The Work of Leaders: How Vision, Alignment, and Execution Will Change the Way You Lead by Julie Straw & Mark Scullard & Susie Kukkonen

Author:Julie Straw & Mark Scullard & Susie Kukkonen [Straw, Julie & Scullard, Mark & Kukkonen, Susie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781118636534
Amazon: 1118636538
Publisher: Pfeiffer
Published: 2013-04-15T00:00:00+00:00

The more clearly you can identify and anticipate each of your audiences, the more effectively you can build alignment.

2. Practice the skills. The most effective leaders know that the skills involved in alignment require practice. If you’re not in the habit of actively building alignment or if any aspects of this area feel particularly challenging, consider how and where you might practice these essential skills. Choose colleagues or team members with whom you feel comfortable and make them your sounding boards. Try presenting your vision and explaining your rationale to them. Encourage them to provide candid feedback on your communication style or listening skills. Ask them what they find inspirational or what successes they’ve had inspiring others. Sure, this kind of preparation and rehearsal takes time and effort. But the best leaders will tell you: when it comes to building alignment, practice makes perfect.

3. Continuously build alignment. Remember that building alignment is a dynamic, ongoing process, one that most successful leaders tell us is on their minds almost constantly. It is not a fixed, one-time event allowing you to “align it and forget it.” In fact, alignment happens in various ways throughout the VAE process. The earliest steps toward alignment happen when you’re testing assumptions for the vision. Later, the realities of execution can cause the team to stray from the original vision, and you’ll need to return to the clear goals and encourage more dialogue to get people back on track. Because it’s so people-focused, alignment may require you to adapt to changing needs and circumstances. And while alignment occurs at the macro level, as when an entire organization aligns with a new corporate vision, it also happens in small, day-to-day interactions.

We talked to a vice president of R&D at a training products company who describes just this sort of ongoing alignment: “I got back from a meeting and there were some really important implications for IT in what we discussed. So I walked into our CTO’s office and said, ‘Do you have a minute?’ He said, ‘I’m leaving for the airport in five minutes.’ So we took those five minutes and I brought him up to speed. Because I knew things I didn’t know three days ago, and they were important things. By the time the conversation was over, he said to me, ‘We’re going in the same direction.’ ” Clearly, alignment can look different for everyone, but the most important point is that it keeps happening.

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