Australasian Centre for Leadership Studies - Leadership Training Resources

How would you describe success in leadership?

A lot of time and effort, articles and books, conferences and workshops are devoted to helping us define and develop successful leadership. But how do we know if we’re seeing it? If we’re experiencing it? And if we’re delivering it?

There are many measures we could come up with to identify whether our leadership attempts have worked: positive results, organisational growth, progress, development … all good indicators.

But what type of leadership behaviour needs to be happening before we get those positive outcomes? How can we know if we’re being led effectively as we pursue those results? How can we know whether we are delivering the type of leadership that will produce the success we’re after?

Here’s one thing to think about: effective leaders create the conditions for other people to succeed.

A leader can’t produce the results by him or herself. By definition a leader works with and through others. And while some leadership approaches attempt to directly operate through other people - making those people simple extensions of the leader’s actions - the more effective and sustainable approaches tend to focus on enabling others to deploy and synchronise their own strengths and knowledge with others to produce collaborative outcomes.

To do that requires creating an environment that allows and encourages others to succeed. It means influencing the broader environment as well as the indidivuals involved.

And it means assessing and responding to individual and group needs in order to provide the direction and/or support that is required in different situations.

This requires ability to adapt our leadership style to different situational needs. Creating the conditions for success is going to require different activities for different people in relation to different tasks.

Creating the conditions for others to succeed is not always a matter of just “giving clear directions", or of “providing positive reinforcement", or “inviting input and ideas to encourage ownership". It’s not even simply about “setting the example".

Each of these behaviours is, of course, potentially valid and valuable. Giving clear directions is essential for new tasks and new teams, but can be annoying and demeaning to experienced operators. Providing positive reinforcement is great for acknowledging achievements but is of little use if an individual or team doesn’t yet know what they are doing or isn’t performing to standard. And inviting input and ideas from experienced and informed people is entirely sensible but is frustrating if those people aren’t adequately informed or experienced.

Creating the conditions for others to succeed requires “heads-up", adaptable leadership. This is the focus of Situational Leadership® - leadership that can identify situational needs by assessing the task requirements, determining the needs of others and then adapting influencing behaviours in a visible and understandable way.

Such an approach requires the self-awareness to know our own preferences and the self-managment to be able to reach outside familiar behaviours so we can effectively influence the operating environment and support group needs.

It’s worth the effort. Because what could be better than helping others succeed?

So this week, why not think about your leadership in terms of creating the conditions for others to succeed. Who are you helping to succeed? How can you help them achieve even greater success by influencing the environment, better understanding their needs or adapting your behaviours?

Because ulimately the success of those we lead is the test of our own success as leaders.

Aubrey Warren
National Master Trainer
Situational Leadership Australia®

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