What Leaders Need To Lead - PinkFORUM14

Leadership Is Directionless Without A Goal or Defined Future State As I think back on Pink Elephant's recent Leadership Forum and the overwhelming positive experience it was for so many of our customers as well as the Pink team I have been thinking about what makes this event special and unique. Without a doubt there are many excellent IT conferences and at Pink we take pride in the variety of events we have produced over the 20 years. However based on the numerous comments we have received from our customers this focused leadership event evokes some of the strongest and most passionate positive comments. Reflecting back on this I believe this is due to the fact that this event is unique in several ways. For starters it is perhaps the only IT Management conference which focuses primarily on the mind set, attitudes, behaviours and demonstrated skills needed from and by IT leaders. Key to this focus is the understanding that leaders at every level of the organization need to enable and promote collective vs individual results. Dr. Tasha Eurich delivered the closing keynote “Hope Is Not A Plan”” and summarized this perfectly when she stated “The skills and abilities needed to succeed as an individual are not the same as those required to succeed at leading or being part of a team” This statement is key, in that the IT culture tends to focus on identifying, grooming and promoting individual technical specialists or stars and then recognizes their star ability by promoting them to lead and manage other technical specialists most of whom are primarily focus on producing individual results. The result of this prevailing approach to leadership and management grooming results in highly competitive, political, silo'ed and personal results driven cultures where according to the survey conducted at the event by the opening key note speaker Dave Logan “Tribal Leadership” - our predominate culture results in a spirt of “I'm Great And Your Not”. Needless to say that this individualistic mind set and approach to leadership development will not lend itself well to collectively delivering value and improving collective effectiveness. In this context Leadership must begin with a laser focus on establishing a shared team mindset, priorities and collaborative practices focused on delivering customer value. In my view the theme of leadership development is exactly what makes this event unique in the IT industry. While tools and frameworks are useful we cannot leverage them effectively unless we first establish True North and gain organizational agreement on a common understanding of a shared Vision and Mission. In short effective leadership begins with establishing shared beliefs and leading a group of talented subject matter experts (SMEs) in such a way that they endorse and get behind a set of common values and priorities. Only at this point can an organization effectively discuss leveraging frameworks and tools where needed to establish efficient and effective Management practices. Not to say we did not discuss tools and methodologies at the Leadership Forum, however they were always presented in the context as enablers of true goal of demonstrating transformational leadership focused on customer value and improving marketshare through continual improvement on team performance and effectiveness. Fatima Cabral (Pink's CEO) shared with me a very telling comment from one of the attendees. She shared with Fatima that while she really enjoys our major 13+ track conference in February she also values the Leadership Forum's unique audience. She explained that she was amazed that regardless to whom she spoke to at the Leadership forum she was assured of having a meaningful conversation about key leadership issues others were facing and overcoming in their own organizations. So in this context, I have to assume that as Iron sharpens Iron this event provides a unique opportunity for people engaged in IT Leadership roles to learn, become recharged and gain useful insights on how to effectively go home and influence their teams to move from Tribal Leadership's “I'm Great and Your Not” to the needed “Were Great” belief needed to operate as a truly effective team working towards the same goals. If you the readers of this post believe this is a worthy goal I hope to see each of you there next year as we do this again! Troy's Thoughts What Are Yours? “Business leaders must explicitly define their organization's purpose… it shapes every other aspect of “BRAVE Leadership.”…behaviors, relationships, attitudes and the work environment. The purpose, “why” we do what we do, creates a meaningful place to work. The values are also important in creating an intentional culture because they are “how” we do the “what,” whether it is pizza or widgets or accounting.” — Nick Sarillo

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