Measuring Success in Leadership (Part 7) Personal Behavior and Mastery

Written by: Ralph Twombly

Published: May 2011

Personal Behavior and Mastery

L and M Observation Process

Last month was the sixth of eight installments focused on success in leadership by introducing you to the element of Team Development. If you missed April’s article or any of the first six installments and you want to catch up, click on this link: measuring_success_in_leadership_part_6.php

Defining Personal Behavior and Mastery
To begin the seventh element I thought it might be good to start with a definition and as always I looked out into the World Wide Web for thoughts from the multitudes. As you can imagine there was page after page of people trying to sell a book or personal service but inside all that promotional stuff, if you look closely, you see threads of common thoughts. Here are a couple of the common thoughts on Personal Behavior and Mastery.

Dr. Kevin Hogan, PsyD. says:

Personal Mastery is the number one characteristic women look for in a man... and the top trait sought by corporate head hunters.

Charisma is critical if you want to achieve greatness as lover, leader, anything.

Self-Discipline is the cornerstone...the key. Without it, you can't achieve...success."

Virgil Cook says:

"Sometimes people would refer to it (Personal Mastery) as a journey towards continuous improvement. Personal mastery is guided with key principles like vision, personal purpose, creative tension, commitment to truth and understanding the subconscious mind.

One of the most important fundamental aspects of personal mastery is personal vision. Personal mastery when combined with personal vision can create a framework or guiding philosophy on how you can operate and live your life.

Some people would say that personal vision serves as a guide that would keep you on track.Followers of personal mastery see that there are great opportunities to improve their growth. Followers recognize that there are many avenues for growth and opportunities like books, tapes, lectures and school courses. People also benefit from organizations during their quest for personal mastery.

Personal mastery is about loving yourself and expressing your gift to its fullest. Some would think that personal mastery is controlling and limiting one self, but actually it is about understanding your personality. To control or overcome some habits, it would be important to identify how and why those habits arise. The more you suppress things, the more you would have difficulty in conquering and overcoming them.

Good stuff huh? I think so, because in each of the ideas above it is clear that Personal Behavior and Mastery is about a journey – our definition is a little more clinical and tactical but has the same elements. We define Personal Behavior and Mastery as taking a creative/entrepreneurial approach to running your business component, displaying humility, energy, determination and hunger for learning.

Skills and Behaviors Matrix

Forced Rate	Skill	Behavior	Forced Rate
	Demonstrating knowledge of business	Learning each day attitude
	Building l personal learning plan for growth	Experimenting with ideas and creative process
	Cataloging ideas and creativity	Setting a high level of energy around the work
	Breaking processes routinely	Stretching 10% beyond comfort
	Asking others for their knowledge	Sharing the learning with others

Like we do each month we have broken the various skills and behaviors in the chart above down into the individual components and apply some detail for the engaged reader.

Personal Behavior and Mastery – Skills

Demonstrating knowledge of business: The fundamentals of business are the same now as they have been for as long as I can remember. The core concepts are: If you take care of your customers both externally and internally, continuously build your people, make good financial decisions and have a viable product or service to continually build and grow, you have the formula for business success. It surprises me and I’m sure it surprises you that it can be so easy for some people to trip, stumble and fall when it comes to the basics. A fall to me looks like either a lack of understanding of good practice or not enough personal discipline to make it work. It takes this discipline, patience, and perseverance every day, all day and those are mastery words. In the end it is about mastering the concepts of business and building on what works and abandoning what doesn’t.

Building one personal learning plan for growth: I would like a nickel for each time I have asked an audience how many of the participants had a plan for the next five years. Clearly, not many hands went up for five, so I then go on to one year and a hand or two pops up and finally I get to a plan for this month and about half the crowd raises their hands. By now there is not a lot of mystery about goal setting and one of the disciplines of mastery is routine planning for growth. There really is a correlation between good planning and success. We know this in business, so why would it be less true for each of us personally. We can grow our relationships with others, we can grow intellectually or physically and we get better every day if we build a plan and stick to the plan. Most people I know don’t set plans because they either do not know how, have had a bad experience or are so afraid of failing they don’t try.

Cataloging ideas and creativity: Because we are talking about skills it is essential that you build a system to catalog not only your ideas but the ideas of others. A little later in this article we talk about how to encourage ideas and creativity but as a beginning point we need to get started by cataloging. This can be done formally in a book or on a computer and as time goes along you will find the practice fun and a great resources for positive reinforcement for people.

