We’ve all heard of the Peter Principle, the idea that in organizations, individuals rise to their highest level of incompetence. I’ve seen this happen time after time in organizations because when we look for those to promote, we tend to look at those who do their current job best.

So, in other words we tend to promote the best bank teller to Head Teller; the best customer service representative to Team Lead and so on. This dynamic tends to be repeated over and over again as we make our way up the organizational hierarchy. If we are the best at our job, we are brought to the attention of those above us and we get considered for higher level positions with greater and greater levels of leadership responsibility.

Sooner or later we will either find ourselves at the very top of the hierarchy with no more steps to take up or we find ourselves in a position where we’re no longer able to be the best in the position; we’ve reached our highest level of incompetence.

Being a Specialist

Over time I’ve observed that those that tend to hit their peak organizational level, especially while still farther down in the hierarchy tend to be those that we would consider specialists. They are very good at the technicalities of their job, but because they are so good at the technicalities and they have a deep knowledge of their field and position, they tend to become pigeonholed as an expert since other folks fail to see beyond this expertise and never consider that the individual knows anything else.

When we get pigeonholed as being a specialist, it becomes harder for us be seen as a leader, except in the area of our expertise. A lot of this has to do with the fact that when we are very good at what we do we are seen to have expertise power related to the work that we do. Unless we also happen to have an incredible amount of personal charisma, we will continually be known just as the expert in our area.

Being Deeply Read

Many of us go through our career trying to get a leg up on our co-workers by trying to accumulate as much knowledge as we can about our field or specific area. In fact, most corporate training programs support this activity by requiring that in order to receive reimbursement for workshops or courses, the material has to be relevant to our current job.

Also, take a look at the work related reading materials that you’ve recently looked at. I’d be willing to bet that they are all specifically related to your job or your industry.

To me, all of this emphasis on job or industry specific knowledge acquisition ends up making us deeply read…in one area. But some of our greatest thinkers have always been widely read, learning things from seemingly unrelated areas. This is what makes for leaders who can think strategically.

Being Widely Read

Twice I’ve worked for executive leaders who were examples of individuals who are widely read. Besides reading and keeping up on their respective industries, they also read more widely and were able to put into practice things that they learned that were unrelated to their own fields.

The first one worked with delinquent and at-risk youth. Because of his love of the outdoors, he found successful ways to combine what he learned about outdoor activities such as hiking, kayaking, rock climbing and other adventure-based activities with supporting the needs of both delinquent and at-risk youth and the systems they were part of.

The second one, after reading about studies run by one of the major telecommunication company recognized that his own company was falling short of retaining their clients because they were focusing on “satisfied” customers as opposed to “very satisfied” customers. This change lead to more focused attention on customer service that creates “very satisfied” customers.

There is no denying that we need to keep up with our field so that we understand the nature of our own business as things change. But if we want to be leaders that can think and act strategically, we also need be more widely read and be able to bring ideas from outside the field into our work. This isn’t just being strategic, it will help us to be innovative.

Leader’s Reflection: When we focus all of our learning on our specific job or field we become deeply read on the subject. Leaders who are able to think strategically are more widely read, finding unrelated information that can be synthesized into current practices.

You also might be interested in:

1. Sources of Power
2. How Are You At Self-Monitoring?
3. #QUALITYtweet – An Interview with Tanmay Vora

In my senior year of college, way back when I was 20 years old, I had a business experience that I can point to as being one of the defining moments of my leadership development.

This defining moment came from taking a specific course, a 400 level strategic management course. Most business schools have an equivalent course, one students take towards the end of their degree program that has the student look at big picture decision making. You know, the kind of decision making that executive leaders need to make every day.

The interesting thing looking back on this now is that I can’t for the life of me remember the instructor, the book or even most of the material. But I do remember this: It was during this course that my organizational thinking changed from viewing the world as one of “us” to understanding the view of “them”.

It was during this course that I started to see the world through the lens of “them”. Even in my early career when I was still at the bottom of the organizational food chain, I was able to understand decisions that were handed down from on high because I was able to see the big picture; the same view seen by “them”.

