Unfortunately, most Leaders & Managers in business (private or publicly-held) and government are not Winning Leaders & Managers! On the surface this may sound like a brash overgeneralization. However, I’ve come to this conclusion from my own study of formal leadership and management research over the decades, personal experience, that of others shared with me from various walks of life globally, and that seldom found valuable trait of ‘common sense.’ So let me share my point-of-view for your own consideration and, hopefully, benefit since most people also have the potential to be Winning Leaders & Managers, since it is something we choose to be or not be as we journey through our lives!
I’ve noticed that though quite simple, the single most powerful predictor of "Winners" in life—whether as leaders, managers, or anything else in our professional and personal lives—is if we demonstrate Positive versus Negative attitudes and practices. That is not to naively say that individuals characterized by a negative pattern aren’t successful in life—history repeatedly shows that this is not the case. However, while such individuals may be personally successful, over time, I’ve seen them time and again lose highly committed, high performing resources and make flawed decisions due to their "fear of failure" that may take the form of loss of control, including actions outside their ‘comfort zone’ of solutions that are doomed when faced with different problems,
or loss of influence/approval. By contrast, the "Winners" are more internally-driven individuals who share developed traits like being proactive, open-minded, goal/improvement-motivated, and seeking to lead a purposeful life guided by all-win principles and practices as a leader/manager.
I became motivated to write this after the last few months of very busy coaching/consulting with more than 30 clients. Not only did the above observation strike me in noting the gains made by the "Winners" versus not yet made by those who continue to self-limit their potential to do so, but also by the dramatic difference in the increasing self-awareness and self-initiated growth efforts by the "Winners" versus the continuing self-delusion of their own personal reality by the rest. For instance, our own widely-recognized work at Life Associates in the field of personal assessments has shown that 80% of all people typically view themselves quite differently than others that they select as ‘knowing them well’ - with respect to their behavior patterns and their demonstrated competencies. The non-winners typically can be further identified by their lack of continuing flexibility (as a general pattern, not in every situation since we are all human and are likely to be inflexible at times), unrealistic view of self-others-and/or situations, and lack of motivation to embrace other, more successful options already working for others. While the root cause of such change resistance for most people is attitudinal in nature (and thus within the control of their own mind, heart, and efforts), for some it is a functional of more limited ‘know-how’ or even limited cognitive capacity in some instances. Once again, our performance assessments for leaders/managers has shown that they typically only select the more effective response to handling strategic as well as tactical situations, tasks, and people between 30%-60% of the time! Imagine the untapped potential by just increasing their effectiveness by 20%!
By this point you may be asking ... ‘well if this is indeed a problem for so many leaders and managers, then what is the solution?’ Our work in the field of performance coaching has identified three sets of factors that build "Winners" when embraced and developed - which can be the case for 90% of the population with positive as well as meaningful adverse consequences when well implemented on an on-going basis. These three factors are 1) taking personal accountability for the results you are (and are not) getting in your life - for yourself, your team, your organization, your family, your country; 2) committing to continually improving performance through a lifelong quest for learning, becoming better at the life and work we are passionate about, and 3) becoming more adaptable to dealing with changing situations, expectations, and challenges—especially by collaborating with others to do so in ways that result over time in greater "WINNING for all!"
