The Leader Habit: Master the Skills You Need to Lead in Just Minutes a Day
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Introduction
Have you always thought that all leaders were just naturally born like that? Or can leaders actually be made? Is it possible for you to develop leadership skills through learning and practice? Or is leadership just an inborn talent? Early leadership theorists saw leadership as an inherent talent. However, numerous studies have now confirmed that 70% of leadership qualities come from learned behaviours. Behaviours, not knowledge
This book shows that rote learning of leadership facts is not the right approach for acquiring leadership behaviour. Instead, key leadership skills can be acquired by practising a set of micro-behaviours. What are those micro-behaviours?
The Leader Habit: Master the Skills You Need to Lead--in Just Minutes a Day (2018) by Martin Lanik shows how the science of habit formation can help develop key leadership skills. Perfect for entrepreneurs and business school students or anyone who wants to improve their key leadership skills, the book comes with a step-by-step guide and will help you master leadership skills in no time.
Martin Lanik is the CEO of Pinsight, a platform that fosters leadership development. His platform has helped leaders in more than 30 nations worldwide. Top corporations like AIG and CenturyLink use Pinsight’s leadership development solutions for their teams. Martin holds a PhD from Colorado State University in industrial-organisational psychology. The book is a practical guide to help you in developing leadership skills through practice and habit learning.
How forming new habits can help you develop leadership behaviour?
Perhaps, most of us got our very first taste of leadership at school. A high school kid being named the captain of a volleyball team understands the responsibility and learning that’s associated with getting a leadership role. Whether your goal is to become a company president or a head boy at school, or even managing your family, leadership skills are relevant in all areas of life. But how can you master these skills?In the past, it was believed that leadership skills were innate or even genetically determined. However, recent findings show that more than 70% of leadership skills can be acquired through behaviour. This discovery sparked a surge in leadership management books starting in the late 1990s. Unfortunately, despite the popularity of these books, they haven't provided us with exceptional leaders over the past three decades. In fact, there is evidence to suggest that people's trust in their leaders has declined as the field of leadership development has grown. The reason is that these books present leadership management as mere information to be consumed. Martin Lanik believes that we need to change our approach to leadership development. Simply learning facts about leadership is not enough! Leadership is ultimately about specific habits and skills that aspiring leaders must possess. These habits can be developed over time.Interestingly, Lanik introduces a set of practice exercises for developing leadership skills. A skill is easy to learn through exercises and once you practise a skill, it becomes a habit, a part of your automatic behaviour. The book contains the writer's Leader Habit Formula. The five-minute training exercises in the book help an individual develop habits that are essential for leadership. Lanik shares the story of Laura, a nurse who wanted to transition into a management role. Laura had been waiting for a promotion for a long time. She decided to join Lanik’s leadership management program to improve her chances at work.Unbeknownst to Laura, her colleagues perceived her as confrontational and emotionally inconsistent. Through the program, she learned to ask open-ended questions like "what" and "how" when interacting with her colleagues. This technique is effective because people appreciate when others show genuine interest in them. By practising this questioning approach, Laura improved her relationships with her colleagues and friends. Over time, taking an active and genuine interest in people's lives became a habit, boosting her confidence. Finally, Laura earned the well-deserved promotion she had been striving...
The structure of Leadership Habit Formula: Habits -> skills -> micro-behaviours
Acquiring a new skill requires considerable practice and time. For instance, if you join a dance class, you are not going to perfect all the steps on the first day or even within a week. It will take a few months of regular practice to master each and every step to perfection. The same is true for mastering leadership skills.Lanik's Leader Habit Formula contains core leadership skills that you need to master. To get it right, each skill is further categorised into micro-behaviours. These drilled micro-behaviors are what shape our habits over time. Learning these micro-behaviours will help you develop sought-after habits and consequently the associated leadership skills & qualities. Let’s see how Lanik’s team created the Leadership Habit Formula. Lanik and his team embarked on a journey to craft a practical and impactful Leadership Management Program. In order to do so, they conducted extensive research on more than 800 global leaders from around the world. Through this research, they identified the key characteristics and skills that define exceptional leadership.Martin's team identified two major categories that most leadership skills fell under - Getting Things Done and Focusing on People. They found that while all leaders possess skills in both categories, they tend to excel in one area more than the other. The team reported that all leaders possessed skills across both categories.They then split these 2 overarching categories into 3 groupings of skills each, meaning there’s a total of 6 groupings of skills. Now, Martin identified 22 core skills that form the crux of exceptional leadership. These 22 core skills were then divided among the 6 groups.And that wasn’t all! Martin wanted to break down these skills further down to their bare flesh. So his team broke down the 22 core skills into 79 micro behaviours.This makes it super-easy for you, the aspiring leader! All you have to do is practice and perfect one micro behaviour at a time. After you master a set of few micro-behaviours, you’ll establish a link between those, meaning you’ll have mastered the core skill associated with that set.Continue that you’ll end up mastering either one (or both!) of the 2 base major categories.Take the example of the core skill called “Manage Priorities”. Have you ever been crushed by the weight of work on you? Or perhaps found it hard to balance work, family & social commitments. That’s where this skill comes in handy. Now...
