It's Time to View Leadership as a Profession - Bonus-Tool

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It’s Time to View Leadership as a Profession

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Your First Leadership Job

Congratulations! You’re now in charge. Perhaps it’s your first time as a leader,or maybe you want to fine-tune your skills. Either way, you’ve begun one of themost rewarding chapters of your career. But, like many beginnings, the first fewyears can be challenging. Fortunately, you don’t have to tackle this challengeon your own. Your First Leadership Job gives you practical advice straight from others who have walked in your shoes. Not only does it include dozens oftools to ensure your success, it’s also based on the authors’ and DDI’s extensiveexperience and research, which ultimately have led to the development of millions of leaders around the world. In fact, a quarter-million leaders will bedeveloped this year alone via DDI training.

Your First Leadership Job is divided into two sections. Part 1 introduces the concept of catalyst leader—one who sparks energy, passion, and commitmentin others. Your transition to catalyst leader is a major step in your leadershipjourney. This book provides essential tips to put you on the catalyst path. Ultimately, leadership is about the many conversations—frequent, clear, authentic, and occasionally difficult—that you will have daily. Your First Leadership Job builds awareness of the fundamental skills you’ll come to rely onto make every one of these interactions successful.

Part 2 devotes 13 chapters to critical core leadership competencies, includingcoaching for success, hiring the best employees, turning dreaded appraisals intodiscussions that propel performance, and handling difficult employees. It alsoincludes a chapter for first-time female leaders.

Look at Your First Leadership Job as an indispensable companion to becomingan awesome leader—one who will make a positive, lasting impact on your team,family, and career. Visit www.YourFirstLeadershipJob.com to learn more.

Introduction

BECOMING THE VERY BEST FIRST-TIME LEADER

TACY M. BYHAM, Ph.D., is theCEO of Development Dimen-sions International (DDI). Tacy

has worked with dozens of global organiza-tions, creating custom solutions to improvetheir leaders’ performance. She believes thatbetter leadership is not only about the work-place, but also about better communities and,ultimately, a better world.

RICHARD S. WELLINS, Ph.D.,is a global expert in leadershipdevelopment. Your First Leader-

ship Job is Rich’s fifth book on talent manage-ment, including the best-seller, EmpoweredTeams. His research has been featured in Fortune, Business Week, CNBC, NPR, BBC,and Forbes.






The 2011 documentary film Jiro Dreams of Sushi tells the story of an 85-year-old sushi chef and his small restaurant in a Tokyo subway station—the only sushirestaurant in the world to be awarded a three-star Michelin Guide rating. Jiro,the sushi chef, has been making sushi for most of his life, but still, well into oldage, he strives for perfection.

I recommend you watch this film yourself (it’s now available on DVD). Betteryet: watch it with a group of leaders! As you will see in this film, Jiro is a pro-fessional in the truest sense. I challenge you, upon watching the film and seeinghow passionate Jiro is about sushi, to imagine what it would be like if the leadersin your organization were as passionate about leadership.

Of course, people who take their craft seriously—people who leaders can learnfrom—aren’t found only in movies.

There is a local jewelry repair kiosk in the mall near where I live. My family hasbeen customers there for over a decade, and I have always respected the owner’spassion for what he does. He has told me he considers his work a real craft, andthat he has invested 18 years in constantly trying to improve.

For the past three decades I have spent about 20 percent of my time traveling.When on an airplane, I always make an effort to strike up a conversation withthe person sitting next to me. What we talk about always tends to follow thesame course. We exchange names, tell where we are from, and, of course, explainwhat we do. I have met many interesting people this way, including the COOof McDonald’s, the prime minister of agriculture for Thailand, and PatchAdams, the physician who sought to humanize medicine and was portrayed byRobin Williams in a 1998 theatrical film about him.

I have met engineers, pilots, sales managers, marketers, teachers, and bankers.But I cannot recall one single person—not one—who has ever told me that heor she was a leader.

