Leader’s College

Here’s a one-page visual distillation of essential leadership ideas that moves beyond the clichés. Presented in a mind map format, this graphic of Leadership Elements:

• Defines leader and leadership; performance, and morale
• Specifies the functions of leadership in affecting an organization and individuals
• Explains the critical relationship between the systems of leadership that are supported or thwarted by an organization, and the efforts of the individual leader
• Declares the relationship of leadership competencies to the level of organizational responsibility, and the relative importance of capacity for dealing with complexity 
• Lists the prime actions that effective leaders take to positively impact results
• Challenges the idea that deficiency of performance is related to individual effort — and suggests four areas of inquiry for a systemic view of performance assessment 

Also included, a mind map of the specific actions that managers and leaders can take to build workplace trust. The diagram lists more than 40 specific actions implementable by an individual manager. These actions are grouped in five major areas of activity focus (based on workplace research conducted around the world) — that managers can take to build trust among their colleagues.  

Those five critical areas of managerial attention: 

• Competence –– meaning not technical knowledge or skill, but your capacity as a manager or leader to give people what they expect of you in that role. 
• Risk-taking — which means the degree to which you increase your own vulnerability by extending trust.
• Openness — which must be fulfilled in two basic varieties: Access and Disclosure.
• Integrity — which means the actions you take to demonstrate your commitment to clearly discernible values, ideally that are shared by your colleagues.
• Goodwill  (or Benevolence) — which means how much you treat your colleagues like humans you value, and not like mere objects of production.