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ArcTree ConsultingLeadershipExcellence

eBook

Contents

ArcTree Guide to Leadership Excellence 2

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| Introduction

| How to lead a team that pulls together

| Is Emotional Intelligence the most important leadership quality?

| Where are you on the leadership scale?

| 8 common mistakes leaders make

| Hiring a leader? Here’s 10 essential factors to look for

Introduction

ArcTree ConsultingLeadership Excellence eBook 3

In our work at ArcTree, we’ve helped numerous business owners and leaders hire the right people, place them in the right jobs, and help them grow and develop. But an incredibly important part of growing and succeeding as a business is the effectiveness of its leaders.

Chances are, you’re a leader yourself. And you’re most likely responsible for hiring people who will also be leaders. How can you be the kind of leader people want to follow? How can you motivate and inspire your employees to follow you and achieve the results you want? And how can you hire other people who will lead your employees in the direction your business needs to go in?

This book is the result of our experiences working with clients across many industries, in organisations of every stripe. And one thing is abundantly clear across all of these businesses: the calibre of its leaders determine the performance of its people and its success as a business.

Leading people effectively can be difficult. While many people might be technically proficient – they could be great with numbers, or highly skilled at logistics, or an excellent salesperson –motivating and inspiring the people that work for them is a different story altogether.

Alan Chambers, ArcTree Managing Director

Andre van der Merwe, ArcTree Director

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We want to help you be a more effective leader yourself, by highlighting the attributes that, in our experience, are most important for leaders who want loyal, committed teams who are focused on achieving the very best results for the business.

We hope you find this guide useful, and wish you all the best on your journey towards becoming an excellent leader.

All the best,

Alan & Andre

Get your own free profiles now

If you’d like us to help you to objectively and scientifically assess your leaders to ascertain how they could be more effective in driving your business forward, we’re always happy to have a preliminary consultation.

See for yourself how our method works with two completely free profiles for yourself and another person, or two of your leaders or employees.

Just go to www.arctree.com.au/complimentary-evaluation to get started.

ArcTree ConsultingLeadership Excellence eBook

How to lead a team that pulls togetherLessons from Simon Sinek’s Leaders Eat Last

As one of the most popular TED speakers in history, Simon Sinek knows a thing or two about leadership. In his book and TED talk Leaders Eat Last – his follow-on from Start With Why –he tells us how great leadership isn’t all about being in charge.

It’s about empowering others to achieve things they didn’t believe were possible.

The name of his book comes from a conversation Sinek had with a Marine Corp General. When he asked him what makes the Marines so amazing, the General told him that officers eat last. As Sinek says:

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Sinek’s book and TED talk offer powerful insights into how we can become strong leaders who trust in, empower and look out for our teams. We’ve distilled his 6 most compelling lessons in this poster.

Feel free to print it out as a daily reminder of how to lead teams that pull together.

‘What he meant is that if you go to any Marine Corp Chow Hall anywhere in the world you will see the Marines lined up in rank order. The most senior person at the back of the line and the most junior person eats first. No one tells them they have to do it and it’s not in any rule book.

It’s because of the way they view the responsibility of leadership. We think leadership is about rank and power, they think of leadership as the responsibility for other human beings. That leadership and rank may not go together. So it manifests in this remarkable way.’


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Who is the best leader you’ve ever known personally?

Chances are, it wasn’t someone who made you feel you had to do what they said… or else. Or someone who was incredibly experienced in their field but had poor people skills. Or the person you never actually saw because they were too busy doing high-level leadership things to spend time with their employees.

More likely than not, it was someone with high emotional intelligence. Who inspired you and helped you grow and improve, or took a special interest in your development, coaching and mentoring you. Who helped you feel safe at work, and motivated to do your best. Or someone who included her teams in decision-making, so everyone was invested in giving their best and succeeding.

So, why aren’t more leaders like that? Why do we still have leaders who don’t know how to lead their teams effectively?

Stephen Covey, author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, puts it this way:

‘Research shows convincingly that EQ is … many times more important (than IQ) in leadership roles. This finding is accentuated as we move from the control philosophy of the industrial age to an empowering release philosophy of the knowledge worker age.’

Is Emotional Intelligence the most important leadership quality?

The problem: Emotional Intelligence (EI or EQ) is still seen as a ‘soft’ skill.

