can’t seem to build trusting relationships. Still other people may have difficulty speaking, analyzing information, influencing the actions of others, or sticking with a project until it’s complete. And then there are the people who struggle with team building, delegating work to others, focusing on a vision, setting realistic goals, or providing and accepting good formative feedback. My experience tells me there are several reasons why people fail in one category or another. Here are some that I believe I have seen:

1. Some people feel that what they have to say is more important than what others have to say.
2. Some people devalue the message being conveyed by others because of the other person’s status or role in the organization.
3. Some people are always planning their next comment and therefore only partially listen to what is being said as they think about how to best respond to what others are saying.
4. Some people only listen from their own point-of-view and seem to have a belief that everyone ought to look at the world as they look at the world.
5. Some people get lost in the details and forget why we are undertaking the project to begin with.
6. Some people struggle with priorities and place too much importance on things that have only a minor impact.
7. Some people forget that what we each do in an organization makes up only one piece of the puzzle. To succeed will require efforts from many people doing many tasks which when combined will create a much larger, more powerful picture than does anyone one of our individual parts. Some people neglect small pieces of the puzzle which can leave significant holes in the larger tapestry. We are looking for a balance between big picture and minute details.
8. Some people just don’t trust anyone and thus have difficulty building close relationships.
9. Some people believe that everyone is judging everything they say and do and although some people do judge, the vast majority of the people you will work with will cut you a great deal of slack. By being so tuned into what others think you paralyze yourself and if being a leader means having to convey important messages, it is critical to get beyond the fear of what others will think about what you are saying.
10. Some people have difficulty knowing when to stop digging for more information. Sure we may need to know what 3 or 4 studies say about a process but will 100 studies make us better prepared. And then what is the quality of work that was done. Some people are too impressed with the internet and fail to look for the validity, veracity, and reliability of the information presented there.
11. Some people give up way too soon. If you are trying to sell someone on an idea and you explain it to them once, it’s almost like you never explained it at all. People need to hear ideas 7 or more times before they begin to really grasp what you are saying. Unfortunately, many people give up after one or two efforts to share the idea. A little more persistence just might be exactly what the organization needs.
12. Some people just like to do things themselves but in any organization there is always more work that needs to be done than one person can possibly do. Allowing the team to be all that it can be requires some specific team building skills such as clarity of purpose, clarity of expectations, development of common purposes, and the establishment of standards and benchmarks. Then it also requires that team members be given the latitude to do their work and the feedback necessary so that they will know where they are in the process.
13. Some people have difficulty maintaining a focus. They have organizational ADD. They chase every new idea or process presented by the latest guru they have seen. But an organization requires a real focus and needs some consistency and constancy. There is always room for new ideas but those ideas should not result in a complete reorganization once a month.
14. Some people set goals that are unattainable and others set goals that can so easily be attained that they do not promote growth or development.
15. Some people take any criticism they receive to be a personal attack rather than the constructive suggestions they are intended to be. Indeed, some people will criticize everything but most criticism we receive, if carefully examined, can help us improve our effectiveness.

The next several articles focus on each of these areas and provide suggestions as to how we can be better leaders by developing these skills. It is important to remember that skills are developed through deliberate practice. And deliberate practice requires honest, constructive feedback. Without feedback we can practice skills in a way that sets erroneous tendencies in mental concrete. Once these tendencies are set they become habits and habits are very hard to break. To make the most of your practice efforts find a coach, someone you can count on to give you honest feedback about what you do and how you do it.

In this article we will look at listening and thinking. My experience tells me that good listeners are hard to find. How have I made this conclusion? Just notice how many times people interrupt one another in a conversation. Also notice what people are doing while others are talking. There is a tremendous amount of research that says “multi-tasking” is really not possible so if you are texting while someone is talking to you, you really aren’t listening (and I am guilty as charged on this one!). In regards to thinking, I have also noticed that too many people have very closed minds. A closed mind will have gaps in its thought processes. If your mind is made up before the evidence is ever presented and verified, what will the quality of thinking will be? I have even heard people say “it won’t do you any good to try to convince me, my mind is made up.” You might as well say don’t bother me with the facts, I’m going to believe what I believe no matter what the facts are.

The preface of each ensuing article in this series will be fairly brief as I have laid out the ground work for all of the articles in this series in this preface. So I leave you with these articles which focus on the Many Skills Needed by Leaders.

THE ARTICLE:
The Many Skills Needed by Leaders:
There are many skills needed to be a successful leader. Some of these are listening, thinking, planning, relating, speaking, organizing, analyzing, influencing, persistence, team building, delegating, visioning, goal setting, and providing and acquiring feedback. Over the next few weeks, I’d like to take a look at each of these skills.

