WaterFilter.com

Leadership Like Water-Water Canoeing

Although world business is undergoing historic changes, the prevailing view of what constitutes business leadership is stuck in the past. Generally, business leaders view leadership as an order-giving process. The word "leadership" itself comes from old Norse root meaning "to make go." Many leaders believe that they must "make" people go by ordering them to do things.

But today's new business realities are requiring new kinds of leadership, leadership that has very little to do with order giving. Organizations are more competitive when leaders don't make others go but instead have those others make themselves go — when employees are not ordered to do tasks but instead are in the frame of mind and heart that they want to do those tasks. That "want to" is the cutting edge of competitiveness.

Order-leadership in business has its roots in the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution. "Order" comes from a Latin root meaning to arrange threads in a weaving woof. The captains of the Revolution dealt with the relatively uneducated country people who flocked to their factories by ordering them where, how, and when to work. The most efficient and effective production methods resulted from workers being "ordered" or ranked like threads in the woof of production lines. Refined and empowered by the Victorian commercial culture, with its patriarchal power structure and strong links to Prussian military organization, the culture of the order-giver leader reached its zenith in the United States after World War II.

During the post-war years, many U.S. businesses were like ocean liners plowing through relatively calm seas, their leaders, like liner captains and mates, running things by getting orders from superiors, giving orders to subordinates and making sure that those orders were carried out.

But today, with competition increasing dramatically, with the volume and velocity of information multiplying, with the pyramidal structures of order-giving businesses flattening, leaders need skills not akin to ocean liner piloting but white-water canoeing. Order leadership founders where lines of authority are blurred, information proliferates, markets rapidly changing, and employees are highly skilled and educated.

A new kind of leadership, a new vision of leadership is needed — leadership based on the principle that the leader doesn't make others go by ordering them about but instead has them go by creating an organizational environment in which they prompt themselves to go.

This new leadership is:

1. Motivational.
2. Action-based.
3. Results-driven.

Motivational: Leaders do nothing more important than get results. But leaders can't get results themselves. They need the people they lead to get results. And the best way for them to get results is not to order them but to motivate them to take action that produces results. However, the English language misconstrues motivation. English describes the act of motivation as something one person does to another person. Leaders can't motivate anybody to do anything. We communicate — the people themselves motivate. They motivate themselves. Only they can motivate themselves. The motivators and the "motivatees" are the same people. We engage in the new leadership when we recognize that we are motivating people to get results only when we set up an environment in which they are actively motivating themselves.

Action-based: A key aspect of the new leadership lies in the first two letters of the word motivation. Those letters — "mo" — are also found in the words "motion," "momentum," "motor," "mobile," etc. The words denote action — physical action. Motivation isn't what people think or feel but physically do. To engage in the new leadership, leaders must constantly be challenging others to take physical action that leads to results.

Results-oriented: Motivated people are useless to a business. People taking action are useless to a business. Only those people who get results are useful. The thing is that people who are motivated and taking action are more likely to get results. Leaders must have a passion to achieve results. Not just results — but more results, faster results. They must permeate the culture of their organization with a more results faster esprit.

Clearly, many order leaders have a passion for results. But as to the new leadership, how people get results is as important as their getting those results. To get more-results-faster, the order leader demands that people run faster in the organizational gerbil wheel. But there is a limit to how fast and hard people can work before they burn out. The new leader, however, recognizes that to achieve more results faster on a continuous basis that people can't simply speed up, work harder, and be straight-jacketed by tight controls. They must replenish their spirit and energies. They must slow down to develop and employ powerful processes, and they must challenge others to lead for results. The new leader's effectiveness is not measured so much by his/her actions but by the effectiveness of the leadership activities he/she challenges others to engage in.

The recent emergence of interlocking global markets has stimulated a new vision of world commerce, a vision of a single global playing field. Leaders must match their business activities to the demands of that vision. But a corresponding new vision of leadership has not emerged.

Stuck with an outmoded vision of order leadership, today's leaders are not seizing the full array of opportunities before them. When they begin to establish leadership that is not order-driven but is instead motivational, action-based and results-oriented, the world might not beat a path to their door but more importantly, they will beat paths to the doorsteps of the world.