The problem is that, despite all of the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, some people still believe that Emotional Intelligence (EI or EQ) is a nice, warm and fluffy type of thing that’s good to have… but not essential.

At the end of the day, many organisations still hire leaders based on technical expertise, experience and general intelligence (IQ), and don’t take emotional intelligence into account at all. Which is strange, given that numerous studies have shown that one of the most critical factors driving leadership and organisational success is… emotional intelligence.


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The evidence

Daniel Goleman is one of the most influential and well-known thought leaders when it comes to EI. Less well known are John Mayer, Peter Salovey and David Caruso, who were actually the first people to come up with a psychometric model and methodology for measuring EI.

They, along with many others, have presented numerous studies that show the bottom-line, dollars-and-cents impact of emotionally intelligent leaders. Here’s just a few of them:

At PepsiCo, when they focused on selecting executives with strong emotional intelligence, those people outperformed their colleagues and delivered a 10% increase in productivity, $3.75m added economic value, an 87% decrease in executive turnover, and over 1000% return on investment.

Global executive search firm Egon Zehnder analysed the correlation of three main candidate variables (experience, IQ and emotional intelligence) with manager performance on the job. They found that when managers excelled in experience and IQ but had low emotional intelligence, their failure rate was as high as 25%.

However, the people with high EI combined with at least one of the two other factors (experience or IQ) only failed in 3%-4% of the cases.

In other words, emotional intelligence coupled with high IQ or very relevant experience was a very strong predictor of success.

A recent study by leadership consultancy KRW International found that CEOs whose employees gave them high marks for integrity, responsibility, forgiveness and empathy had an average return on assets of 9.35% over two years. CEOs who had low ratings averaged only 1.93%.

Supervisors in a manufacturing plant received training in emotional competencies such as listening skills and employee enablement. Lost time accidents were reduced by 50%, formal grievances were reduced from 15 to 3 per year, and the plant exceeded productivity goals by $250,000.20.

In another plant, supervisors received similar training and production increased by 17%. Supervisors who didn’t complete training didn’t achieve any increase in production.

The Emotionally Intelligent leader

So, what does an emotionally intelligent leader look like? Let’s take a look at some of their top qualities.


Emotionally intelligent leaders…

Understand themselvesThey know their own strengths and limitations. Because of this, they have confidence in their strengths and play to them often.

They’re in tune with their inner signals and know how their emotions affect them and their job performance.

They’re likely to have a good sense of humour about themselves and welcome constructive criticism.

They know how to channel their emotions effectively and control themselves in difficult situations.

They’re able to be flexible and adapt to challenges in a nimble and fluid way.

They’re driven to achieve and hold themselves to high standards of accountability and ethical behaviour.

Manage themselves

EmpathiseThey’ve finely tuned their emotional radar and can sense how others (both individuals and groups) are feeling.

They listen to what others are saying and are able to see things from other people’s perspective.

They’re genuinely interested in others and helping them improve.

Because they understand and empathise with their people, they know how to inspire and motivate them as well. They understand what will resonate.

They embody what they’re asking others to do and nurture others achieve the organisation’s goals.

They’re transparent about their values, and openly admit mistakes.

Inspire and motivate

CollaborateThey know how to draw on people’s strengths and make them feel involved, included and respected.

They admit when they don’t have all of the answers and welcome feedback and suggestions from others.

They make sure they embody a spirit of cooperation, respect and helpfulness.

Emotionally intelligent leaders manage conflict by understanding the perspectives of all involved and teasing out a solution all parties can endorse.

They don’t accept bad behaviour: they set boundaries and expectations and don’t allow toxic behaviour to take hold.

Deal with difficult situations


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The future

How will we move away from the belief that results come from technical skills, experience and ability alone and bring emotional intelligence in to play when selecting and developing effective leaders?

I believe it will happen when we’re willing to accept that what is still considered a relatively new skill set – emotional intelligence – is, in fact, a key ingredient in organisationalsuccess.

The work environment is changing and it’s no longer acceptable to have people at the helm who can’t relate to their people, manage their own behaviour and empathise with, motivate and inspire their teams. And this becomes more and more important as Millennials enter the workforce and insist upon cultures of collaboration, transparency and integrity.


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At level 2, things are starting to improve. You’ve made an effort to connect with your people: to really listen, observe and learn from them. You’ve built a connection and because of this, your people are happy to give you a little more discretionary effort – because they like you.