I think that this single ability, my ability to view the world as “they” see it has not only served me well through out my career but has distinguished me as a leader in each of the organizations that I’ve been a part of.

“Us” and “Them”

There is no doubt that an “us” and “them” mentality existing in many organizations. The “us” who make up the lower levels of the organization can’t understand why “they” in the higher levels of the organization make the decisions that they do.

Meanwhile, the “them” in the higher levels of the organization can’t understand why the “us” at the lover levels of the organization always seem so unmotivated or are always complaining.

To me, some of this is no different than the typical generational gap that has plagued parents and teenagers forever. Teens think that their parents just don’t understand what it’s like to be a teenager today. Even though we “grown ups” were once teenagers ourselves. And of course, now that we’re all grown up we can’t understand why our teenagers act the way they do. We certainly didn’t act that way at their age.

The same thing happens in organizations, those in the lower levels of the organization forget that those at the top were once at the bottom and have dealt with the work and the issues. However, the folks at the top tend to be dealing with issues that are broader than those in the lower levels are used seeing. And there is the key to the whole dynamic.

It’s About Perspective

This whole “us” and “them” issue is really one of perspective. The main differences between “us” and “them” is how they see the world. “Us” tend to look at the organizational world through the narrow view of the current job they are doing. When decisions are made on high, those decisions are seen by “us”, not through the impact on organization, but through the impact on how I do my job.

“Them”, because of where they’re situated in the organizational hierarchy, tend to look at the organizational world through the much wider lens of the entire organization. When decisions are made, they look at how the decision impacts the entire organization AND individual areas. Sometimes needing to keep a delicate balance between the two and not always succeeding.

Leaders Need to View the World Like “Them”

I’ve watched folks who have been moving through their careers for as long as I have but keep getting stalled out because of this “us” and “them” view of the world. They continue to view the organizational world as one of “us”, never fully seeing the big organizational picture and it always stymies their progress. They may be the best at what they do, but the “us” view keeps them from being offered positions of leading others.

Looking back on it now, I’m grateful for the strategic management course that caused my thinking to change allowing me to be able to understand the view that “they” see. It has allowed me be in a better position to help move the organizations I’ve been a part of move further forward.

Leader’s Reflection: The “us” and “them” dynamic in organizations is one of perspective. Those in the lower levels of organizations tend to see the organization through the view of their current job. Leaders need to view the organization through the wider lens of the entire organization.

You also might be interested in:

1. Are You a Type A or Type B Leader?
2. Understanding Why People Behave the Way They Do
3. What is Systems Reflection?

I read somewhere that the large majority of blogs that are started every year never make it three months before the writer quits and leaves the old posts to wither on the vine. So, I’m pretty excited to have made it to the 6 month mark with Reflection Leadership.

I had started writing back in the late summer as a diversion to the daily grind of my job. I had originally started out writing a book that I’d been planning for a couple of years but I wasn’t getting immediate satisfaction out of that kind of writing.

After spending a month simultaneously writing and researching about blogging, I decided to give blogging a go. So I started re-appropriating the material I had written into blog posts and at the end of September Reflection Leadership went live.

I’ve enjoyed the process of building Reflection Leadership from the ground up. I very purposefully didn’t share my project with family and friends because I wanted the blog to grow organically without inflating it with loved ones who felt they had to read it.

So far this strategy has worked. In the last six months there have been just under 3,600 unique visitors to Reflection Leadership and the number of folks following along on Twitter has gone from zero to almost 500. I am most gratified and humbled by the support and following of what I have to say.

In honor of this first 6 month anniversary, I thought I’d share a list of the 10 Most Popular articles here at Reflection Leadership over the first six months in case you missed them the first time around:

Understanding Why People Behave the Way They Do – Everyone behaves the way that they do because they are acting through a filter of the rocks (values, assumptions, beliefs, and expectations) that they carry around. Leaders need to recognize that each individual’s reaction to things is going to be different because of their unique set of rocks.

