Have you got your business leadership bases covered?

This is a metaphor from American baseball- there are four bases, and each base has a team member covering that base to keep it “safe”.

In a company you need to have different people covering four sections of the leadership listed below, each having two types of leaders:

·      Family (HR)

·      Open System(s) - Innovation

·      Market (Relational-Goals)

·      Internal Processes

This idea uses model of company leadership based on R. Quinn (1988) in his “Competing Values Framework”.

The idea is that each person can be or “cover” one or more of the (eight in total) types within the sections.  No one leader can do everything well, but you can be great in some and work on the other skills.  To grow, we always need to move towards the opposite of our strengths and leave our comfort zones.  But slowly and one step at a time.

In the Family (HR) section you have the Mentor and the Facilitator.  

The mentor, as you may have guessed, mentors and helps people with work and deals with growth in career and character, mentors, as well as being able to help others develop are good at being able to communicate effectively.  

The facilitator deals with building and supporting teams and on that level also is good at in conflict resolution.

In the Open Systems (read “innovation and growth,” here) you have the Innovator and the Networker (or sometimes called the Broker).  

The innovator is able to facilitate change, is adaptable her/himself and tend to be visionary.  Innovation is in this person’s blood.

The Networker (Broker) develops and sustains relationships often outside of the company, networks, negotiates agreements and presents the company’s ideas that the visionary innovator comes up with.

The Market, or Rational Goal Model is made up of a Producer and a Director.  

The producer is all about the production of the company’s product, is task-oriented and deals with time and stress management.  

The director focuses on planning and making sure that all the steps are made from vision to plan, with milestones and intermediary steps to the whole planning and development process- defining objectives is this person’s strength.  

Finally, the Internal Processes section is key for checks and balances and is made up of the Coordinator and the Monitor.  

The coordinator focuses on project management and managing across functions and silos whereas

the monitor focuses on making sure established performance levels are maintained, and that personal, collective and organizational performance is measured and kept up to par.  Quality management is part of this person’s strength.

No one leader, including an awesome CEO, can fulfill all these needs.

So, the leaders of companies need to make sure that the areas are covered by a leadership team which is made up of these kinds of roles (and abilities).  

At the same time, for growth, the CEO or MD should work on going away from her or his strengths and thus keep growing, too.  However, leadership time constrains really dictate that the bases are covered by a managing leadership team that work from their strengths and training for a healthy organisation.

Personally, I tend to do better in the Family and Open Systems area, but I can do some of the other roles, too, especially the director or coordinator.  But lterally, no one person can do everything.  It’s just too much, so if you are a leader, think about your strengths, work on your weaknesses and have a great leadership team people to “cover” you in areas that are not your “forte”, for example, I would really need a monitor on my team to augment my strengths.

Where do you want to and need to grow in your leadership style?  Where do you want to “let it go” and have others do those jobs?

Have a great week leading and letting others help you lead.

Patricia Jehle   patricia@jehle-coaching.com

(This is part of a series of “What I have been learning” from my supervision course, which I successfully completed with an EASC certificate in supervision.)