Mon 19 Dec 2005
Search For Opportunities - The Leadership Challenge: Chapter 7
Posted by Rob under ReadingNo Comments
is titled Search For Opportunities. Search for opportunities is the fifth commitment of Leadership.
Search For Opportunities is the introductory chapter in the section devoted to challenging the process. Kouzes and Posner compare leadership in a company to being a venturer. They describe how challenge and adversity cultivate leadership.
The authors describe how leaders should treat every job as an adventure. By coming to work everyday as if it was your first day on the job, you start to question why procedures have been put into place.
By seeking meaningful challenges, leaders bring out the best work in themselves. Motivation is stronger when your work has meaning to you.
Leaders should also find and create meaningful challenges for others. Again, everyone does their best work when challenged, and motivation is even stronger when that challenge is meaningful to the person.
Everyone wants to have fun at work, and we all work better when we’re having fun. Leaders should promote a fun environment.
Questioning the status quo is a difficult skill for many people. Leaders are encouraged to question routines and processes and eliminate the ones that don’t make sense.
Another tough practice is to renew your teams. Whenever money gets tight in a company, the first thing to get cut is training. Yet without training, teams get disconnected and stagnant. New ideas and new practices take longer to develop.
Creating an open-source approach to searching for opportunities means allowing anyone interested to take part in creation and innovation in the organization. New ideas are not just created by a few hand-selected people.
Visit my past articles on The Leadership Challenge:
How to Lead.
Envision the Future.
Enlist Others.
Books mentioned in this post:
