Lead Smart. Not Traditional.

Not Traditional

A recent Gallup poll found that the quality of managers and team leaders is the single most significant factor in your organization's long-term success. It seems like it always comes back to leadership. But what kind of leadership?

Our findings show that traditional leadership—someone leads, someone follows—continues to persist; while tempting, the traditional follow the leader approach has fundamental limitations.

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Al Preble | Founder

I recently worked with a team leader, Michael, who was frustrated with his people's execution speed. He embodied much of what we value in leaders: smarts, strengths, decisiveness.

He was highly regarded and well-liked. He was also controlling. And no wonder. Traditional leadership is, after all, a theory of control, and it works pretty well when the problems and solutions are clear.

Michael Moved Up

Because it mostly worked for Michael, he moved up. He continued to apply traditional leadership to challenges where real collaboration, engagement, and commitment were needed to drive change, innovation, and impactful breakthroughs.

He was applying traditional leadership to complex challenges and opportunities. Leadership professor Ronald Heifetz at Kennedy School at Harvard calls it "the classic error."

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THERE IS A BETTER WAY!

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Michael needed a better way. He found that the shift from control to collaboration improved his teams performance and results. He realized that he didn't have to have all the answers.

He cultivated open and honest dialogue and learned to challenge respectfully, be challenged, and listen and learn. The Impactful Leadership approach did not let him off the hook for making hard decisions and being responsible for results.

However, he was now trying to make those impacts with highly engaged people who were trusted partners rather than simply good followers.

Organizations need more than the traditional leadership

approach that gets them where they are.