The 4 Roles of Leadership

The smooth current of business is history. Today, turbulence reigns in what Stephen R. Covey terms the "permanent white water world." Good management skills are still very important for the day to day, but navigating white water successfully must begin with effective leadership. The 4 Roles of Lead-ership delivers the tools, processes, and context to lead successfully—even in a time of turbulent change.

Leading in a White Water World. Business as usual isn't usual. Today, mergers and acquisitions, downsizing and constant restructuring grab headlines on business pages. The internet and new media are changing customer expectations. Costs and global markets fluctuate from hour to hour.

Stephen R. Covey terms this new business climate "permanent white water," and if you can't keep up, you're going to go under. Yesterday's methods just don't work in the white water world. Managers traditionally manage in the system and focus on doing things right. Leaders, however—particularly real leaders—work on the system and focus on doing the right things. The managerial role is still essential and it performs a vital function, but leadership must come first to make managing more effective.

The 4 Roles of Leadership help you identify and develop the four critical abilities of real leaders and learn how to implement those roles practically and with long-term results—without taking your eye off your day-to-day management needs.The 4 Roles of Leadership is an intensive, three-day workshop for leaders at all levels who want to significantly improve their strategic think-ing, long-term vision, and positive influence on others.

It guides you to understand the change, choices, and principles that affect your decisions and equip you with real tools. These tools give you common sense applications you can use in your teams and work groups to effect measurable improvements.

Pathfinding: Creating the BlueprintGreat leadership begins with clarity of thought and purpose.

Stephen R. Covey says that all things are created twice—that the "mental creation precedes the physical creation." You wouldn't build a home with-out a blueprint. Similarly, it's folly to rush into action without understanding your purpose. The Pathfinding role helps you create a blue-print of action and ensure that your plans have integrity— before you act. Pathfinding is the ability to blaze the path that links what you're passionate about delivering to what your customers are passionate about getting.

These four roles will enable you to lead effectively and achieve meaningful and lasting results.To do this you need to define your mission and values, and create a vision and strategy that link the two passions.The 4 Roles of Leadership helps you answer the following Pathfinding questions:

1. Who is important to us, and what matters most to them?
2. What is our purpose, and what matters most to us?
3. How will we act toward each other?
4. Where are we going?
5. What will we do to get there?
   
   

By answering these simple questions, you begin to explore your mission, values, vision, strategy, and stakeholders' needs. Once you have answered these questions, the workshop helps you apply the information.

The workshop includes the insightful Pathfinding Process and its three guiding principles— three immutable laws which you must follow for success in pathfinding. The process helps you create an organizational mission statement that won't be viewed as "framed whatever," but instead has real buy-in across all levels of the organization.

The process helps you unearth root causes and motivations that help you prescribe direction more accurately. And the process gives you the keys to develop a succinct strategy statement and a "Monday Morning Plan" of action when you return to the office.

Aligning: Creating a Technically Elegant System of Work

If pathfinding identifies a path, aligning paves it. Organizations are aligned to get the results they get. Think about that. If you are not getting the results you want, it is due to a misalignment somewhere, and no pushing, pulling, demanding, or insisting will change a misalignment. Therefore, as a leader, you must work to change your systems, processes, and structure to align them with the desired results you identified through pathfinding.

In aligning, you understand the importance of a balanced ecosystem and how to create it, beginning with answering these key questions:

1. Do we use the right processes?
2. Are people in the right structure?
3. Do we have the right people?
4. Do we get the right information?
5. Do we make decisions in the right way?
6. Do people receive the right rewards?
   

We help you turn your answers to these questions into a real action plan, using the aligning tool of the Six Rights and its two guiding principles. This unique tool helps you understand how the parts affect the whole and how your organization is currently aligned—you learn how to preempt problems and streamline your strategic initiatives using the Six Rights. The workshop gives you permanent reference materials, so you can implement the Six Rights process each time you undertake a new initiative, ensuring that your organization is aligned for success.

Empowering: Releasing the Talent, Energy, and Contribution of People"Empower-ment"— it's an overused term but underutilized in practice.

Empowering isn't abandoning people, letting them "figure it out" on their own. Nor is it allowing individuals minute freedoms while controlling other aspects. True empowerment yields high trust, productive communication between individuals and teams, and innovative results where each member of the team feels welcome to bring his or her genius to the table.

The Empowering role helps you answer the following questions:

1. How do you cultivate an environment where people can do their best and are committed?
2. What is the nature of the work being done?
3. How much responsibility and authority should people have?
4. Who does what? How? With what resources and account-ability? For what reasons?
   

You learn to create the conditions that foster and release the creativity, talent, ability, and potential that exist in people. In turn, they are better able to function in the aligned organization and follow the path you have helped to create.First, you self-assess your current leadership style. This insightful exercise helps you understand where and why you control others, if you are typically supervisory, or if you abandon others.Because the people you work with are all different, you also learn how to use Levels of Empowerment. These levels help you work with others flexibly, adapting your style to the risk of the situation and the skills and character of the person you are working with.At the workshop, you receive convenient, easy-to-use software that walks you throughthe process of creating a Win-Win Agreement, the communication tool to help you develop mutually satisfying work relationships that deliver results. You and those you work with are to develop a clear plan of action to help build accountability between people, teams, departments, even vendors and distributors, and make follow-up more measurable and relevant.

Modeling: Building Trust with Others-the Heart of Effective Leadership
The 4 Roles of Leadership does not just teach you what a leader does, but who a leader is. You will be able to answer the following questions:

1. Who would follow me?
2. Do I take responsibility?
3. Do I "walk my talk?"
4. Am I trustworthy?
   

You learn the essential balance between character and competence-an individual of high abilities will never be a true leader if his or her character is questionable. The processes and tools in The 4 Roles of Leadership enables you to get the results your organization needs while you model principles of effectiveness.

At the workshop, you receive a confidential Profile Feedback Report and Action Planning Guide. Before the course, your direct reports, peers, and supervisor will review your leadership skills in a thorough leadership survey. At the course, you receive a detailed, personalized report on these surveys that equips you with the information you need to refine your leadership skills.

Leadership for Navigating Change, Delivering Results, and Creating the Future

The 4 Roles of Leadership workshop isn't magic. It isn't flavor-of-the-month training, either. It is a real, proven path to effective leadership that takes commitment and discipline.The processes you learn can be repeatedly applied in your organization—each time you plan a new strategy or implement a new initiative. When practiced consistently, The 4 Roles of Leadership yields measurable organizational and personal success and helps transform good managers into true leaders.