7 Books That Made Me the Leader I am Today - When I look at my bookshelf, I find seven books that I can point to that meant the most to me at the time when I read them. These are the 7 leadership books that help make me the leader that I am today.

An Introduction to Leader-Member Exchange Theory – Leader-Member Exchange theory suggests that every leader has a unique, individual relationship with each follower and that each of these relationships is different in terms of the quality of the interactions based on whether the follower is part of our “in-group” or “out-group”.

What is Reflection Leadership? – Reflection Leadership encourages leaders to take a step back, to begin to reflect and spend more time looking at the why we do what we do every day. By encouraging leaders to take the time to pay closer attention to what is most important, Reflection Leadership can provide us with the tools we need to become more effective leaders.

Should Leaders Focus on Each Individual Follower? – As leaders, do we always need to focus on leading each of our individual followers?

How Are You At Self-Monitoring? – Research suggests that those who are able to accurately read situational cues and adapt their behavior to those cues are high self-monitors and tend to emerge as leaders more often than those that are low-self monitors.

Reflection on Just Ask Leadership – This is a guest post from author Gary B. Cohen that looks at how Just Ask Leadership intersects with Reflection Leadership.

Have You Found Flow? – This is the first in my series of articles about Flow. When we are able to experience Flow on a regular basis we are able to live a happy and satisfying life. When we are able to experience Flow in our everyday work we find the work more satisfying.

Being a Better Team Member – The best way to help a team that we are part of to be high performing is to take the lead in being the best team member we can be. We can accomplish this by focusing on learning from other team members and always remembering that the team is in it together.

Finding What Motivates Followers – As leaders we need our followers to help us work towards our goals or vision. When we are able to motivate our employees they will provide that help. By using Follower Reflection we are able to find what motivates each person individually, allowing us to produce motivated and loyal followers.

My Reflection: I very much appreciate you taking time out of your busy life to spend a few minutes each week reading my material. I hope I can continue to keep your interest by providing meaningful information that you find useful.

You also might be interested in:

1. Being a Better Team Member
2. Should Leaders Focus on Each Individual Follower?
3. The Challenge of Leader-Member Exchange Theory

The other day I ran across this article from John Cook where he wrote about the difference between “Just in Case” learning and “Just in Time” learning and I’ve been thinking about how Just in Case and Just in Time relate to leadership development.

Very simply, Cook describes Just in Case learning as the type of learning we do in school; we are learning things just in case we need them sometime in the future. Just in Time learning is the type of learning we do on the job; we are learning things right at the time that we need to, as we are doing them.

In a previous article, I describe the three main ways that we learn leadership as being Learning by Reading, where we learn to lead by reading books and attending workshops on leadership; Learning by Observing, where we observes others leading and try to emulate those who do it well and avoid doing things we see others doing not so well; and Learning by Doing, where we learn to lead by actually doing it.

Just in Case Leadership Development

Much of the foundational work that we do in leadership development needs to be Just in Case. Since so much of what we do on a day-to-day basis is situational, it’s really hard to be prepared for everything. When our leadership development includes foundational learning it gives us the tools to build upon our foundation later as we get into different situations.

This foundational knowledge comes from reading about leadership in books, magazines, journals (even blogs like this one), or taking courses and workshops. While creating a great foundation, learning leadership this way is not only one dimensional but we end up learning a lot and sometimes more than we will ever use. So much of what we are learning in this manner we learn just in case we run into situations where we can use this information.

I think learning by observing others is similar to Just in Case leadership development, but the learning is more experiential. As we experience the leadership of others we hold onto all this information until we are in our own leadership situations and might be able to use the information.

Just in Time Leadership Development

As I’ve stated before, I think the most powerful way to learn leadership is to just do it. Learning leadership by doing can create such lasting effects on our development because we are able to see the effects of our learning in real time. When we learn leadership on the fly, in the thick of our day-to-day lives we are developing our leadership skills just in time as we need them.

