Everyday Leadership is a Craft!

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Knowing the Craft of Leadership is Essential

Do outside pressures and demands on you as a leader seem to steal your attention?

Do you wonder if you’re paying enough attention to your staff?

If so, it’s useful to consider

1. the purpose of your leadership efforts
2. the fact that day-to-day leadership is really a craft aimed at that specific purpose

Knowing this craft and its nature will make it clear to you in what instances people need your leadership deliverables and how you may contribute efficiently.

Let’s take a closer look.

The Purpose of Everyday Leadership is Engaged and Efficient Employees

We often speak about the leader’s job as a matter of engaging employees. But we seldomly define what specifically it is that we want employees to “become engaged in”.

So let us take a look behind the surface of the term employee engagement.

Employee Engagement may be divided into 7 generic sub-responsibilities or 7 employeeship roles:

• Perform in sync with mission, vision, values
• Understand own work processes and those of relevant colleagues
• Gather and share relevant knowledge relating to one’s job
• Collaborate and be prepared to collaborate, when asked by relevant colleagues
• Use and grow own competencies
• Be responsible and accountable when making decisions
• Perform in agreed time and quality

Why Much Leadership Fails

When talking about day-to-day leadership everybody can agree that it means a kind of interaction between leaders and their staff members that results in engaged and efficient employees.

However, in general it doesn’t get more specific than that.

Some suggest that if the leader is 100% authentic and know his/her own direction then s/he becomes like a magnet that employees have a desire to follow.

Others believe that each leader should figure out the details of the job themselves and develop a sort of individual leadership style.

Personally, I believe that we can and should do better than that!

Leaving it up to each leader to figure out his/her individual style is a sink-or-swim strategy[1] that is brutal and ineffective.

And what’s more, while the leaders struggle to figure out how not to drown, their employees are left to watch and lose confidence in the person who was supposed to facilitate their work and productivity.

Leadership Needs to Deal With Employee Responsibilities to be Efficient

Direct Leadership® describes what, how and when leaders should contribute leadership.

• 7 Leadership Roles specify WHAT topics you need to address with your team members to support staff in carrying out the 7 Employeeship Roles described above
• 4 Leadership Styles let you choose HOW to do it
• The notion of Leadership Opportunities tells you WHEN to step in and contribute your leadership deliverables.

The Catch-Assess-Select Process Makes Your Day-To-Day Leadership Clear and Consistent.

As soon as you’ve understood the components of the model, you can use a simple 3-step process as your personal leadership decision tool. 

1. You are constantly alert to catching whatever leadership opportunities come your way
2. The next thing you do is to assess what role relates to the situation.
3. Then you select the most relevant action style

When your interaction with an employee or a group is guided by the catch-assess-select method, your leadership will have a direct, positive influence on the 7 employee responsibilities.

• Your awareness of leadership opportunities will make you more attentive to your employees.
• Your role-analysis and choice of style will make your interventions more focused.
• And very quickly you will be recognized for your increased clarity and efficiency. 

You Don’t Need Perfection to Implement the Method

Maybe you believe you have to master the Direct Leadership® method to perfection before you can implement it.

On the contrary.

You can only learn to master a craft, if you start using the tools! Your most important leadership tool is the catch-assess-select method.

Why? Because, a leadership intervention guided by the catch-assess-select process is guaranteed to be better than a randomly chosen approach.

This means, you should start using the method right away and simply do your best with it. And step-by-step you practise in real-time. Maybe after a while you will also want to experiment. Consider different role-style combinations. Try the one that isn’t your first choice.

That will expand your capability as a leader and it is the only way to mastery of the Craft of Leadership. 

Become a Master of the Leadership Craft!

Choose which way is best for you to learn and practice:

• Blended Learning (Flexible and Individualized)
• Traditional Classroom Training (Face2face with Trainer)
• The online course Direct Leadership® - The Essential Leadership Deliverables (Fast and Flexible)

[1] Throwing someone into the sea and see if they make it or drown.