Leadership Peer Groups: Transformational Or Dysfunctional?

Leadership Peer Groups: Transformational Or Dysfunctional?

Leadership Peer Groups: Transformational Or Dysfunctional?

Shutterstock

You may not realize it, but you probably participate in multiple leadership peer groups. In fact, they exist at nearly every level of an organization, even if they are informal with a loose-knit structure.

What is a leadership peer group? It's any assembly of leaders or colleagues that regularly comes together to make decisions and drive the agenda forward. Truly effective leadership peer groups can be powerful transformational in shaping clarity, making better decisions and ensuring excellent outcomes.

Dysfunctional leadership peer groups may cause more harm than good.

No matter what side of the aisle you support, it's maddening when members of Congress cannot form a cohesive team to accomplish goals.

Here are three reasons why Congress is a "good" example of an ineffective and dysfunctional leadership peer group:

1. They don't respect or trust one another.

2. They seem to have lost sight of their greater mission.

3. They are not addressing and resolving critical, long-term issues.

Recommended by Forbes

From the outside looking in, it seems like members of Congress lack the skills or discipline to sit down together, clearly define the issues, question one another with open minds and listen to others' ideas. They struggle to arrive at collective decisions for creative solutions. But all is not lost. Congress and other leadership peer groups can be effective.

Here's how to make your leadership peer group highly effective — even transformational.

The objective of any leadership peer group is to elevate the cause: "How do we solve X issue?" Effective leadership peer groups build on diverse ideas to seek and find better solutions. It's important to put your ego in your pocket, work toward the common goal, put forth ideas and identify the overall best solution given limitations such as budget, time, talent and other resources.

When you meet with peers or direct reports, think of these teams as leadership peer groups. In every meeting, multiple people are coming together to resolve an issue. These people:

• Have different backgrounds, experiences and perspectives

• Bring different ideas about ways to solve the problem

• Share a foundation of trust and a commitment to reach a team decision

Collectively, your group brings an astonishing diversity of experience. You get a geometric leveraging, so to speak, of all that wisdom to build on creative ideas, then tease out a solution that is truly innovative.

Process your issues and arrive at the best solution.

At Vistage, we teach our CEO members (all non-competitive leaders from different industries) to use a specific framework to process issues. This proven model is an outstanding way to process a specific problem, identify opportunities and arrive at the best solution.

Present your issue:

• Background information

• What have you done so far?

• What is the significance?

• Ideal outcome and/or "How do I...?"

The group will:

• Ask clarifying questions

• Ask if you want to restate the issue (if appropriate)

• Provide feedback while you just listen

• Suggest solutions and courses of action

You then give your summary to the peer group:

• What did you hear from the group?

• What are you going to do?

• When?

•Who will be your accountability partner?

Here are helpful tips when using this approach to process issues:

•Present your issue: When you ask the group, "How do I…?" this helps you to clearly define the issue. When discussing the significance, answer these questions: Why is this issue important to resolve? What is the financial gain or loss? What is the impact on the organization's culture and customers or on you personally as the organization's leader?

• Remember the group's role: Group members ask questions to fine-tune the issue. Next, members put forth ideas and recommendations. This is critical. If you have brought forth the issue, you must be quiet during this step. You are in listening mode. In particular, defensive replies like these are not allowed: "That won't work because…" or "I've already tried that." Consider turning your chair so you don't face the group. You can take notes, and be sure to thank everyone for their suggestions.

• Include your summary statement and action promise: Now, turn your chair back to face the group. What did you hear? What are you going to do? When are you going to do it? Identify an accountability partner to hold you to your commitments. Keep in mind that you are also accountable to the entire group as well as its chair.

In an effective leadership peer group, the collective wisdom often leads down the path to aha moments: exciting, innovative solutions that surface thanks to everyone's caring and unbiased input. As noted earlier, effective leadership peer groups can be transformational in shaping clarity, making better decisions and ensuring excellent outcomes. I encourage you to use the above model to process issues with your business teams, volunteer activities, church groups and even political groups. (Listen up, Congress! This model can be helpful for you too!).



Enviado desde mi iPad

Comentarios