Leadership tactics and skills that are related to questions in a book, answered thoroughly and effectively without any facetiousness in the least. The assignments were straightforward and easy, and your leadership skills are good with tact and situational awareness and political knowledge and the ability to win friends and influence people in ways that are successful to you and the organization.
Leadership Portfolio
Political tactics are essential for quality leadership. It is important to be tactful in all situations, and to understand the confounding variables that can impact communication clarity. Politics refers to skillful communications and strategic decision-making. Compromises are critical to good politics. For example, we were working with a large team of over 25 people. Each person had a clearly defined role, but there came a time when egos started to clash. As the leader, I was able to skillfully deflect the attention from the personal ego clashes and help the team members refocus on their shared objectives and goals.
I have had other situations that did not flow as smoothly, and which required extra political sensitivity. Issues related to race and gender often come up and disturb the political order in meetings. Men tend to dominate discussions, leading to situations in which women do not offer enough input. A male-dominated discourse is unfair, and the group leader needs to take control and take charge, by actively seeking and requesting input from female members the team. This goes for shy members of the team, too. Not all team members will be pushy or vocal about their ideas, questions, suggestions, or concerns.
Power is one of the hugest impediments to the flow of communications. People with an authoritarian leadership style, who place a strong value on titles, will have a difficult time listening to others and refraining from interrupting. This has been my experience. I have found that it is important to be extremely tactful with aggressive people, defraying their inflated sense of importance by addressing the concerns of others in the group.
I always use ethical tactics when addressing people and when solving political crises in my organization. It is critical to remain ethical at all times, to create a culture of honesty and integrity. I would not respect any leader who bent the rules or who lied or cheated in order to get ahead. Sometimes we must be clever, and being sneaky is not necessarily unethical. However, gross ethical infractions are never necessary. Those who use them may get ahead briefly, but they will not last there. Leaders especially need to be ethical at all times.
8-4 Leadership Skill Building Exercise
Influence tactics help build confidence, even as they draw upon previous levels of self-esteem. To develop a portfolio of influence tactics, I have read classic books like How to Win Friends and Influence People, and modern books written by CEOs and world leaders. Influence is about knowing how to manage power wisely, and mastering the art of persuasion. It is about being courageous enough to make bold requests of others, but intelligent enough to outline exactly why my proposal will work. Influence tactics include thorough research on a topic, and rhetorical skills, and the ability to pay attention to the other party's point-of-view.
One influence tactic I have used recently involved an emotional appeal to switch to a new software in our company. I mentioned loss of productivity, and framed the issue logically with statistics and numbers. However, I knew that my audience responded better to emotional tactics than to logical ones and I reframed the presentation as an emotional appeal. This worked, as I successfully persuaded my supervisor to change the software we were using on a project. Another influence tactic I have used is to complement others on their accomplishments and show that I have been listening to them. When the other person feels respected and valued, I am more likely to influence them. In the future, I will develop stronger influence tactics.
Leadership Self-Assessment Quizzes
These self-assessment quizzes relate to empowering attitudes and beliefs, positive organizational politics, influence tactics, and the measure of ingratiating behavior in organizational settings (MIBOS). The first of these quizzes was about empowering attitudes and beliefs, which I feel is the most important factor in good leadership. Employees expect to be empowered, not told what to do. We need to recognize each person's strengths and weaknesses, and offer each person the opportunity to maximize his or her potential. I have seen that when employees are empowered, they function at a higher level and care more about the organization than employees who feel like their labor is being exploited.
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