|
 Leadership Behavours Profile (LBP) - Version 3
The previous article (In Touch 5) reviews the Leadership Behaviours
Profile as a tool for leadership development. This article updates you on:
- The recently launched Version 3 Leadership
Behaviours Profile, and,
- The highlights from Version 3 of the associated Research Article
(the last research
article suggested that women on average were perceived as better leaders than
their male counterparts – will this still be the case?).
 Background
The beginning of 2006 saw a project started by the Team Leadership Services
development team to modernise the look of the Leadership Behaviours Profile. Over the
profiles previous 10 years, minor improvements had taken place, but it was now decided
that it was time to strip it back and rebuild it. While this was occurring, it was also decided
to conduct an overhaul of the Emotional Intelligence component of the profile.
Six months and
a lot of hard work later Version 3 of the Leadership Behaviours Profile
was launched. Here are the highlights of the changes:
 Captain's Wheel Model: The
Captain's Wheel model showing eight factors of leadership
now has Emotional Intelligence (EI) at its centre. This is to show the increasing impact
that Emotional Intelligence has on leadership capability. The other 8 factors of the model
have stood the test of time and remain an excellent summary of modern leadership
theory.
Emotional Intelligence: This derived factor has been expanded and more
comprehensively reported in the profile. It now utilises an enhanced version of Goleman’s
model by providing results on the following 5 factors:
Self Awareness – the ability to understand
yourself and see yourself as others see you.
Self Management – Mastering
ones actions, emotions, strengths and weaknesses. When
a person has self understanding, they are then in a position to manage themselves.
Social Awareness – the ability to understand and see the world from another
persons
perspective.
Social Skill – Combining the concepts above, our social skill comes from
the ability to
use self and social awareness to manage interpersonal relationships. Critical to
leadership competence social skill allows a leader to influence, cooperate with differing
work styles, build a team, give appropriate feedback, problem solve etc.
Communication Effectiveness – As
an add-on to Golemans four factors of Emotional
Intelligence a measure of communication has been included. Communication can be
described as the flow of information between individuals and groups.
When you add all of the
above together, the Leadership Behaviours Profile becomes a
very comprehensive measure of overall leadership ability. Good leaders need to
demonstrate behaviours in line with the eight factors of the model, ensure that they
understand themselves, colleagues, customers, manage all of those differing
relationships, and communicate effectively, by not only getting across what is in their
head, but also actively listening to what others are saying. A number of leaders have
commented to me “I have to do all that, and do my job as well!”
New Graphics
For a typical 360 assessment there are 6-8 raters all providing answers to 64 questions,
and contributing comments to highlight areas of strengths, and suggestions for
improvement. The result is a lot of data that needs to be represented in a user friendly
manner. To assist this, the graphs and tables of the report have been upgraded. Users
are able to easily see how they scored themselves, how the other raters scored them,
averages, standard deviations, and how they have scored compared to the norm data.
This information at an overall level, factor level, and emotional intelligence level, allows
the user to quickly identify what their areas of strength and weakness are, and what it is
about those areas, that make them strengths or weaknesses.
TOP 
New Development Guide
One of the results of doing renovations at home is that the area next to
the shiny new
paintwork or new appliances stands out as needing work also. This was the case with the
shiny new profile. With this completed, the existing development guide required some
attention also. To do this justice the workbook received a complete re-write, with the same
quality of detail going into the graphics.
The workbook provides a step by step approach to conduct
analysis of the profile. It is
purpose designed to break a multitude of information into workable chunks. The result of
working through the development guide is clarity about what a persons leadership
development needs are, and also what their leadership strengths are.
Team Member 360 Profile
What do I do if I don’t have a formal leadership position? Many
people want to go through
a 360 feedback process, but don’t have a team that reports to them eg, product
managers, account managers, process leaders etc. To cater for these people the
Leadership Behaviours Profile is available in a Team Member version.
The Team Member 360 uses
a derivative of the same model, has all the same good
looks, and includes an Emotional Intelligence quotient. The two profiles can be used side
by side. It is an ideal tool for team members to provide each other with feedback and then
formulating development plans.
TOP
So are Women better leaders?
The launch of Version 3 of the Leadership Behaviours Profile provided
an opportune time
to reflect on the norm data and see what trends were emerging. Heres what we found out:
- Hardest
Factors – Strategic Thinker and Values Champion
- Highest Scoring Factor – Competent
Performer
- Biggest difference between Self Scores compared to Other Scores – Values
Champion and Strategic Thinker
- Emotional Intelligence – Most Self Scores lower than Other
Scores
- Gender Differences – Women score higher across all factors
Hardest Factors – Strategic
Thinker and Values Champion
Of the eight factors the norm data shows that Strategic Thinker and
Values Champion
consistently score lower than the other factors. So collectively, leaders in New Zealand
find these factors harder to master, or harder to demonstrate to their colleagues.