Fresh Perspectives on Leadership

IT’S TIME TO VIEW LEADERSHIP AS A PROFESSION by Richard S. Wellins, Ph.D., Senior Vice President, DDI






Why is this? I believe it’s because no one really sees leadership as a profession.In spite of the fact that there are some 10 million-plus leaders in the U. S. alone,few identify themselves as leadership professionals. This is, in many respects,incredible.

Perhaps this is one of the reasons leadership quality is considered by many tobe mediocre, at best. Dozens of survey reports continue to decry the sad stateof leadership. DDI’s own Global Leadership Forecast 2014 reported that 40 percentof leaders rate their organization’s leadership quality as high.

So, how can we begin to change the way we think about leadership? I believe itboils down to these four things:

1. Look at leadership as a chosen specialty. One of the defining traits of professionalism is specialization—choosing to devote tremendous time and effort to attaining a high level of proficiency in a single field,such as music, surgery, or law. As a result, professionals will describetheir profession not only in terms of what they do, but also in terms ofwhat they have devoted their time and effort to master.

The same should be true for leaders. Leadership is a craft that is perfected over time through the focused dedication of time, attention, and self-awareness. When you become a leader, whatever your level or industry, it becomes your profession and you have an obligation to invest the time and effort to become the best leader you can be. Most leaders simply do not look at it this way, however. It’s time for that perception to change!

2. Use standards. Professions usually have standards for performance,knowledge, and skills. Some require degrees, certifications, accredita-tions, and exams. Due to the evolving nature of professional standards in some fields, continuing education is also required. For example, in the human resources profession, both the American Society for Trainingand Development and the Society for Human Resource Managementhave established standards and certification processes. But if you do a Google search on “general leadership standards” you will come up with very little (my search only generated about 1,700 results).

There is no one examining body for leadership and no continuing education credits are required. Yet, each year countless job analyses, academic studies, and books attempt to distill the essence of good leadership. While the outputs of these efforts vary in form, there tends to be little variance in the skills, behaviors, and personality componentsidentified as being essential to extraordinary leadership.






In their own way, these components amount to a set of commonly accepted leadership standards. And while we are unlikely to see a leader-ship standards board with national or global certification processes (thoughthat isn’t a bad idea), there are a handful of valid tests and assessmentsthat can accurately predict leadership performance. Still, only one inthree organizations uses these tools.

3. Pursue your passion. Just because you are part of a profession doesn’tmean you are a professional. Many people find themselves in professionsfrom which they derive little if any satisfaction. On the other hand, mostprofessionals are highly motivated to do what they do and do it well. I would argue that many leaders consider what they are doing—leader-ship—a “job” as opposed to a lifelong passion.

Extraordinary leaders (the true professionals) love being in leadership for the right reasons: helping people grow, mobilizing the organization in a new direction, and building engaged and high performing teams. Motivations such as these should be what really matter to leaders.

4. Practice. Practice. Practice. Much like Jiro the sushi chef, the latePablo Casals, the great cellist, practiced into his eighties. When askedwhy, he said, “I can always get better. ” The same attitude should apply to leadership. Doug Conant, the highly respected former CEO of Campbell Soup Company, put it this way: “To me, leadership is my craft and I have to work at it, and I’ve got to have the same continuousimprovement mindset about my job that I challenge my associates tohave about theirs.”

True professionals like Conant are never complacent. Hours of practiceare what make them stand out—and what keeps them on top of theirgame. Leadership skills can be learned and they can and should be practiced. When leaders commit to continuous improvement in their craft, there’s no limit to how good and how effective they can become.

The time is at hand for us to start viewing leadership as the honorable professionthat it is. If you are a leader, commit yourself to your profession, and strive todevelop the right leadership skills, especially the Interaction Essentials requiredfor the successful conversations that are the foundation of leadership effective-ness.

Work hard to improve, and be proud of the important work that you do. After all, your ability to be a great leader really matters to your organization.Make the most of the opportunity.



It's Time to View Leadership as a Profession - Bonus-Tool

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