One of my CEO leadership coaching clients knows that for his company to thrive she needs to create a climate of trust and possibility. I am consulting with the company senior leadership team to develop a new direction for the business. They are currently evaluating a new business strategy.
The CEO knows that thriving in the future depends on all company leaders modeling the qualities of good leadership. He is empowering his leadership team to create a more empowered company culture. Human Resources is partnering with the CEO in helping the company create a more sustainable future. Our current executive coaching and leadership consulting work is focused on helping leaders and all employees become more change resilient.
Seven Essential Leadership Traits
The following behaviors characterize a good leader in a downturn:
1. Honesty and integrity. Nobody can be certain about the current business environment and its future direction. How can you tell people what you believe when you lack full confidence? Intellectual honesty and humility are essential. Your leadership success depends on your ability to facilitate understanding and solutions.
2. Ability to inspire. You and your team must motivate employees by working with them to help them be more resilient. Help them develop a realistically optimistic vision of what can lie ahead. People need a vision that sparks the creativity and innovative spirit needed to develop new ideas and solutions.
3. Connection to reality. Reality is a moving target. You have to keep updating your picture of it, continuously monitoring change. Gather information from unconventional sources, and don't get locked into one view. Allow the picture to change as you gather new information.
4. Optimistic mindset. Unadulterated pessimism is no more realistic than unbridled optimism. Focus your people on a vision of what's possible. Energize them to search for actions that will help them realize their visions. Transform fear into action.
5. Managing with urgency. Hands-on participation is critical. Only through personal involvement can you acquire the requisite data needed to act with the required speed.
6. Confidence in building a sustainable future. The need to conserve cash and survive may pressure you to shortchange the future. It takes imagination and guts to place strategic bets with no guaranteed payoffs.
7. Full engagement. In order for employees to be fully engaged they need to help co-create a strategy that is aligned with company and employee values. Companies that have a sustainable future elicit innovative ideas from leaders at all levels of the organization. Leaders at the top need to align people and processes and provide focus on achievable goals.
Are you working in a company or law firm where leaders demonstrate honesty and integrity when things get tough? Does your company or law firm provide leadership coaching and leadership development to help leaders temper realism with optimism? During tough economic times, leaders need to fully engage their people in building for the future.
One of the most powerful questions you can ask yourself is "Am I a leader who inspires people to develop new ideas and solutions?" Emotionally intelligent and socially intelligent organizations provide executive coaching and leadership development for leaders who want to become more inspiring so that their people and organization will thrive.
Working with a seasoned executive coach and leadership consultant trained in emotional intelligence and incorporating assessments such as the Bar-On EQ-i CPI 260 and Denison Culture Survey can help you create an organization that will co-create and execute a sustainable business strategy. You can become a leader who models emotional intelligence and social intelligence, and who inspires people to become fully engaged with the vision, mission and strategy of your company or law firm.