How does The Leader Habit Formula work in practice?
Developing a new habit is not an easy task. Think about the countless New Year resolutions you made and broke within a week! Making a resolution does not automatically lead to cultivating a new habit. The same is true for the development of essential leadership habits. The Leader Habit Formula keeps you motivated. It is structured in a manner to keep you motivated till a habit becomes part of your natural behaviour. The formula comes with a cycle of cues, behaviours and rewards and ensures that each habit becomes deeply ingrained in your mind. Now, let’s investigate this further and understand the relationship between cues, behaviours and rewards. Each micro-behaviour is connected to a cue. The response a person makes to this cue is reinforced through simple exercises so that eventually it becomes second nature, a new habit. Take the example of the skill of Influencing Others. A micro-behaviour required for this skill is to infer hidden questions from someone - could be a customer or your team member. Figuring out an unsaid question helps a leader address the root cause behind the team members’ dissatisfaction and keep them satisfied. So, what's the cue connected to this micro-behaviour? The cue is a complaint from a team member. All you now need to do is to repeatedly practise a simple exercise in response to this cue and you’ll master the skill of Influencing Others. In this case, if you happen to hear someone complaining, acknowledge that individual’s concern and directly ask them: What do you specifically want?For instance, a customer complaining about a delay in food delivery might want you to refund the money this time. Once you understand the complaint, you can figure out how to satisfy the member. Maybe offer a 50% discount coupon for the next delivery!The next step of the Leadership Habit Formula is micro-behaviours that come with inbuilt rewards. How can micro-behaviour be rewarding to an individual? A micro-behaviour is gratifying to you if it shares similarities with your nature. Take the Leader Habit Quiz online to identify skills that are similar to your nature.It is a highly satisfying experience to learn the skills that come with inherent rewards. Multiple studies show that such a reward is far more fulfilling than any expensive reward like a day in the spa. The intrinsic similarity of a micro-behaviour to your personality will bring much more satisfaction to you....
Cultivate a chain of positive habits and improve your self-image by mastering Keystone Habits!
Do you think that it is possible to learn micro-behaviour immediately? If so, you’re in for a surprise! You might need to work for 66 days on average to cultivate a new micro-behaviour! And given there are around 79 micro-behaviours in this formula, does that mean you need to spend 14 years to master the leadership management program?No! You do not have to wait for 14 years to become a leader. Instead, Martin suggests a shortcut called Keystone Habits. No individual needs to learn all the habits given in the program. That’s neither possible nor desirable! Just perfecting one Keystone Habit can influence the other associated habits and shorten the time frame considerably. Let us look at an experiment to understand the workings of a Keystone Habit. A team of behaviour evaluators did an experiment on a pizza delivery team. The scientists highlighted the advantages of putting seat belts on employees and installing signs about safety in the restaurant. Interestingly, after that, not only did workers in the pizza delivery team start wearing seatbelts more often, but the majority of employees also started using indicators before a turn. In this particular example, wearing seat belts is a Keystone Habit as it is linked to other safety habits like using indicators. Essentially, forming just one keystone habit led to the automatic development of many other similar habits. Martin suggests the concept of Keystone Habit applies to leadership development programs as well. For example, if you wish to improve your decision-making ability, your capacity to interpret findings will also improve considerably. Working on one skill has a positive impact on many other skills, and this correlation will help you to quicken your learning curve on leadership development.Developing a Keystone Habit also improves your self-image, which in turn gives you tremendous motivation for carrying on developing your leadership potential. How? Let’s see how Lanik’s leadership development program helped John by encouraging a positive self-image. John’s behaviour was deemed a bit rigid and bossy by his colleagues and this became a hurdle in his career’s growth. Lanik suggested a simple tip of learning to listen to others when they feel discontented. John cultivated and improved his ability to listen to others, and this changed his behaviour. He started paying attention and showing genuine respect to others and their opinions. Listening attentively benefits both parties and soon John’s colleagues started respecting his opinion too. John...
Getting things done is the crux of successful leadership
Getting Things Done forms the base of every successful endeavour. After all, there’s not much use for being a star for your team when you can’t close tasks.
The overarching category, Getting Things Done, is categorised into three subsets: Plan and Organise Work, Solving Problems and Decision Making, and Leading Change.
The first one of these Planning and Organising work, attempts to bring planning, order & logic to the delegation of work and resources, whilst ensuring it’s crystal clear and easy for your team members to make sense of it all.
