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Results-based Leadership
"This equation
suggests that leaders must strive for excellence in both
terms: that is, they must both demonstrate attributes
and achieve results. Each term of the equation
multiplies each other; they are not cumulative.“
(Ulrich et
al)
What is
missing in most leadership-related writings and
teachings, is the lack of attention to results. Most of
them focus on organizational capabilities - such as
adaptability, agility, mission-directed, or values-based
- or on leadership competencies
– such
as vision, character, trust, and other exemplary
attributes, competencies and capabilities. All well and
good, but what is seriously missing is the
connection between these critical capabilities
and results. And this is what results-based leadership
is all about: how organizational capabilities and
leadership competencies lead to and are connected to
desired results.
By helping
leaders at all levels get results, results-based
leadership frees productivity from constraints of
hierarchy and the limitations of position. Results-based
leaders define results by understanding audience and
customer needs. They continually ask and answer the
question
– "What
is wanted?"
–
before they decided how to meet these needs.
Employees
willingly follow result-based leaders who know both who
they are (their own leadership attributes) and where
they are going (their targeted results). Such leaders
instill confidence and inspire trust in others because
they are direct, focused, and consistent.
Results-based
leadership makes performance measurement easier.
"Without a results focus, calibration of leadership
becomes extremely difficult. Measuring results helps
organizations in many ways, from tracking leaders'
individual growth, to comparing leadership effectiveness
in similar roles, to clarifying the leader selection
process, to structuring leadership development programs.
Using results as the standard filters who should enter
an organization and how they should be trained.“
(Ulrich et
al)
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