As I read these four components (connect with people visually, intellectually, emotionally and verbally) I find myself thinking about the concept of credibility. I came across an article on leadership credibilty and it said that the key ingredient to great leaders is what they called your confidence base. It's that thing that you are great at. Sometimes other people recognize this before we ourselves do. The theory was that confidence base is what gains you credibility and how you transfer that confidence base to make others better or make the organization better is where leadership credibility happens. It's not just technical competence but it is how you use that technical competenece that matters as well. You must have both.
So what is your confidence base?
The article provided an example that Bill Gates confidence base was as a programmer. He was an amazing programmer and he relied on that skill to attract the worlds best programmers and that is how Microsoft took off.
Wow - what you write here resonates with me. My confidence base is the world of grants (both preparing proposals and financial management once you have one). And while I knew I knew stuff about grants, apparently others recognized it more fully before I did. When the position I currently hold first became available, I was sought out and encouraged to apply because it had been noticed in various venues (e.g. meetings) that I seemed to know my stuff. While tentative at first, over the years I have become increasingly confident in speaking up and speaking to others on the topic of grants. And this appears to have led to credibility because others (from support staff to administrators) do seek me out for answers, my input, recommendations, etc. I even once received a call from a grants person at another university (she heard about me from one of her faculty with whom I had worked [that faculty person was a co-principal investigator on one of our proposals with which I was assisting]). The faculty person had apparently been impressed with what I had done so the grants person wanted to learn more about what I do and how I do it.
ReplyDeleteI won't necessarily attract to KSU the world's best grants persons (a la Bill Gates) but I often find how very helpful it is that others trust in my experience, my judgement, etc. i.e., I have credibility.
This is an interesting take on Connecting. We cannot really connect if it is not rooted in confidence. This can be difficult sometimes to see as distinct from cockiness, but just as Maxwell makes a distinction between having energy and being an extroverted personality, confidence does not need to an external vibrato.
ReplyDeleteMy confidence base is in my ability to collate a large number of details, connect them to the larger picture, and then distill them into an understandable narrative. I think this base also serves as a foundation for connecting with others. The price though is that it takes a great deal of energy and work making life balance a challenge for me.
My confidence base is in the area of disability studies and services. I am often contacted by my colleagues from disability offices at other institutions for my advice and ideas. Others recognize that I do my job well and am able to offer support to others; however, I stuggle with a lot of self doubt which, of course, impacts my perception of my abilities and often stops me from taking "risks" (i.e. presenting at national conferences). Obviously I need to work on this and hope by the end of this program, I will have not only developed new skills in leadership, but also have developed more confidence in my current leadership skills.
ReplyDelete3 great posts here, nice work Michelle, Tina and Julie. Keep it coming. We'll explore this theme of mindsets, beliefs and attitudes (MBA) and how they impact your effectiveness. In April, Fr.Norm Douglass of Heart to Heart Communications will be joining us to look more closely at this. I think you'll like him.
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