But the development that we experience just in time when we learn leadership by doing can only be effective when we have a good foundation under us. I’m convinced that we are most effective as leaders when we spend the time and energy to learn about leadership and develop leadership skills Just in Case then use this knowledge and our learned skills to help us further develop Just in Time as we are doing it.

I don’t think that leadership development Just in Case or Just in Time is an either or proposition. I think we develop our leadership skills over time both just in case and just in time and as we move along in our careers we need to continue our development both ways.

Leader’s Reflection: Leadership development needs to be done both Just in Case and Just in Time. Effective leaders are able to continue to develop their leadership skills both ways through out their careers.

You also might be interested in:

1. How Can I Learn To Be A Leader?
2. Reflection and Leadership Development
3. February Leadership Development Blog Carnival

Recently the role I play in my organization has begun to change again and I’m in one of those really great places where I get to define the role and create the systems that I need to be successful. As this all started to happen, I thought it would be a great time to finally read David Allen’s best seller Getting Things Done. I know I’m a little late to this particular party seeing how the book was first published 9 years ago, but I figure better late than never.

Before you tune out thinking “oh boy here comes another rabid fan of GTD who hasn’t really done it well himself”, that’s not actually what I wanted this article to be about (although for the record I did find the book insightful and helpful to my specific situation, though your mileage my vary). Instead this article is about what GTD and books like it represent for leaders who practice Reflection Leadership.

Practicing Systems Reflection

As I was nearing the end of the book, my brain was going into overdrive thinking about how I could best incorporate GTD into my workday and life. I was able to recognize that I was in a perfect position to make changes to my own systems because of the transition I found myself in with my position. Unfortunately, most of the time we are so busy and caught up with the day-to-day that we don’t take the time and effort to stop to evaluate our systems to make sure we are being the most productive and effective.

As leaders, we need to make Systems Reflection part of our ongoing reflection practice and we need to be able to reflect on all of the systems that we have responsibility for. But here I want to stay focused on our own personal systems; the things we use and do to stay organized.

Most of the time we are in constant motion moving from one thing to the next. The more we try to do and keep track of the harder it gets and the more anxiety that we feel when we have to worry if we are getting everything done that needs to be done. There are any number of organizing schemes and computer programs to help with this, but in the end how we keep ourselves organized is habitual. It is pretty much what we do because we’ve always done it that way.

Our Personal Systems Are Habits

As I was reading Getting Things Done and really taking the time to reflect on how I keep myself organized, I was able to see a pattern that actually dates back to the my very first job out of college, long before I could ever contemplate having a computer based digital organizer let alone something handheld. Over the last 25 years or so, my organizing habits have pretty much stayed the same, they’ve just been modified over time to adapt to newer technology.

Some might say that given my relative success over these past 25 years I must be doing something right and I wouldn’t necessarily argue with that. But my point here is that if our personal systems are mostly based on habit, how do we know if we’re being the most productive and effective as we can be? Might there be a better way for us to be doing what we do? This is why Systems Reflection at the personal level is important.

We need to make the time and effort to stop and remove ourselves from the day-to-day so that we can take a real look at what we do and how we do it. Once we’re able to really see our personal systems we can start to take a critical look to see if there are other ways to do what we need to do.

David Allen suggest that getting started with GTD may require two full days just to figure out where we are and setup our systems. And there in lies the problem: Who has two full days to give up? So to me, adding Systems Reflection to our continuous reflection practice is the answer. When we consistently monitor our personal systems we can make changes and adjustments along the way instead of having to make a clean break to make changes.

It is important for leaders to be able to reflect on their own personal systems and make any adjustments needed to be more productive and effective. When we are able to reflect own our personal systems it then allows us to expand to reflecting on the organizational systems.

Leader’s Reflection: Our personal systems of organization are mainly habits we have done over long periods of time that might not be the most productive or effective. When we practice Systems Reflection on a regular basis it allows us to make adjustments to our systems incrementally allowing us to be more effective leaders.

You also might be interested in:

1. What is Systems Reflection?
2. Personal Development and Well Being Blog Carnival – 11/15/09
3. 7 Books That Made Me the Leader I Am Today

I’ve been writing quite a bit lately about teams and I wanted to continue with a look at different roles that team members take during team interactions.

