As a leader which column do you fall into?
Conventional Leaders
|
Lateral Leaders
|
| Lead from the front | Lead from alongside |
| Direct | Inspire |
| Use conventional methods and seek to improve effectiveness and efficiency | Develop new methods and seek to change the rules, change partners or change the approach to the problem |
| Think they know best (and often do) | Harness the abilities of others |
| Have a strong sense of direction and purpose | Have a vision and use it to inspire others |
| Spend more time on improving day-to-day operational matters than on strategic issues | Spend more time on finding new strategic initiatives and partners than on solving operational or day-to-day matters |
| Give directions and orders | Ask questions, solicit suggestions, delegate |
| Look for greater efficiency, more productivity, faster development, more aggressive sales and marketing | Look for new ways to do things, new approaches to the customer, new solutions, new partnerships |
| Treat staff as subordinates | Treat staff as colleagues |
| Are decisive, often without prior consultation | Solicit views and inputs before making decisions |
| Use analytical, critical, logical thinking | Use lateral thinking |
| Build an effective team of managers who can execute policy and implement plans | Build a team of creative, entrepreneurial individuals |
| Focus on actions and results | Focus on direction and innovation to achieve results |
| Communicate through memos and e-mail | Communicate through open discussion |
| Instruct | Empower |
| Hire based on experience, proven track record and qualifications | Hire based on talent, potential and creativity |
| Discourage dissent | Encourage constructive dissent |
| Cherish results first, people second | Cherish ideas, innovation and people |
| Promote themselves as leaders and figureheads with the press, customers and the outside world | Share exposure and prestige with the team |
| Encourage action, activity, work | Encourage ideas, innovation, fun |
| Reward performance and results | Reward creativity and risk taking |
| Are numbers oriented and analytical | Are ideas oriented, analytical and intuitive |
| See technology as a means to do things better, faster, cheaper | See technology as a means to do things entirely differently |
| Overrule ideas and initiatives they see as flawed or wrong | Encourage all initiative and often implement ideas or suggestions over which they have doubts |
| Look for ideas from their own experience | Look for ideas from anywhere! |
Based on a chapter in The Leader’s Guide to Lateral Thinking Skills by Paul Sloane
Much needed…my last book is similar