At level 3, things really begin ramping up. You’ve established some momentum with your team and shown them you can be effective because you can produce. You’ve worked in the trenches and achieved results – which feeds into your credibility. People see that you’re willing to put in the effort with them and are happy to follow your lead.

Level 4 is a whole new world. At this stage, you’ve realisedthat your people are the most important asset your business has and you know that when you increase the capacity of your people, you increase the capacity of the whole organisation. You’re focused on hiring the very best people, putting them in the right positions, and equipping them with everything they need to perform the way you expect them to.

Level 5 leaders are incredibly rare. They’re at the absolute top of their game and usually arrive there later in their careers, having worked hard to master the previous 4 levels. In many cases, they’re the ones helping the next generation make it to level 4.As you can imagine, where you are on this leadership journey has a profound impact on your people. How your people behave at work is in many cases a direct reflection of you as a leader: the kind of people you’ve let in the door, including their skills and capacity, and the way you lead them.

We’ve put together this brief infographic to help you work out where you are in terms of the five stages.

Where are you on the leadership scale?As a leader, you’re probably already familiar with John Maxwell’s work on leadership. He’s a best-selling author, coach and speaker, and was named the world’s most influential leadership expert by Inc. in 2014. One of our favourite models from John is his 5 levels or stages of the leadership journey.

In this model, he talks about how many of us start at the bottom, or level 1 – we’re leaders by title and so our teams follow us because they have to. It’s obviously not a state we want to remain in for long: John talks about how he can always tell a level 1 organisation, because everyone’s packing up getting ready to leave half an hour before finishing time. They don’t really want to be there and are generally just turning up so they’ll get paid.


We work with many leaders at all levels of organisations. Often, they’re so busy managing their business, or area of the business, that they neglect their most important asset – their people.

Leading people effectively is a skill that’s often developed over years and years of experience, usually with a few mistakes along the way. But the one thing that separates effective leaders from the rest is the ability to learn from those mistakes and improve as they go.

We’ve highlighted some of the most common mistakes we’ve seen leaders make and pulled together a brief infographic that highlights these – so you don’t have to make them yourself.

8 mistakes leaders make

1. They lack self-awareness

Many leaders think they’re emotionally intelligent and know how to work effectively with people. The problem is, we’re actually quite likely to overestimate ourselves and think we’re much more emotionally intelligent than we really are. Studies have shown that on average, people place themselves several points higher on scales of EI than the people who work with them do.

So, while some leaders might think they know themselves, they often don’t see themselves objectively. They might have favourites amongst their team members, or be difficult to work with, or respond poorly to criticism without being fully aware of it.

One of the best and most valuable skills a leader can have is a sound, realistic understanding of themselves and the capacity for self-reflection. They’re able to see themselves as they really are and reflect on their own behaviour: what they did well, what they didn’t do so well and how they can improve in future.

2. They focus on tasks rather than results

Many leaders get so caught up in the myriad tasks they need to perform, they lose sight of the bigger picture.

As Alec Mackenzie, author ofThe Time Trap: The Classic Book on Time Managementwrote, ‘Nothing is easier than being busy, nothing more difficult than being effective.’


Managers who do this tend to focus on the tasks they feel need to be completed right now. There’s always a stack of papers on their desk or in their in-box. And they’re likely to look tired and stressed and be difficult for their employees to pin down.

In this case, leaders need to stop and ask themselves how what they’re doing is contributing to results for the business. Is it busy-work? Could someone else do it? Does it ultimately bring about the outcomes the organisation is seeking?

3. They motivate through fear

Fear can certainly be a great motivator. But in the workplace, it’s possibly the worst motivator of all. Leaders who take a ‘you must perform, or else’ style of management are communicating clearly to their teams that they don’t trust or believe in them. Why else would they add in the threat of punishment, or the fear?

Employees take this kind of message to mean that their leaders believe they’re inherently incapable of performing well. That without the fear of a negative consequences, they don’t have what it takes to do a good job and perform at their best.

And this fear can be extremely debilitating and demoralising to employees. While people might do as their leaders have asked – after all, they probably want to keep their jobs, at least until they find something better – they’re not going to grow, thrive and do their best for the organisation simply because they feel they have no other choice.

