The Leadership Cycle

I was asked a few months ago to explain my philosophy of leadership. Funny, I really hadn't thought about leadership that critically before. I just sought to have impact with people. After a lot of reflection, I developed what for me has been a helpful tool when it comes to consistent leadership. I thought it would be fun to talk about this "Leadership Cycle" on the blog as a way to get started thinking through a few deeper ideas -deeper for me any way.

For today, I will just give a basic overview. Later I will go a little deeper on each part of the process. So here it goes:

The Leadership Cycle is basically four steps which come to think of it might mean it is not a cycle. Nomenclature will come later I guess.

Step 1. Develop a Vision. You can't help people arrive at a destination unless you know where that destination lies.

Step 2. Communicate the Vision. This is a very important step in the process. I would say that most leaders do not spend enough time carefully considering the effects of clearly communicating a vision. A simple test will determine if you are communicating it successfully. Can your team repeat it and explain it at a moments notice? You will not be able to move to the next step until the answer is yes.

Step 3. Transfer the Vision. After your team knows the vision well and can repeat it, do they buy in? Do they take personal ownership of accomplishing the vision? This step is the most important step in the process. It is where real leadership is brought to play.

Step 4. Perform the Vision. Each piece of this process is useless if it is all theoretical. The leader has to help the team accomplish the tasks and actions necessary to make the vision a reality. The leader, at this point, becomes a coach. He develops his team members to make sure they are performing well. He is the constant motivator, teacher, and servant.

So, the leader is a dreamer, a communicator, a leader, and a coach. Over the next few blogs I will attempt to unpack these ideas a little more and provide some resources to help fulfill them at a high level. Until then, one final thought. The leader must involve his team in each step of this process as much as possible. The more the team is a part of each step of the process the more efficiently they will accomplish the vision.