It is possible that not all moods are equally infectious. One study, by
the Yale School of Management in 1999, indicated that fun and
laughter catch on more readily than irritability, which in turn was
more infectious than depression.
The one important caveat is that the positive mood that a leader
attempts to inculcate in the team must be genuine. After all, if a
grinning executive who has just made a series of redundancies and
cashed in some lucrative share options begins talking about how
great the company is, this is not going to prompt the staff in the
cubicles to start whistling, ‘Oh, What a Beautiful Morning’ and go
home with smiles on their faces.
Complete leadership involves appreciating all of the influences on
an organization; from the cash in the bank, to the views of the
customers, to the attitudes of the staff towards the pay scheme, to the
technical ability of the operational managers, and so on. The personal
attributes that we encourage you to develop in this book need to be
grafted on the real you, working in a real organization, with an
awareness of the three-dimensional world around you. These matters
all affect you, and you affect them.
3-D development
With a fuller appreciation of how we come across, we are better
placed to begin improving our complete leadership skills. To provide
an easy-reference guide, we conclude the self-awareness programme
and begin the development with an approach that we call ‘3-D
development’.
This approach bears similarities to the ‘balanced scorecard’ technique
used at an organizational level, where measures across a range of
business assets and features are involved.
3-D development is focused more closely on the leader and the
leader’s team. The aim is to ensure that development and coaching is
focused and measurable, especially in terms of its impact and
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contribution to the business. This can ensure that the bigger picture
is taken into account in a systematic way, connecting business and
individual performances. It may sound rather general, but it is
remarkable how quickly such an approach can be used to tease out
practical issues and develop specific solutions, as we’ll see below.
3-D development creates a framework for individuals and teams to
benchmark their own progress as the demands on them grow and
change in line with business needs. The process seeks to align
individual perceptions and the abilities of managers into the
business strategy, ensuring that the impact of individuals and teams
are interlinked with business performance. Coaching on its own
focuses on an individual. As we noted in Chapter 2, investors are
increasingly looking for systematic ways to gauge leadership ability,
and for robust leadership development and succession planning
programmes.
Remember, when using 3-D – or any form of balanced scorecard
approach – always ask yourself the following questions:
◆ Is the goal specific?
◆ Is the goal measureable?
◆ Is the goal time-phased?
◆ How will you know when you have reached your goal?
◆ How will others recognize that you have reached your goal?
◆ What obstacles in yourself or in your environment may hinder
your attempt to reach your goal?
◆ Who or what can be a source of help to you in reaching your goal
or in overcoming possible obstacles?
The 3-D approach equips you with a mapping language that you and
your team (and your boss if you have one) can agree, and which is
clear and understood by all parties. This should include a full brief of
the business, strategy, pressures and demands.
THE 3-D QUESTIONNAIRE
1 List your strengths: all the things you are really good at.
Now check these with your boss, a colleague or direct report.
Even your partner at home may help you. Think about how you
might do them even better.
2 Now list some of the things you are not really good at.
Stand back and think what you might do differently to be more
effective. Again you might wish to check these out with your
boss, a colleague or direct report.
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THE 3-D DEVELOPMENT MODEL
D-1 Do what you do well even better – remember you can even
improve on your strengths. Give yourself permission to excel in the
skill that you are best at, which is likely to be the one you enjoy
most.
D-2 Determine what needs to change – think of the things that you
could do differently that would make a difference. Remember: this
has to be actions, not just thoughts.
D-3 Define the values – those values that support or block you in
becoming a complete leader. Internal voices may persuade you that
you cannot be number one, or that ‘nice people cannot be leaders’.
The questionnaire processes on leadership styles and organizational
climate described in Chapter 3 will also give information on D-1. If
you have followed these, and particularly if you have supplemented
this process with informal methods of gaining feedback about how
you lead, you will have a good idea of your strengths and
weaknesses. You know the ‘real me’.
Then examine D-2, to identify what you and the team could do to be
more effective in doing what the business really needs. This creates a
second list – the ‘desired me’. In this way you are beginning to
understand how effective you are and can plan how you might add
new dimensions to cope with future demands.
For example, Shelley, the finance director of a financial services
company, had a terrific grasp of what was going on in the company,
but not much understanding of what she regarded as peripheral
matters affecting her and her colleagues’ success. She saw herself as
a finance director only and didn’t believe in spending time talking to
investors or the press, seeing this as the domain of the chairman and
chief executive.
This turned out to be an expensive view to take. Investors became
nervous that they were not getting the full story and the press
became suspicious. What should have been an innovative
acquisitions policy became derailed because of a falling share
price.
Investors and shareholders today are constantly examining the
calibre of today’s and tomorrow’s leaders. Succession planning is
scrupulously reviewed. To be successful, complete leaders may have
to ‘unlearn’ old and favoured ways of doing things. A systematic
approach to identifying strengths and weaknesses, such as the 3-D
approach outlined here, can help you to do that. It will help you
pinpoint where you need to boost your skillset matched against the
company’s short- and long-term objectives, and can particularly help
in areas where you feel ‘stuck’ and struggling to change. Directors
and key players are now being assessed as to whether they have the
flexibility to master different management styles, and what they need
to do to be successful. The balanced scorecard, and our particular
application of it here, is a process that not only helps business
processes, but can also help you and your team to be complete
leaders.
Take the case of Harry, who was the finance director of a medium-
sized clothing retail company. He was happy at work and his wife
was expecting their first baby in January, in six months’ time. The
business was doing well and the initial founders were happy with
his work. Change was forced on Harry when a new CEO was
brought into the firm to grow the company through acquisition.
The original owner/founder moved into the role of non-executive
chairman.
Harry was beginning to feel overworked. Long hours were draining
him of enthusiasm, and exhaustion was beginning to set in.
Challenge from his coach to delegate more to his team and rethink
the way he was working was rebuffed. ‘They’re not up to it,’ he
would say. ‘And anyway, they’re also overworked so it wouldn’t be
fair.’ Harry had always seen his role as collecting accurate data from
the retail outlets and presenting it at board meetings. Then of course
there was budgeting, and forecasting, but he was convinced that only
he could do all of that.
Harry’s coach worked with him through the 3-D model. He was clear
about his strengths: honesty and integrity, capacity for hard work,
ability with figures, and knowledge of the business. What he was less
clear about was what he needed to change.
After some reflection and encouragement from his coach he realized
that he needed to strengthen his team and delegate some of the more
routine work to them. The results from tests of his emotional
competence startled him. He realized he was not seen by his team
as displaying empathy or as taking initiative. They also resented
the fact that he didn’t enable them to develop, but was seen as
controlling and interfering. His relationship with the new CEO was
somewhat fractious at times and Harry knew now that he would
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