4. They don’t look at their teams

Even if leaders are performing effectively themselves, they need to regularly take a thorough look at the people on their team. It can be easy to get comfortable and believe that their team is functioning well, but is it really?

They need to continually analyse how their teams are performing: do they have the right people? Are those people in the right roles, or would they be better off shifting slightly? Are they capitalising on everyone’s strengths? Are people collaborating well?

In other words, do they have the right people, in the right jobs, doing the right things?


5. They keep poor performers around

Unfortunately, despite your best efforts, some employees are never going to perform as well as you need them to. And while it’s important to be compassionate, it’s just as important to be able to make difficult decisions for the good of the business.

Leaders have faith in their people and often care about them deeply. For this reason, they might feel that it’s their responsibility to help someone grow and improve. And it can be –up to a point. Ultimately, only the employee themselves can make the changes they need to bring their performance up to par.

If someone’s not able to produce the results you need, you owe it to the organisation and the rest of the team to let them go. They’ll find a role that’s a better fit for them, and your team and business won’t suffer from poor performance.

6. They don’t manage morale and momentum

Leadership expert John Maxwell recognises that nothing is more fragile than morale and momentum in an organisation.

Morale matters. Few things are worse than a team that feels like it’s losing. People feel lethargic, unmotivated and uninspired. They’ll turn up because they have to, not because they want to.

On the other hand, when a team has high morale, small victories seem sweet and bigger ones make them feel close to invincible. They’ll feel energised and enthused, and see potential rather than problems. They’ll build momentum and feel able to try out new concepts and ideas to move the business forward.

Momentum is also critical. As Maxwell likes to say, without momentum, even the smallest obstacle can stop teams from moving forward. But once they have it, they can be unstoppable.

7. They don’t delegate effectively

This is a classic that can manifest in various ways. It could be micro-managing: spending too much time overseeing what their people are doing and not trusting their people enough to let them take the reins.


Or it could be thinking that no-one else can do the job as well as they can, so they try to do everything themselves and spend too much time on tasks and not enough time on leading their teams.

Poor managers might feel that it would take longer to explain how to perform a task than it would to do it themselves. Or that they’ll be losing control – and possibly even recognition –if they hand over their responsibility to someone else.

At the end of the day, they’re denying themselves and their teams the increased efficiency, flexibility and teamwork that can arise from effective delegation. And their teams can feel as if their manager is too busy to be approachable and worse – that their manager doesn’t trust them enough to pass tasks on to them.

8. They don’t praise and reward

Poor leaders believe that getting paid and keeping their jobs should be enough for their people. After all, there’s plenty of people out there looking for work, right? And if they’re already paying someone to do the work, why should they pay them more just because they’ve done it correctly?

They don’t understand that showing people appreciation for a job well done goes a long way to improving motivation and morale. Or that every big win is a culmination of small wins that should also be recognised, to encourage momentum and inspire others to do the same.

They also don’t realise that people thrive on recognition. Many studies have shown that recognition from a manager is one of the strongest motivators in the workplace and that lack of recognition is, on the other hand, one of the leading causes of disengagement.

Good leaders understand that recognition can be as simple as a thank you note or praise in front of the rest of the team: it’s all about letting the employee know that their manager knows, respects and appreciates the effort they’ve made. And they know that rewards don’t need to be financial – although that is one option – and that they go a long way to helping employees feel that their hard work is making a valuable contribution to the business.

See the next page for a printable graphic to help you keep these mistakes front of mind and avoid making them yourself.


Infographic: 8 mistakes leaders make


Hiring a leader? Here’s 10 essential factors to look for.

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Hiring people is difficult. Hiring great people is even harder. And perhaps the most difficult thing of all is hiring great leaders. In an ideal world, you would hire high potential people and, through a robust development program, identify and grow your own future leaders.

However, in some cases, hiring externally is a business necessity: when there’s a gap that no-one internally can fill, or you need to move your business in a different direction.

We’ve worked with numerous organisations to help them hire the best leaders, both internally and externally. While there are many factors that contribute to successful leadership, we’ve distilled what, in our experience, are the essential qualities to look for when you’re hiring a leader. They’re not new principles – as evidenced by the vast number of research and quotes around each factor – but they’re critical to keep front of mind when you’re assessing someone for a leadership role.

