Think about all the people who have had leadership responsibility and authority over you. Who inspired, believed, and encouraged you? When I reflect on this question, several teachers— from grade school to graduate school—come to mind. These teachers pushed me to try things I did not think I was capable of doing, supporting, coaching, and mentoring me along the way.
Now think about the people whose behaviours had a negative impact on you and your leadership development. Unfortunately for many of us, this list includes so-called leaders, whose actions and words serve as an example of what we do not want to be like as a leader. One such leader from my past once made this comment: “Just remember I will always get all the credit, and you will always get all the blame.” I will never forget that comment
and its destructive effect on my motivation and morale.
This simple exercise emphasizes the impact that leader behaviour has on organizational performance. Influential leaders are kind, considerate, honest, respectful, and trustworthy, among many other inspiring traits. Sadly, far too many leaders do the exact opposite, and they are either unaware or uncaring of how they come across to their peers and subordinates. As a result, they do not realize that their negative behaviour contributes to lack of trust, loss of credibility, and the high cost of poor performance and low productivity. Worse, some leaders intentionally behave badly and are protective of those negative traits, thinking they cause no harm.
Neuroscience has now proven that leadership behaviour affects the brains of people as team members in positive or negative ways. So positive leader behaviour can contribute to creating motivation, engagement, and high performance in people while negative and disruptive behaviour can create the opposite effect. Leaders create a workplace culture that enhances individual performance or they create a culture where people struggle to perform at their best. As many other leadership experts have said in a variety of ways – leaders get in performance what they create or what they allow – and behaviour is the key contributing factor to creating teams that thrive and produce incredible results.
By learning about the self, leaders become comfortable with their internal values, beliefs, preferences, thought processes, and emotions. They become self-managers, careful about how they present themselves and respond to the outside world. A self-aware leader then is in a better position to collaborate and connect with others, unlike a leader who is unaware of her true self. If you want to start creating real change, start connecting your values to your actions, become aware of your actions and the outcomes they have on others you work with. Real change happens when we begin to become aware of our individual leader behaviour.
CORPORATE HARMONY is grateful to Dr. Michael E. Frisina for his contributions to this entry.
Catherine is the President and CEO of CORPORATE HARMONY, providing virtual solutions for leadership development and organizational culture change. Her leadership and coaching experience as a Project Manager in an ever-changing, fast moving technological organization with unrelenting demands drove her to the realization that a positive mindset and strength-building behaviors are essential for today’s complex and chaotic organizational systems. CORPORATE HARMONY’s virtual platform of programs, coaching and performance measurement, is an innovative online technology of tested proprietary content. The world-class content of CORPORATE HARMONY’s Positive Presence Program develops the skill of ‘Positive Presence’ and the necessary ‘Positive Presence Behaviour Competencies’ for maintaining a positive and energized mindset and increased performance in today’s complex work environment, and leading to a culture of collaboration and connection. Catherine’s vision for Corporate Harmony is to bring the skill of “Positive Presence” to the corporate world as it becomes more complex, ambiguous and chaotic. Catherine is uniquely positioned to impact organizations’ productivity and long term success, with her powerful vision of eliminating bad stress from every workplace around the globe, bringing purpose into the people equation to promote healthy, productive and meaningful work cultures and turn the tide on the neglect of mental health on a global scale. Catherine is author of the book: “CORPORATE HARMONY – The Performance Link for Today’s Modern Organization” Catherine can be reached at: Catherine.Osborne@corporateharmony.ca or go to ‘contact us’ on our website www.corporateharmony.ca. Catherine is available for consultation, and can be reached by 519-695-3407.