Breaking processes routinely : There is an old say, “If it isn’t broken then don’t fix it”. This attitude leads us to ‘fire fight’ daily as we try to keep up with the constant changes that happen around us. The ‘don’t fix it’ gene is so strong in others it makes them resist change at every turn. As you may already have heard, change is the only real constant in our lives and so you are either tasked with finding out each day what is broken and fixing it or breaking things (metaphorically) in advance to see how you might improve them. The skill of breaking things (again this is a metaphor) can be seen as annoying to others, but over time you will be seen as the pro-active process person if you let people know what you are up to and why.

Asking others for their knowledge: This is not only an attitude, it is a skill. Being curious sends people a message of humility and open mindedness. On top of that you don’t have to be on the planet too long to realize that there is so much we don’t know that it is staggering. The habit is flattering to others, good for us and will provide a knowledge base you will need for success. Try saying, “Tell me why you feel that way” or, “That was real interesting, please tell me more.” See what happens.

Personal Behavior and Mastery – Behaviors

Learning each day attitude: I promised earlier that I would expand on this one a bit. Learning is a fundamental need in all of us. If you doubt this, see how long you can stay away from the news of the day or do something meaningless for too long a time. We will all be learning until we pass to the next big spiritual event. We can’t resist it so I might tell you to embrace it. Come to work and life with curiosity and show others the energy you have around learning. It is catchy and a good leadership characteristic. For whatever reason we seem to think we are valued for what we know. My suspicion is that we are more valued for our curiosity, patience, energy and willingness to learn. I can’t speak for others but I love being around people who love to learn and dislike being around people who seem to think they know it all. It is again an attitude and behavior that will make you a better leader and your life easier.

Experimenting with ideas and creative process: This is business and usually lives do not hang in the balance. We generally don’t take enough risks and as they say “No risk, no reward.” Now the first time I ever said this to a CEO who trusted me he ran out and gave a million dollar decision to a person who didn’t have the knowledge to execute. The phone call I got from the CEO was not my finest moment but for just a minute let’s assume that you know enough not to put people in harm’s way by giving them responsibilities they are not yet prepared for. Take a chance by letting people stretch themselves, take a chance by building a relationship you thought was lost, take a chance by trying an idea even though you are not fully convinced it will work. Being “right” every time can get in the way of the creative process. Try stuff, let people experiment, and let them all know you want them to take risk.

Setting a high level of energy around the work: Now, if you have ever been here (Priority Learning) to a workshop you probably know that this is one of our specialties and we certainly don’t expect you to turn each day into a Priority Learning event. We really love and get energized by our work and it shows. In fact we have heard that it is catchy. Many people will tell you that this energy is the reason they return here each time. So, here is the magic formula, you can do this. Work is supposed to be fun. We (you and I) in most cases are not polluting the atmosphere or putting people in front of oncoming trains. It is work and we usually serve good customers, make good products and work hand-in-hand with other good people so get a little energy in your step, smile, and talk about why things are important, share your philosophy. Watch what happens.

Stretching 10% beyond comfort: Anyone who trains for physically demanding activity understands the idea of stretching yourself beyond comfort more and more each time. This push beyond comfort is what makes us become stronger, increases our endurance and give the body new flexibility. The hidden benefit is what it does to our psychology. We feel better, gain confidence, begin to be optimistic and exude behavior that people are drawn to. The trick is to keep pushing beyond what is comfortable. This same philosophy is what makes us good at work. We need to push beyond our comfort and overcome the fear that comes with the stretch. Be aware of times when you feel “too” comfortable. That is the signal to push a little harder.

Sharing the learning with others: We use to hear all the time the phrase; “Knowledge is power”. And while I think people usually mean well it is a flawed philosophy because if you carry it a bit further you have to think that if you are to maintain your power you need to hoard your knowledge. Eventually, organizations rebel at the idea that someone can hold them hostage for what they know. People around you resent you for not sharing and making their lives easier. You only have to go back to school for a moment to enjoy the benefit of someone selflessly sharing their knowledge with you and for no good reason except they thought it was the right thing to do. These days the internet, television, smart technology and more can give you an answer to just about anything. With all of this in mind here is an opportunity to lead. Anytime someone wants to learn something you know, give that knowledge without agenda. Anytime you get a chance to educate others, facilitate a discussion, or write your years of knowledge down, do it. Give with no agenda and you will get with no agenda and go from managing things to leading people.

That is the abridged version of Personal Behavior and Mastery. If you have been following the series, by now, you may be discovering that I am enjoying this as much as you or more, so thank you for following along. Next month is the final installment of the Measuring Success series and I’m already looking forward to it.

Until then and as always, your feedback and examples are welcome. Visit us on Facebook and we will be back in June with number eight on Approachability and Humility.

Ralph Twombly

In the 20 years since starting Priority Learning, Ralph has facilitated countless learning experiences and has conducted training for thousands of managers and leaders. With over 30 years of leadership development and organizational development background and work, Ralph continues to build relationships with client companies all over the U.S.