For Great Leadership, Develop Great Personal Leadership Skills

If you want to be an effective leader, then you must exercise great personal leadership skills first.

The three keys to effective personal and organisational leadership - with focus

Key #1: Creativity

Great personal leadership, or leading with focus, starts with building your creativity. How can leaders come up with new ideas if they are not 'seeing' or practicing creativity?

Without new products, services or procedures, an organisation can't be competitive. Creativity is beyond taking a new way home from work or trying to be creative for the next 30 minutes. It delves into how you exercise your 'creativity muscle' on a regular basis.

You need a consistent source of new ideas that do not come from your normal surroundings. One way I practice my creativity is by automatically adding a half-day minimum to every business trip. I get out and 'see' my world. Practiced on a regular basis, this creativity outlet will add more character to each location and will also be the source of new ideas.

Employers can add creativity routines by establishing programs that cross-trains employees. For example, train your accountants to understand what it means to sell products or services.

Another way you can stimulate creativity is to provide paid time off for community work or have a local 'pet' project that gets a lot of attention. This strengthens community connections, involves learning new skills and allows for creativity to emerge.

Key #2: Communication

Once you get a great idea, it's not good enough just to write it down. You need to be able to communicate it effectively. How can you communicate your messages more effectively?

Powerful communication is divided into three parts:

Step 1: You need to refine your content by doing great research

Step 2: Involve the audience by understanding them better

Step 3: Rehearse your delivery, so your communications are congruent with your content

Make sure your ideas are simple. They have the most power. More employees and customers will resonate with simple ideas. When you have resonance, you set the stage for positive action

Key #3: Life-balance

A tripod wouldn't be able to support itself or the weight on top without a third or stabilizing leg. The stabilizing leg is the life balance leg.

It would be a real shame if you came up with a great idea, communicated it in a powerful way, but weren't around to see your idea come to fruition. The stabilizing leg of your leading with focus tripod, allows you to see and monitor the implementation of your idea.

Life-balance also reinforces a self-perpetuating cycle. The more you practice work-life balance by spending time with your family, taking charge of your health, and getting in touch with a higher purpose, the more space you give creativity to emerge. And the process of leading with focus is able to repeat itself again and again.

What it means to lead with focus

Leading with focus is about 'seeing' the world with new eyes to get that next idea. It's about getting your ideas to resonate with as many people as possible. Leading with focus is also enjoying the journey that is your life along the way.

Isn't it time you started practicing leading with focus in your organisation? Start practicing great leadership skills by enhancing your personal leadership skills first.

Mark Sincevich, Leading with Focus Expert, provides managers, executives and high performers with powerful insight, opinion and practical information on leadership, creativity, powerful communications and work life balance. To discover how you can gain a fresh perspective, generate new ideas, sharpen your focus and create more business, get Mark's free Leading with Focus newsletter at: http://www.LeadingWithFocus.com/newsletter.html
First published: 4 March 2008.
Last updated: 4 March 2008.