Lecture 2: Tasks & Skills of Leadership
Last thursdays lecture covered a lot of ground in terms of what it is a “leader” actually does either in a position of leadership in an organisation or more importantly I think personally.
Those 4 main tasks being
1. Envisioning
2. Engaging
3. Enacting
4. Creating a Hi-Performance Context or Environment
I hope to write more about these point individually in a later post.
We ran through a very interesting exercise during the lecture called the “five whys” exercise. Basically you pick an important event in your life (Or for an organisation a statement about what the organisation does). You then ask “why is this important” 5 times each time asking why the the answer to the previous “why” is important. Eventually you will get down to what is really important or a core value and purpose for that event or statement you stated with. For example, the important event that popped into my head when asked was winning my Iaido competiton a few weeks back. I was asked by another student “why was that important” and the flow went as such:
I won my Iaido Competition > Important because: I was able to successfully apply some skills I had learnt > Important because: I enjoy learning new skills and knowledge > Important because: I have a thirst for new knowedege > Important because: Learning is most likely a core value for me etc etc
The plan is to try this exercise on serveral import moments in life so far and try an boil down those core values that have threaded their way throughout my life and whether what I am doing now aligns with them or whether I need to start making a move to something different.
Development questions for this week were:
- How clear is your strategic intent/BHAG at present?
- How clear is your strategy?
- To what extent does your vision translated into SMART short-term goals and how clear, relevant are they?
- What are your values?
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What are you passionate about?
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Five whys exercise, do the whats important questioning with at lest three ‘important’ events, what purpose or values come from this exercise?
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What is your purpose & what do you hope to contribute?
How much alignment is there between your values/purpose and your current direction?
I sense I have a lot of writing and blog posts to get done.
On a side note: I had a really good training tonight at Iaido still working on my Seitei Iaido Kata but coming along nicely.