===========================================

PERMISSION TO REPUBLISH: This article may be republished in newsletters and on web sites provided attribution is provided to the author, and it appears with the included copyright, resource box and live web site link. Email notice of intent to publish is appreciated but not required: mail to: brent@actionleadership.com

=========================================== 2005 © The Filson Leadership Group, Inc. All rights reserved. ===========================================

The author of 23 books, Brent Filson's recent books are, THE LEADERSHIP TALK: THE GREATEST LEADERSHIP TOOL and 101 WAYS TO GIVE GREAT LEADERSHIP TALKS. He is founder and president of The Filson Leadership Group, Inc. – and has worked with thousands of leaders worldwide during the past 20 years helping them achieve sizable increases in hard, measured results. Sign up for his free leadership ezine and get a free guide, "49 Ways To Turn Action Into Results," at http://www.actionleadership.com

MORE ARTICLES:

Water Coolers Direct Launch a Range of Domestic Water Filters
Water Coolers Direct have recently launched a range of Domestic Water Filters, the range is intended to reflect the growing trend of UK householders who are asking the company for more advanced filtration solutions for the home. The new range of filters will include an under sink water filter and undersink chiller, a reverse osmosis system, replacement fridge filters and water softeners.

The Advantages Of Having A Healthy Diet
One of the major reasons why people get overweight or suffer from minor and major health risks is that they don?t practice having a healthy diet. Healthy diet?which include eating balanced amount of food from all food groups?along with exercise or regular physical activity can lessen people?s inclination to health problems.

Droughts, Earthquakes, Energy, Water Supplies, and Conservation
Droughts cause more than just water restriction in your town or little letters from the water district to please conserve. For instance as ground water is taken out and aquifers dry up, cavities are created and left unfilled and we know that that is a problem with earthquakes as under ground cavities collapse.

How Much Do You Know About The Water You Are Drinking?
Hydration: Water you made of?

Cooking Advices For Vegetables
People have the opportunity to enjoy a large assortment of vegetables, which come in delightful colors and pleasing shapes. Some people like vegetables so much that they decorate their homes with their images on all sorts of home decorating modes. The foremost cooking advices for vegetables are that they should be eaten as often as possible because vegetables do a body good as far a nutritional value.

Pure Kona Coffee
Pure Kona Coffee is gourmet coffee grown only on the Island of Hawaii. It is grown on the dark volcanic lava rock slopes of Kona which is located on the west side of the Big Island.

Four Signs of a Healthy Weight Loss Plan for the Heart
Being overweight puts you at a much greater risk of developing heart disease If you are currently overweight, getting back to a healthy weight is one of the best things you can do for your heart

Keep Your Bathroom Squeaky Clean: 9 Bathroom Cleaning Tips
Best time to clean your bathroom ? take advantage of that fresh out of the shower dew that?s just settled all over your bathroom. No need to fill a bucket full of water, just take a paper towel and wipe off the loosened dirt.

Say 'I Do' to a Happy and Healthy Honeymoon
Say "I Don't" to Honeymoon Cystitis

Water District Property Becomes An Emergency Training Site
Some of the vacant San Jose homes awaiting demolition to make way for a major Santa Clara Valley Water District flood protection project along the upper Guadalupe River will be the site of emergency training exercises involving the city firefighters.

How To Clean the Spies In Your Computer?
Manual Spy Bot Removal > BookedSpaceBookedSpace is an Internet Explorer Browser Helper Object used to show advertising.Free PC Health Check - find bad files fast! How many corrupt and redundant files are lurking inside your PC ready to cause harmful errors? Find these harmful "time-bomb" files instantly and keep your computer ERROR FREE 24 hours a day!Variants BookedSpace/Remanent : early variant (around July 2003) with filename rem00001.

A Coffee Shop In Your Kitchen
At least here in the United States, a cup of coffee used to be a simple thing. Ya paid yr dime, ya got yr cup o'joe and that was it. Today, we choose from mica lattes, frocchopinos, double latte espress, and that doesn't even count the basic espresso and cappuccino. I am reminded of Enrico Fermi, who, when atomic particles such as muons and kaons were being discovered and named in the 1930's, remarked that"If I wanted to remember all that I would have become a botanist." He must have understood, because he went on to develop the process that led to the Atomic bomb, but like him, I understand coffee but am overcome by all these varieties. With a grind and brew coffee maker, turn your kitchen into a coffee bar.

FoodNetwork.com's International Series Launches Latin Cooking Offering Users Delicioso Dishes from Ingrid Hoffmann and More
FoodNetwork.com's Latin Cooking Series covers everything from party fare favorites like Chunky Guacamole and Classic Margaritas to delicious Dulce de Leche.

Circles On The Water – The Impact You Make On People's Lives
When you were a child, or maybe even when you were older, did you ever toss a pebble into the water and watch the ripples that emanated from the point where it broke the surface? Or watched the effect of raindrops falling on a body of water? I have done these things and have since found myself pondering on this process, and just how much it can be compared to our lives.The pebble splashes in the water and affects the surface surrounding it.