You should start off by making a detailed project plan, containing details listing out tasks, descriptions, responsibilities and clear deadlines. In your regular team meetings & discussions, refer to this project plan, update it regularly and make additions if needed. Is it your creative designer who can best manage the design of the new organisational prospectus? Then assign it against his name and give him a deadline.
Next up, is the subset Solving Problems and Decision Making. The skills contained in this are Analysing information, Think Through Solutions, Make Good Decisions and Focus on Customers.
Take one of these, Analysing Information. Finding a Common Theme is one micro-behavior that’ll assist you with this.
For example, if you are trying to figure out the reasons behind falling sales in certain regions, sit down, look at the data, and write down the causes in each region. Then look into the data and your written down points to identify common themes that may be present. Perhaps it’s unmotivated employees. Perhaps the staff is untrained in these regions. Address these, and you’ll be able to go a long way in stemming the drop in sales.
The last subset in the overarching category Getting Things Done is Leading Change. The skills contained in it are: Sell the Vision, Innovate and Manage Risk.
If you’re trying to crack into a new market or undertaking a difficult project, make sure you gather your team around you and sell them a compelling vision behind it. This will motivate them, make them back you, and allow your team to pull through immense challenges that’ll no doubt come your way.
Let us now look at the other twin half: People-oriented skills.
The popularity of a leader soars high if he displays a friendly disposition!
Leadership is not always about natural charisma! With practice, talent can be cultivated as well. The University of Central Florida studied leaders and observed that leaders who display people-oriented behaviour fare better than others. The overarching category, Focusing on People, is categorised into three subsets: Persuasion and Influence, Growing People and Teams, and Interpersonal Skills.
Now, the Persuasion and Influence subset is further divided into three skills: Influence Others, Overcome Individual Resistance, and Negotiate Well.
Let’s then take one of these: Overcoming Individual Resistance, and see how a leader can master thisskill to manage his team in a better way. Ensuring a business thrives might require a change in methodology and attitude at times. Not everyone adjusts easily to change! Some people in your team might not accept the recommended changes. Do not hesitate to identify and accept a colleague’s apprehensions to change. Be upfront and ask relevant questions regarding a person’s issues. A straightforward discussion helps you to forge a better bond with the unhappy person. Address any of their specific concerns. Talk about the advantages of recommended changes to the team and brand and you’ll notice an improvement in the situation.
The second subset in the category Focusing on People is Growing People and Teams. This contains the skills: Empower Others, Mentor and Coach, and Build Team Spirit. Take Empowering Others. Never be afraid of empowering and building team members under you to be leaders and decision-makers in their own right. Mentor them through mistakes and challenges, and offer unflinching support. It’ll not take away from your leadership or power. Rather it’ll build loyalty and respect towards you within your team, cascading into a high-performing team
Last up is the Interpersonal Skills subset. This consists of the following skills: Build Strategic Relationships, Show Care, Listen Actively, Communicate Clearly, and Speak with Charisma.
So let’s delve into an example ofone of the important of these - Speaking with Charisma. A charismatic speaker must utilise inventiveness and creativity to retain people’s attention. The use of lively and relevant metaphors in the speech and displaying positive body language allows a potential leader to increase his fan base.
Mastering people-oriented skills makes a leader more likeable and increases the chances of success in the long run.
Chapter 9
Details coming soon.
Summary
Anyone can cultivate leadership skills by following the Leadership Habit Formula.
The basic idea behind the book is that leadership is not an inborn talent. Cultivating leadership habits is a simple process (and you definitely don’t need to study a tonne of books & theories). Follow the step-by-step guide from The Leader Habit, repeatedly practising & perfecting your response to cues linked to each micro-behaviour,and you'll find yourself mastering a chain of behaviours that build skills required in a world-class leader. This process can even be fast-tracked & multiple leadership habits can be learned together if a person focuses on learning keystone habits.
Take-home advice
Leader habits are small, specific actions that you can perform daily to reinforce desired leadership behaviours. Don’t rush and try to learn each habit one by one. If you want to lead, you should promote a sense of team spirit. Listen to the views and complaints of others, and work together to find solutions. Encourage team members to share ideas and feedback. Regularly provide updates on team goals, and progress, and celebrate achievements together. Encourage a sense of shared purpose and emphasise how each member contributes to the team's success.
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About the Author
Martin Lanik is author of the business bestseller The Leader Habit and CEO of Pinsight. His habit-forming leadership training focuses on 5-minute practice sessions woven throughout the day. Martin’s research-based formula has helped thousands of high-potentials, managers, directors, and executives in 30 countries build stronger leadership skills. More than 100 companies - including AIG and CenturyLink – have implemented his programs, which received awards from Chief Learning Officer and Brandon Hall.
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