When we work on something collaboratively in a team setting we are all trying to accomplish a shared goal. As I’ve mentioned before, one of the best ways to promote teamwork and to create a high performing team is to be a better team member. Part of being a good team member is identifying the appropriate role that needs to be played at any given time.

Jim Clawsen, who is a professor at the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia, has identified four general roles that individual team members take during team interactions. These roles align along two axis with each pair being polar opposites. The roles Clawsen has identified include:

Task Driver: This is the person that keeps the group focused on the ultimate goal. Part of the Task Driver role is to bring the team back to its purpose when the group starts to stray to far afield.

Process Facilitator: As a counterpart to the Task Driver, the Process Facilitator’s job is to monitor the interactions of the team and keep the group on track by focusing on how they work together.

Creative Visionary: The Creative Visionary is the risk taker. This person is always open to new and different ideas, no matter how far out they actually are. The Creative Visionary is needed to help the team get unstuck from set thinking that gets in the way of progress.

Practicality Pusher: As counterpart to the Creative Visionary, the Practicality Pusher’s job is to keep the team focused on the realities of the assigned task. While the Creative Visionary comes up with creative solutions, the Practicality Pusher keeps the group grounded to the practicality of their solutions.

Each of these roles play out in needed ways as the team sets out to complete its work. For instance, if there is a strong Process Facilitator the group will get bogged down in deciding how to accomplish their work. At this point the Task Driver is needed to remind the team that they are here to accomplish a task, just not figure out how to interact together.

Likewise if the Creative Visionary is strong and takes the group on multiple tangents through brainstorming, it will take the Practicality Pusher to ask what these great creative ideas can bring to the task at hand.

Sometimes cross polar roles are needed to counterbalance someone in a strong role. As an example, if the team has a dominant Task Driver who constantly keeps the group focused just on getting things done, it will take a strong Creative Visionary to point out creative alternatives that may be best for the team in the long run.

As individuals, we all naturally tend towards one of these four role types. But at any given time we each have the ability to take on any of these four roles. In fact, it is not unheard of to have a single individual move between each of these roles in the course of a single team meeting if that’s what the team needs.

In a high performing team, these roles are perfectly balanced out so that the team doesn’t drift too far towards any one area. So, if the team is overloaded with individuals who tend towards being say a Task Driver, then assignments will have to be made requiring some team members to take on different roles to keep the team balanced.

While team roles transcend the actual work that needs to be done by each individual, they are important none the less. Leaders need to be able to not only understand each of these roles but be able to insure that the team roles remain balanced. Assigning individuals to different team roles is needed when they are out of balance, but in the immediacy of any moment the leader also needs to be able to step into a role to keep the team from heading too far in one direction.

Leader’s Reflection: Leaders need to understand the importance of the Task Driver, Process Facilitator, Creative Visionary and Practicality Pusher as distinct roles needed in high performing team.

You also might be interested in:

1. Challenges To Being a Team
2. Being a Better Team Member
3. Have You Ever Been Part of a Highly Functional Team?

It’s time again for the Leadership Development Blog Carnival. This month’s blog carnival is host by Dan McCarthy at Great Leadership. Since it was posted last night, Dan chose as this month’s theme the Academy Awards, calling this the Academy Awards Edition of the carnival.

This month’s edition has 41 great entries and I’m again honored to be included.

As always, the blog carnival does not disappoint. There are a number of posts that I previously read since they are from my favorite bloggers, but there are also a good number of posts I had missed this month so I’m grateful for the opportunity to have them all in one place.

Each month the Leadership Development blog carnival provides a great service by allowing us to find great leadership writing that we may have otherwise missed all in one convenient place.

You also might be interested in:

1. November Leadership Development Blog Carnival
2. February Leadership Development Blog Carnival
3. Personal Development and Well Being Blog Carnival – 11/15/09

In a previous article I looked at some of the challenges to being a team. Many of the challenges that I looked at were related to the creation, care, and feeding of a team. While we’ve all heard that “there is no ‘I’ in team” teams are absolutely made up of individuals. The one individual on the team in particular that I want to look at is ourselves. There are things we can do as individuals to help us be better team members, which will lead to better and stronger teams.

