[MUSIC] Hello again, now that we've talked about the coach role let's look at the leader role. In this lesson we'll define the leader role and explain why that role is so important. I'll give you examples of managers leading, or not leading, and describe the challenges of overusing the leader role. So in our last module we talked about coaching. And in this module I want to talk about the leader role. So as a definition, a leader sets and defines the organizational or team vision. The leader establishes clear outcomes and results, and shows team members how to contribute to the overall success of the organization. Essentially, the leader points in the direction that they need to go, so that people know where they're headed. A lot of times leaders unfortunately are unclear about direction which makes the entire organization confused. And I want to share with you a metaphor that was shared with me many years ago by one of my mentors. Now I want you to imagine that all of us are out in the jungle, somewhere, right? And we need to figure out how to get out of the jungle. We don't want to be there anymore. Well, what happens in most organizations is everybody just stays on the ground with their machetes in hand and they just chop away at the jungle floor trying to figure out which way to go to get out. And a lot of leaders think that that's where they should be is down on the ground, on the bottom of the jungle floor, with their people chopping away with them. The problem is, that if everybody's down on the ground in the thick jungle foliage, no one can see which direction to go. Everybody is in the same spot. And so what we need is a leader. We need a leader to climb up to the top of the tree, the tallest tree in the jungle and look out the vastness of the jungle and find the quickest or most expeditious or best way out. And then point in that direction for the folks down on the jungle floor and say, that's the way to go. Let's go that way and then he or she can get down and help the team move forward, but we need the leader to get up to the top of the tree to be able to help everybody know what direction to go. Now a lot of people unfortunately, don't do this. Right, a lot of managers do not assume a leadership role. And sometimes that's because someone else is. Sometimes that's because they don't know. And I will tell you the part of the work we're going to do moving forward in the next few courses is to help you get clarity around what it is that you're creating with your team. So often we just come to work, do our job, and go home. But as a manager you do have the responsibility of this leader role, this place where people are looking to you to know, what direction are we going? Let's look at an example. So if we think about leadership or leading people, it's not so much about a position as it is more about a perspective. Okay, it's about the way that you think about what you do not just the title that you have. So Allan, for example, has a non performing team. He's extremely frustrated, and so is his team, for not performing. After investigating, and looking into the reasons behind Allan's team's poor performance. It became clear that there were several competing perspectives about what the team's purpose was. Some people on the team think they're supposed to provide excellent customer service. Some people on the team just think they're supposed to deliver great products. Other people on the team just think they need to hit their daily goals and they're succeeding. As a result, Allan had to pull that team back together and really coalesce a clear team vision. This is what we're here to do. This is what we're here to accomplish. Right. Who are they as a team? And what are they there to do everyday? And I appreciate that sometimes that can seem like such a simple thing to think about and yet in so many cases I think if you were to really ask people there's a lot of miscommunication about what people's purpose in their role and what they're trying to achieve every day. A leader's responsibility is to make sure that that is clear. As soon as Allen accepted ownership for the direction of the team, and as soon as he recognized that his lack of direction was causing the performance gap. His team was able to move forward. But up until that point Allen had just grown more and more frustrated with his team, when in fact Allen was contributing to the poor performance because he didn't have a clear vision, and he certainly hadn't communicated that vision. Not coaches, or managers, or mentors, or trainers. So what can happen if that role is overused, is we have people with a lot of vision, a lot of great ideas, a lot of places they want to go, but very little direction for people. They may have a lot of concepts with very limited structure. And they may be very inspirational so they get people all excited, but then there's no implementation. So those are things to be aware of if you tend to default to the leader role and not some of the others because again it can be great but it can also be over used. So in summary, managers are always going to have to tap their leader skills from time to time. And that's going to vary for each manager and that's going to vary by company, by industry. Everybody has these relationships with these roles slightly differently. But here's what I want you to always remember. If you are managing a team. And even in the midst of a lot of change and a lot of ambiguity, and a lot of or or lack of direction for you as the manager, you can still work to help your team be focused on what you believed they're supposed to be accomplishing everyday. You can simplify the process for them. So always keep that in mind because I appreciate it, I have certainly worked in environments where there was very little leadership and very little vision. But I always knew that for my people, my group, I could create the vision. I could keep them focused. I could do that. It takes discipline and it takes you getting past maybe some of the frustration you might have because other people aren't giving it to you, but you can always create that for the people that work with you. Leaders can see the vision in the direction, so get to the top of the tree, do your best to see where you're going. And leaders always help others know which direction to go and how to be successful. If we keep in mind that we always want to have people performing in organization so the organization thrives, the leader role is the one that helps people know what the destination is we're working towards. In our next module, we're going to talk about the manager role for managers.
