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What leaders really do

Most organisations are over-managed and under-led, said Jeff Grout, the star speaker at a recent CIMA Training and Development Conference.

Most organisations are over-managed and under-led, said Jeff Grout, the star speaker at a recent CIMA Training and Development Conference.
He revealed there is no shortage of advice out there on what makes a good leader, in fact he has added quite a few books to the ever-growing pile himself.
Grout felt the best business leaders narrow their focus to ensure success. In fact he went as far as saying they need only concentrate on three things:
1) The overall business objectives of the organisation.
2) Immediate priorities.
3) How the team is making the other two things happen!
Good leaders, he said, create a chatter, a place where people want to belong. Grout suggested that leaders can over-complicate things, even over-delegate, but they can never over-communicate. He pointed to the fact that Nestle in Croydon have introduced an email free Friday – because it wants people to talk!
Grout is a great believer in Eye-Mail. “We need face-to-face communication, over-reliance on technology doesn’t pull people together,” he suggested.
He felt effective leadership was listening in order for the right to be heard.
Why, he asked, did grown up people cry when the director general Greg Dyke ‘left’ the BBC? When he joined he knew he had to bring the corporation together again. Dyke embarked on a countrywide tour and asked two questions. What one thing should I do to improve the service and what one thing should I do to improve your position.
Dyke then went back and was seen to make these things happen.
Good leaders then have to prepare their organisations for change. Darwin was right, explained Grout, was right when he said it is the fitness and the fastest to adapt who win the race. Change is messy and painful, and it is difficult to change people’s habit. It is the fear of failure that is the biggest challenge to many cultures. Grout ended by quoting Sir Clive Woodward (ex-Rugby manager): “It is difficult to motivate, but it is all too easy to demotivate.”

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