There has been much written about how aspiring leaders can learn valuable leadership skills by trying to be a good follower. I think it works the same way with being part of a team. The best way that we can help a group of folks to become a team is act like a good team member.

What Can We Learn?

When we are part of a team we need to recognize that each member is part of the team because they bring something different and possibily unique to the group. For leaders who are constantly seen as “the answer person” as Mary Jo Asmus puts it, it can be hard to let others share their particular wisdom and knowledge. But we have to do exactly that. We need to fight any urge we have to show that we always have the answer.

Instead, we need use inquiry to gain an understanding from others on the team. As team members, we need to be supportive of the team as a whole as well as each of the individual members. The best way to do this, especially as the team is still learning to work together is to be inquisitive with the purpose of learning.

When we focus on learning all that we can through our membership in the team we gain skills and knowledge that we can take back to our own departments and jobs. But from the standpoint of the team, if we stay focused on learning and inquiry all members of the team are able to get a better understanding of not only each other, but also the things that need to be done and why.

We’re In This Together

One of the things that a highly functioning team does well is stay away from the “blame game”. If we are truly a team and we are “all in this together” then there is no point to trying to place blame when things don’t go as expected.

This isn’t to say that teams need to completely ignore what happened. Certainly if something didn’t go as expected, quickly understanding why is important for future planning. But trying to get to the bottom of things just to find someone to blame is a waste of time and energy. Not to mention how destructive it can be to team morale.

As I mentioned in a previous article, my organization was working on a major implementation project through January and February. There were many parts and many people working hard on this project. There was one particular part that had sequential work being done where I was the last person in the chain before this part was launched. Right up against our deadline I noticed something small but necessary that was missing. It should have been caught by someone who was responsible in the first two parts of the process.

I was angry that it wasn’t caught and had gotten to me in this state a day before it had to be ready. I immediately started writing an email specifically to the person that should have caught it first that I planned to send to the whole team. I got the whole email written, properly chastising the individual and asking that he go back and get it fixed.

Then I realized this was a team effort and teammates pick each other up and help support the work that we are all responsible for. Since I was able to do the work myself, I deleted the email and took the steps needed to get the work completed. But it was important for the future that this not happen again, so instead of bringing it up in our daily team meeting I had a private conversation with the individual explaining why it was important that he watch for this in the future.

Successful teams have members, the individual “I’s” that act as team members. As leaders, once we have taken the time to create and develop a team the best thing we can do is to be a good team member acting in the best interest of the team and each of its members. Doing that will always be in our own best interest.

Leader’s Reflection: The best way to help a team that we are part of to be high performing is to take the lead in being the best team member we can be. We can accomplish this by focusing on learning from other team members and always remembering that the team is in it together.

You also might be interested in:

1. Challenges To Being a Team
2. Team Roles
3. Have You Ever Been Part of a Highly Functional Team?

Leaders are supposed to be the keepers of the vision. We expect our leaders to not only have a vision of where we want and need to go, but also to be able to hold that vision up for us to see. This doesn’t just mean the big vision with a capital “V”, it also means the goals that we have to meet.

But what happens when things get in the way? As leaders we have to make sure that we are able to quickly and effectively get ourselves and everyone else back on track.

Things Got In My Way

Today my organization is launching sweeping changes that will effect everyone in the organization and my team has been involved in the planning, managing and implementation of this project. Everything has been building up to the launch that takes place today. But I’ve had two straight weeks of things getting in the way. Some were planned, some not so planned.

Two weeks ago all of our remote employees had to travel to the home office city for a week of conference like meetings. With only two weeks before our big launch, our team had to split our time between participating in the meetings and doing work to prepare for today’s launch. I don’t know about you, but when I have to travel away from my home office, my productivity suffers because I lose my familiar way of doing things. Couple that with a couple hundred extra people around and it’s hard to stay as focused as I can when I’m alone in my own office.

