Knowing basic leadership principles is ONLY step #1

I am always reading articles pertaining to effective leadership or leadership practices that WORK which probably wouldn’t surprise anyone who knows what I do (as in Leadership Coaching).  And frankly I am struck by things common to these various opinions regardless of the country of origin for any particular author.  What it amounts to is that effective leadership is just that … or not.

I just read “In a Nutshell: The five core principles of effective leadership” written by one Wendy Brooks.  It appeared in HRZone located in the UK.  In that nutshell, the five principles are …

1. Be an active learner and foster learning in others
2. Share a clear and compelling vision
3. Prioritize activity based on the business context
4. Lead with integrity, honesty and consistency
5. Develop leadership capacity at all levels of the organization

Personally I think this is a good basic list.  Obviously we can find others to add or replace and there is a very important add-on to just about every article we read of this nature.  Knowing the core principles is ONLY the start.  Applying them is the key to being successful in the leader’s role.   It seems that too often, there is too little  training around leadership effectiveness methods and the person is left to their own devices and their sense of how a leader leads.  The result we see is that a group of leaders within the same organization are employing their well-intended, yet, often different and sometimes ineffective ways of carrying their area forward.

The rewarding part … and yes, even the fun part … of what we get to do is help the leader become comfortable in this aspect of their role in steps.   The core principals are right on and still one needs to learn how to instill them into their own personal approach and that takes practice … practice … practice.