Leading by Influence - Tim Wilke

What you need to do to turn yourself into a good leader

How to change your behaviour so as to become a better leader

In a previous post, I made the following statement.

To become a better leader requires changing the way you behave

I also said that there were basically 3 things which could be holding you back from making such a change. Those being these.

  1. Believing that you are “Better than Average“, so you figure there’s no need to change.
  2. You have a bad case of “Confirmation Bias“, which means your mind isn’t open to anything new.
  3. You are a “Creature of Habit” like every other human.

So it begs the question then, how do you actually go about making behavioural change happen? Everyone knows how difficult it is to achieve. And on most occasions, you will probably find yourself going back to your old ways.

How do you overcome these particular challenges? 

According to the Lazarus and Folkman’s Cognitive Appraisal Theory, you will only change your existing behaviour when the following sequence of events takes place.

  1. You are confronted with a potential stressor situation such as being,
  • demoted;
  • given the results of a 360o survey, which shows that you aren’t performing to the required standard;
  • stripped of your executive privileges and/or benefits;
  • put into a position of no longer having job security;
  • given a first warning by your employer, who operates via the policy of “two strikes and you are out“.
  1. You perceive this stressor situation as being a threat to your,
  • psychological wellbeing;
  • professional status and/or reputation;
  • personal lifestyle.
  1. Your perception is one of an inability to cope with that threat.

The corollary of this is that you are unlikely to change your behaviour when one or both of these actions occur.

  1. You don’t perceive the stressor situation as being a threat.
  2. You consider yourself as having the ability to cope with the threat either by
  • fighting against it.

or

  • taking flight.

How do you put this into practice?

On a practical level, this involves using a 7-step behavioural change process with the acronym of R.E.S.P.E.C.T. Now considering that this process is discussed in great detail in my book, “Look Inside: Discovering the secret to leadership success“, I will only cover it in brief here.

  1. R – Reflect on what your colleagues and staff say about your behaviour as a leader.

The primary purpose of this step is to prove that you aren’t in fact a “Better than Average” leader as you may think. If that’s the case with you – as it is for around 70% of today’s business managers – it will mostly cause you to go into a state of cognitive dissonance as explained in Lazarus and Folkman’s Theory above . Which will hopefully lead you to doing something about it rather than “fighting” against it or taking “flight”. However if you adopt either of the latter two approaches, it’s almost assured that you will do little about addressing your current behavioural short-comings. Again as per the Cognitive Appraisal Theory.

  1. E – Empty your mind of the biases which are holding you back from taking on any new ideas or concepts around leadership.

This you can do by taking on a mentor as well as finding out as much as you can about what it really takes to be a good leader.

  1. S – engage in the practice of Suggestive Programming.

This is what my book, “Look Inside” has to say about it.

“Suggestive programming, as the name says, re-programs your mind to think largely in terms of what traits and behaviours a good leader has. On a practical level, it involves reading a document which spells out these particular traits just before going to sleep each night. (This being) a time when your subconscious is most susceptible to new ideas. And as many successful people would attest, planting suggestions in your mind, actually starts to make them happen.”

  1. P – mentally Prepare yourself to behave as a good leader does.

You do this by using a technique known as visualisation. This involves forming  images in your mind of you actually behaving like that of a good leader before you do it for real. Golfers, basketball players and gymnasts do this almost every time before they take a shot or act.

  1. E – Enact the various behavioural traits for real.

These are the specific traits or behaviours which emotionally connect with people, such as

  • Being honest and open.
  • Showing  you are trustworthy.
  • Giving of your time to help people.
  • Showing respect towards others.
  1. C – passionately Commit to behaving as a good leader does.

The importance of this step is that commitment and passion are the primary drivers for anyone who wants to be a success.

  1. T – put in the necessary Time and effort until all behaviours, required to be a good leader, become second nature. 

This step is about laying down new neural pathway until the “new” behaviours become habitual. According to Dr Trisha Stratford, this takes about six to eight weeks, or four weeks if you do it every day.”

So the message here is clear. Time, and lots of it, is largely the only thing that will triumph over our age-old enemy of being a “creature of habit”.

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