Built to Beat Chaos

PART 3What Effective Leaders Should Be

“Being” is a higher standard than “doing.” I can paint pictures (doing) and not be an artist. So it is with leadership. We can give you the system and checklists as in Part 2 and you can do those things and still not be a leader.

In Part 3 we will shift from the process aspects of leadership to the people dimension. It is in this section that we grapple with the challenge of how to bring life to the processes (Part 2) by engaging people at the heart and mind level.

When you couple people skills with process skills you can avoid the bureaucracy that systems can bring. See the upper left quadrant of the following image. We know from Part 1 of the book that humans are creatures of desire. Our actions flow from our desires.

Yes, we need process and technology to attain new heights, but the upside and downside of sustainable human progress is most often based on our attitudes and interpersonal behavior.

Source: LeadFirst.ai

 

Therefore, the processes we reviewed in Part 2 of the book are only useful if they help people achieve their purposes and fulfill desires.

In the following chapters we will describe a model of the people skills that are necessary to sustain success. Ongoing effectiveness requires that those who are leading other people must exemplify these behaviors and must foster their development in the people they lead.