Have you ever considered who are you being when you are leading others?
What values and principles are reflected in your plans, decisions, and actions when leading others?
What are your intentions as a leader?
What can followers expect of you as a leader?
These powerful questions can help you understand your unique leadership point of view. Once clarified, your leadership point of view can help you stay aligned to your values and build trust and respect between you and your team members.
What is a “Leadership Point of View”?
The “leadership point of view” process was created more than ten years ago by Ken & Margie Blanchard when they designed their course for the Blanchard co-sponsored Master of Science in Executive Leadership program at the University of San Diego.
Margie describes one’s leadership point of view as your personal “elevator pitch” – it describes your own journey, your values, your goals and your expectations. Armed with the clarity this refined statement provides, leaders are able to quickly and efficiently establish a deep, trusting relationship with their team members. This trust increases the likelihood of team members’ exceeding performance standards while demonstrating the team’s declared values.
Since building trust is a vital element of a healthy, accomplished culture, I utilize this terrific tool with the leaders I coach through our culture refinement process.
Benefits of Clarifying Your Leadership Point of View
By reflecting upon and formalizing your leadership point of view, you are able to:
- Be more authentic, more fully “of you” as a leader
- Show up in “influencing moments” as who you really are – not who you think you should be as a leader
- Be more intentional with your leadership efforts
- Be more congruent as a leader, aligned with your core values and principles
- Inspire others to clarify their values and their leadership point of view
The Process of Clarifying Your Leadership Point of View
Much of the “work” of crafting your leadership point of view centers on identifying your core values, clarifying how you came to hold those values, and reflecting upon how those values have played out in your life thus far. The process involves:
- What are three or four critical events in your life that shaped your beliefs about leadership?
- Who are three or four people in your life that shaped your beliefs about leading others?
- What do you know to be true about exceptional leaders?
- What are your top three to five values when leading others?
- What gets in the way of you leading from your values every day? What do you, at times, make more important than your values?
- What can others expect of you in the future as you align your actions with your core values?
- And, what do you expect of others as you align to your core values?
This is not an activity to be taken lightly. It will serve you best if you approach these questions in a very intentional manner. You will find your answers become more clear over time as you reflect upon these questions.
Create your Leadership Point of View with Margie Blanchard’s Help
If you are in the San Diego, CA, USA, area on April 21, 2011, you can experience a half-day “Leadership Point of View” session facilitated by Margie. The session runs 8:30am-12:30pm on the USD campus – advance registration and a $150 fee will get you in the door. A hearty buffet-style breakfast is included. What better way to experience this fabulous process than with one of its creators?
Join in the conversation by commenting below. What, at this point in time, is your leadership point of view?
Loved this post.
You are spot on the view, benefits and the process of clarifying leadership.
What a great read.
Lolly
Thanks so much, Lolly! The more I work with you, the more I understand how much aligned our views of how one can #LeadFromWithin!
Cheers!
C.
This is a neat idea! Thanks for bringing this tool to our attention. I haven’t been in a formal leadership position for a little while, but that doesn’t mean I’ve stopped leading and stopped influencing. Since I’m not in a supervisory role, I get to spend more time focusing on how what I do can support my team and create excellence. in college, I was a TA – part of that experience was to be a “super user” of the class, and I can see how that helped me learn how to be a leader regardless of my formal role.
Applying this “leadership point of view” process to your team is a perfect approach, Liz! My experience is that humans are more calm, caring, and intentional with others when they have clarified their core values and align practices to those values.
Cheers!
C.