When we planned today’s launch date we knew about these meetings being two weeks out, in fact it gave us the perfect opportunity to train folks on the upcoming changes. We felt confident that having a week between the meetings and the launch would give us a week to finish anything up and make any adjustments that came up after meeting with the masses.

BUT, for me things just kept getting in the way. While traveling home at the end of the week, I picked up a nasty cold. Not only was I still trying to get back in the swing of things after being away for a week, but I also felt miserable. In fact, two of the days last week I spent all day in bed sleeping, not able to think at all about what work still needed to be done. When I was able to work, my head wasn’t clear enough to focus on everything I needed to focus on.

If leaders are supposed to be the keepers of the goals and visions, how do we keep, not only ourselves but, everyone focused on where we need to go when things get in the way?

Plan Ahead

The first thing is to have taken the time early on to practice vision reflection. When we take the time to reflect on our vision or goals, we’re able to clearly define where it is we need to go. Having a clearly defined vision or set of goals up front should be able to withstand things getting in the way.

Share With Others

Having a defined vision or goals is a great first step, but I’m a big believer in planning for what happens if the leader is hit by a bus. The organization needs to continue should something happen to the leader, even something as simple as a really bad cold. So not only do we need to clearly define where we want to go, but others need to share the vision and goals. When others are part of working towards the vision or making goals happen and something gets in the way for the leader forward progress can continue.

Get Back Up To Speed

When things get in the way, the leader needs to do everything possible to remove the barriers. Clearly if we’re talking about being bedridden the best thing we can do is get better. Then when we are able we need to hit the ground running by getting as much information as we can on the status of things. While the natural tendency would be to rush into action, after quickly gathering the needed information, the wise leader will take the time to reflect on where we’ve been, where we are and where we still need to go.

Leader’s Reflection: Sometimes, no matter how well we plan, things get in the way of our progress. Leaders need to prepare for such disruptions by clearly defining the vision or goals and making sure others have a clear understanding of where we need to go. Once barriers are removed, leaders need to quickly assess where things stand and decide how to move forward.

You also might be interested in:

1. Take the Time to Reflect – Or Else
2. A Giving of Thanks
3. Have You Ever Been Part of a Highly Functional Team?

I’ve been devoting the last several articles to author and blogger Tanmay Vora’s recent book, #QUALITYtweet. I reviewed the book in a previous article and shared my two-part interview with Tanmay here and here. Today’s article is a guest post from Tanmay.

The Equation of Outcomes

The purpose of leading greatly is to generate high-impact results for the organization, its people, clients and their clients. In the equation of high-impact results (especially in the highly knowledge oriented world of work), two most important factors are people and how they are led.

Leadership creates an environment for people to work. It is therefore very important for leaders to reflect on the environment they are creating. I read somewhere that the only legacy of great leaders is the culture they create. Thoughts and deeds of a leader set examples and precedence for others to follow and emulate. Long after a leader is gone, these examples and precedence stay on.

Culture of a team or organization forms an eco-system for people to deliver great results. Hence, culture is at the very core of a quality oriented culture.

Importance of Reflection

Over the years, I have seen leaders who lead by their instincts and leaders who are reflective.

When instincts drive leadership, leaders form a culture in accordance with their personal values. Culture is oriented around “What I think is right”.

When leaders are reflective and carefully think about impact of their actions and thoughts on the organization or team and alignment with values and vision of the organization, they form a culture oriented around “What is right for the organization and its customers”.

When a team starts doing things that are right for the organization and its customers, they automatically start building a customer focused quality culture.

How it Impacts Quality

Thinking leaders also understand the importance of process in forming a quality culture of the organization. They choose to be process-centric without losing focus on people. They understand that if they want to build anything memorable, they have to respect the power of process.

Tanmay Vora heads Quality Assurance & Testing at Gateway Technolabs  based in Ahmedabad, India. He speaks and consults on software quality assurance and publishes the QAspire Blog where he writes about quality and leadership issues.

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