Strategic Thinking is concerned with developing and agreeing a future picture of the
organisation. Competent Strategic Thinkers spend time in long term planning, and ask “Where
are we going?”, and “How will we get there?”.
When a future picture or
vision is developed, they are then good at communicating the
future to team members and colleagues, and showing them their place in the future. This
result stacks up against anecdotal evidence that I have heard from many leaders. For
many, urgent operational matters take precedence at a day to day level. Putting aside
time to plan for the future requires disciplined effort.
A Values Champion is someone who is able
to demonstrate that they ‘live’ the company
values – the company way of doing things. It is often said that values are caught not
taught. Leaders who get this right hold the values as an important consideration in actions
and the decision making process.
Highest Scoring Factor – Competent Performer
The factor that scored consistently well is that of Competent Performer. Competent
performers demonstrate that they have hands on expertise in their area. It could be
described as a technical, or task focused area of the Leadership Behaviours Model. A
conclusion, as to why this may be the case, is that many people get promoted in to a
leadership role on the strength of their ability in their technical area. It can be argued that
in order to be in a leadership role this competence is a given.
Ironically, many leaders report that one of their biggest challenges is the fear of losing
touch with their area of technical competence as they are required to delegate these tasks
to other people in the organisation.
TOP
Biggest difference between Self Scores compared to Other Scores – Values
Champion and Strategic Thinker
When looking at the difference between self scores and other scores two areas were of
note.
Firstly, there is a difference between self and other scores for the factors Values
Champion, and Strategic Thinker. For these three factors the self scores were significantly
lower than the others scores. This suggests that in the area of vision values, and
competence, leaders are often less confident in their effectiveness and impact on others.
Secondly,
for the factor Responsibility Giver most self scores are higher than that of other
scores. This suggests that in the area of giving other responsibility leaders often believe
they have empowered and delegated appropriately when in fact they are seen as having
held on to authority and tasks that they enjoy. They underestimate the tendency to retain
rather than give.
Emotional Intelligence – Most
Self Scores lower than Other Scores
In the EI component, most scored themselves lower than others in the overall EI, Self
Awareness, Self Management, and Effective Communication. This suggests that leaders
feel that they understand and are better at managing others than they are at managing
themselves. This is an interesting finding.
One explanation is that from the ‘outside looking
in’ LBP subjects may give the
appearance of being more self aware than they themselves feel on the ‘inside looking
out’. In some way, other raters give each other the benefit of the doubt and assume that
their colleagues are more self aware than they are.
Experience using this sub factor may throw more light on this finding.
Gender Differences – Women
score higher across all factors
Well for the second time running, the males have let themselves down. The data once
again shows that overall females score higher in all factors than their male counterparts.
There are a number of interesting speculations as to why this may be.
Top of the list is that management / leadership is still a male dominated area in the
business world. Because of this, women are required to be more than equal to their male
counterparts in order to secure leadership positions.
This finding is especially so when we look
at the gender differences in the ‘others’ scores
for the People Motivator factor. It is in this score that we find the greatest gender
difference.
The above findings are the highlights from the norm data as I see them. There are
further
findings which may be of interest including the differences between public and private
sector and between industry groups.
Conclusion
Over the past 10 years Versions 1 & 2 of the Leadership Behaviours Profile have provided
organisations and individuals with a tool to gain insight into their leadership strengths and
weaknesses. The captured norm data throughout this time has also shed some light on
what factors leaders consistently do well in, what factors we collectively could improve on,
and differences across genders.
It is now the turn of Version 3 to carry this legacy forward,
and the turn of male leaders to
prepare themselves for the next research article.
For a full sample the Leadership Behaviours Profile and Development Guide, or for a
copy of the Research Article and accompanying statistical analysis please contact TLS at paul@tls360.com or Ph +64 9 836 5317 to speak to one of our team.
 Would you like
to become accredited to use the TLS profiles?
Would you like
to investigate having TLS profiles facilitated for you and your team?
TOP
Dr Paul Robinson
Managing Director
Team Leadership Services Ltd.
P.O. Box 21-194, Henderson, Waitakere 0650, New Zealand
Tel: +64-9-836-5317 Fax +64-9-836-5318
email: paul@tls360.com
Website: www.tls360.com
© 2006 Team Leadership Services
|
