Leadership and Change Management

Chapter 3 :Leadership Skills & Tactics

Persuasion skills

Skeptics Charismatic Followers Controllers Thinkers

Motivational skills

General Methods of Motivation
Motivating Frontline Staff : Lessons from the US Marine Corps
Motivating problems people

Conflict resolution skills

Leadership tactics

A model of power and influence
Relations with Subordinates
Relations with superiors A model of effectiveness of influence

Chapter Summary

Failures to persuade happen most often because the persuader concentrates more on content while ignoring on delivery. Executives reach senior positions in organizations because they have been effective decision makers and persuaders. Based on their personality and decision making process executives can be classified into five types: Skeptics, Charismatics, Followers, Controllers, and Thinkers.

Skeptics have strong personalities. They are demanding, disagreeable, rebellious, and even disruptive at times. Charismatics are not averse to taking risk, and at the same time are responsible. Though they are enthusiastic about new ideas, it can be difficult to get their commitment. Followers fear making the wrong choice. So they are never early adopters. They trust brands and bargains. Controllers have strong personalities and can sometimes be overbearing.

They think that they know best, whether it is sales or strategy or production. Thinkers are interested in business primarily because they are interested in anticipating change and they like to win. They take pride in out-maneuvering and out-thinking the competition. Motivating people is not as easy as it sounds. A leader has to know how to motivate different people with different motivation levels.

It is also difficult to ensure high levels of enthusiasm and commitment during bad times. The US Marines motivate their frontline people by aligning them with mission, inculcating values, and creating pride in them. They do this by investing a lot of time and energy to cultivate strong values, moulding everybody into a leader, bringing clarity between teams and single-leader work groups.

From their experience, managers say that managing problem people takes most of their time and energy. So it is important that these problem people be motivated. By mastering listening skills, questioning skills, non-verbal communication, and mediation skills, a leader can be more effective in situations that involve interpersonal conflict.

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