LISTENING:
Everyone can listen, right? My experience is that many people hear but they do not listen. In fact, I’m as guilty as anybody when it comes to listening. Being an active listener requires that you do more than hear. It requires that you actually consider, while you are hearing, what the speaker fully intends to convey with their spoken message. It requires that we continuously seek clarity and understanding and to never make assumptions about what is being said. If you don’t hear it, don’t assume the speaker meant it. Even if the speaker is really trying to be subtle, it is your responsibility in the communications act to be certain as to what they mean.

Just as important as actually listening to what a communication partner conveys is making sure they know you are paying attention. How often do we end up allowing our eyes to wander while someone is speaking? You know what? Where your eyes go so often the mind follows! To keep engaged use the tool of paraphrasing. If you know you are going to tell the speaker what you think he or she was saying but in your own words, you have to pay attention. Let the speaker know you will be doing this so that you can make sure you fully understand what they are saying. In critical leadership moments this can create a real bonding opportunity.

THINKING:
The second skill we listed was thinking. Certainly everyone can think; very true. But the quality of the thinking process is what we are getting at here. It’s not just; gee I think this is the answer. It’s about making informed decisions and it’s about having the ability to differentiate between good information and not-so-good information. Just because you read it on the internet doesn’t make something a fact; if you know what we mean? Our intention is for leaders to engage in the act of critical thinking and reasoning.

Critical thinkers develop relationships between different groups and types of information. Using our powers of reason we take information from our long-term memory and apply it to the context of the moment. By using what we already know and believe, we can examine new information in relationship to the information stored in our long-term memory and determine whether this new context fits. We then notice similarities between otherwise different ideas and evaluate ideas by comparing them to our internal structure of logic and reasoning. Our goal is to make this a conscious process as opposed to an auto-pilot process. Good leaders create a decision-making model which is based on a critical thinking process, therefore, making any decision before the facts are weighed or through an emotional response to the situation at hand, simply does not happen.

SUMMATION:
There are many things that get in the way of being a good listener. Today we have a plethora of electronics that compete for our attention. To be a good listener is essential if you wish to be a good leader but so many leaders do such a poor job at listening. Why? Listening takes time and too many leaders think they just don’t have enough time to listen. In reality, they do not have enough time not to listen. The better you are at listening, the less time the process takes. If you actually focus on those who are sharing information you will get more out of it.

A common mistake that is often made by leaders is that they fail to share their message expectations with those who share the message. If a leader has only 10 minutes in their schedule to listen to what someone has to say, that leader needs to be very upfront and tell the speaker, “I have an appointment and it is important that I honor the other person’s time so I can give you 10 minutes. Please be concise and give me the most important details. If we need to schedule another time to converse about this issue, let’s do that so I can completely focus on what you have to say.”

We all have listening habits that we have developed over the years. Some of these habits are good and some are bad. To become a more effective listener we must give people we work with permission to share their impressions of our listening process. If as a team everyone comes to an agreement as to what constitutes good listening habits, we can have a standard that everyone can use as we share our impressions with one another. If we decide that good listening involves eye contact, asking questions and paraphrasing as well as controlling distractions, then we can tell a listener if we think they were distracted or didn’t make eye contact. We can also comment about the questions they asked or how well they did at paraphrasing and others can do the same for us.

As is the case with all leadership skills, knowing what is expected; establishing the standards is always a good idea. This applies for listening and for the second skill in this article, thinking. But thinking is a much touchier subject than listening. Most of us are somewhat defensive about our thinking processes because we connect thought with intellect. Indeed there is a connection but very intelligent people can have flawed thought processes. That last word is the key; process. Thinking is a process it is not a “thing.” We can know a great deal and apply all that we know and even connect what seem to be disparate ideas yet our thinking process can be flawed.

Critical thinking is just what it says it is, Critical Thinking. What gets in the way of some thinkers is the critical aspect. Consider this definition of the word critical: “Inclined to judge severely and find fault. Characterized by careful, exact evaluation and judgment” (American Heritage Dictionary). When you think about what’s going on around you in a critical manner, what you are doing is looking for the holes, the problems, the mistakes in logic. What too many leaders do is spend their time trying to validate and support their opinions but if they truly used critical thought processes their arguments would support themselves. If instead of the statement “I have found this research to support my contentions” a leader was to say I have searched for holes in my thinking and I have yet to find any, please tell me if you see errors in my logic, how might that change the conversation?