1. Engagement

Great leaders know how to inspire and motivate their people. They can engage their team members and gain their support and commitment to a compelling goal, keeping them energised and focused. They know how to gain involvement from disinterested people and encourage a sense of team identity and unity.

‘Today, no leader can afford to be indifferent to the challenge of engaging employees in the work of creating the future. Engagement may have been optional in the past, but it's pretty much the whole game today.’

Gary Hamel, Leadership expert


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2. Insight

In today’s data-driven economy, it’s essential that leaders are able to spot trends and patterns, and break down complex issues into simple elements. They need to be able to analyse information and develop workable solutions.

Leaders with insight ‘separate the wheat from the chaff, the signal from the noise, connecting the dots and coming up with a creative vision.’

Claudio Fernández-Aráoz,Senior advisor at Egon Zehnder

3. Mentorship

Excellent leaders know that success depends on their people, and they invest in their people’s growth. They coach their people to reach individual goals and milestones, and give them clear, actionable feedback to encourage desired performance levels. They set clear expectations for their people and their teams and the support they need to stretch themselves and achieve ambitious goals.

‘One of the greatest values of mentors is the ability to see ahead what others cannot see, and to help them navigate a course to their destination.’

John Maxwell, Leadership expert

4. Determination and resilience

A great leader recovers quickly from setbacks, and remains confident and positive even in times of uncertainty. They learn from experience. They help their people stay motivated and keep morale up in difficult times. They’re also hungry: they’re continually challenging themselves and their teams.

‘Women, like men, should try to do the impossible. And when they fail, their failure should be an inspiration to others.’

Amelia Earhart


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5. Curiosity

Successful leaders are endlessly curious about the world around them. They keep learning and asking questions, about the world, technology and business. They’re always asking ‘What if?’ and looking for new and better ways of doing things. They listen carefully and while learning, they’re also giving their people respect.

Egon Zehnder believe this is the ‘secret sauce’ of the very best leaders and there are numerous high profile examples, including Jack Dorsey, Michael Dell, Jeff Bezos, Melinda Gates, Richard Branson and many more.

‘I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious.’

Albert Einstein

6. Self-awareness

As well as being curious about the world, great leaders are curious about themselves as well. They proactively seek feedback from others and learn from it. They admit they’re not perfect and don’t know anything, and will be committed to continually improving.

7. Emotional intelligence

Rather than being ‘nice to have’, a number of recent studies have shown that leaders with highly developed emotional intelligence can tangibly impact your bottom line by improving the productivity of their teams, and reducing turnover and lost time incidents.

Emotionally intelligent leaders understand their own and their people’s emotions and how to manage them effectively. They empathisewith their people and make them feel valued and respected.

‘Self-awareness comes from deep personal honesty. It comes from asking and answering hard questions.’

Stephen Covey,Author of ‘The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People’


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‘Leadership is about making others better as a result of your presence and making sure that impact lasts in your absence.’

Sheryl Sandberg, COO Facebook

8. Integrity

A great leader also has integrity: they are honest, transparent and can be trusted to act ethically and responsibly. Employees feel comfortable coming to them with questions or concerns because they respect and trust them. The leader keeps his or her promises and is genuine, principled and consistent.

9. Consistency

Every year, Google asks its people to rate their managers on a range of factors and found that one factor predicted effective leadership more than anything else: how predictable and consistent a leader was. The reason? When people know what the parameters are, they’re free to get on with the job and do their best work.

It’s based on the premise – variously attributed to Steve Jobs, Lee Iacocca and Richard Branson – that the best leaders hire smart people and then get out of their way. In return, the leader makes sure their people know what to expect from them.

‘The supreme quality for leadership is unquestionably integrity. Without it, no real success is possible, no matter whether it is on a section gang, a football field, in an army, or in an office.’

Dwight Eisenhower

‘If a leader is consistent, people on their teams experience tremendous freedom.’

Laszlo BockSVP People Operations, Google


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10. Collaboration and teamwork

Effective leaders understand that they don’t have all the answers. They draw on the strengths of their people and are confident about the value each person adds. They find ways to capitaliseon each person’s talent and leverage their contributions to surpass expectations.

They’re also skilled at identifying sources of potential conflict and reducing friction between people, while still maintaining momentum. They encourage a sense of team identity and unity.

‘Those who have learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed.’

Charles Darwin


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