Saturday, March 03, 2007

Leading with Power, Influence and Integrity

FountainBlue's March Workshop Topic was Leading with Power, Influence and Integrity, with Camille Smith, Work In Progress Coaching http://www.wipcoaching.com.

In our branding workshop, we talked about how to create your own personal brand of leadership. In our communications workshop, we talked more expanding your communication style so that you can better communicate your desires to a wider range of personality styles. In this workshop, we brought the two concepts together.

  • We examined our personal commitments and motivations and their impact on ourselves and the people around us.
  • We worked through exercises that challenge us to think through what we really want and how we can engage others to share our goals.
  • We explored the differences between unexamined wants and consciously created commitments and their impact on our actions and communications.
  • We investigated several types of power and how to choose the one that is most likely to produce the outcomes we intend.
  • With this knowledge, we were challenged to generate the "missing ingredient" that would allow us to lead ourselves and others with power, influence and integrity and produce results that create successful businesses and fulfilling lives.
  • We left intrigued and inspired by the conversation and empowered into action. We look forward to continuing our discussion on how to elicit effective leadership skills in ourselves, and in those we work and play with. Below are notes from our discussion.

Thoughts on leading with power:

  • You are completely responsible on how to use your power, grow your power, balance it with influence and integrity.
  • Be willing to stretch your comfort zone.
  • Understand your passions, and your commitments. Take action on your commitments.
  • Know your skills. Build on your skills and strengths.
  • Build relationships bigger than goals. Relationships are the foundation of power and influence.
  • Listening leads to relationships, not listening leads to fragmentation and suffering. Build power through listening and engaging others.
  • Learn as you lead.
  • Power: The ability to do or act.

Thoughts on leading with influence:

  • Surround yourself with empowering, like-minded people.
  • Understand your skills and build relationships and communities which would respect your skills, complement your skills.
  • Build relationships bigger than goals. Relationships are the foundation of power and influence.
  • Listening leads to relationships, not listening leads to fragmentation and suffering. Build influence by listening.
  • Be the kind of leader who cares, shows character, is competent and consistent and shows commitment.
  • Influence: the capacity or power of persons or things to be a compelling force on or produce effects on actions, behavior, opinions, etc., of others.

Thoughts on leading with integrity:

  • Understand how you can be healthy and whole.
  • Understand the internal conversations you're listening to now, and be prepared to think deeply about why you are having these conversations and how you can shift them so that you're actions, commitments, communications are in alignment with who you are.
  • Know where you are headed, why you are headed there. Ensure that your power, your influence is in alignment with your direction.
  • Start first with where you are headed - your passions and values. Then build relationshipos and communicate and engage to build power and influence toward a common vision.
  • Be flexible enough to allow your passions, values, desires to evolve.
  • Real integrity is doing the right thing, knowing that nobody's going to know whether you did it or not. Oprah Winfrey
  • Integrity: wholeness, perfect condition

Below are recommended Articles from Harvard Business Review as well as books:

posted by Linda Holroyd at 10:55 AM