4 Processes Leaders must Master

4 Processes Leaders must Master

“Overnight Success Stories” are often filled with details of years of complex process requiring years of hard work, influence and painfully slow growth. Perhaps the story of leadership in your life follows a similar story line?

Of one thing we can be certain, is that becoming a leader is marked by showing a working understanding of processes. 

It is rare for someone to become a leader overnight. The evolution into leadership is related to personal development and enhancement of skills and knowledge. In other words, the speed you obtain your “overnight success” as a leader is related to the speed and quality of your personal development.

Grow your “leadership worth” by taking note of the various processes a leader needs to understand to be successful:

1.       Knowledge Process: We don’t start out being Subject Matter Experts on day one. The growth of our knowledge is a process. Any “Knowledge Set” we develop follows a sequence of: fundamental, core and elective.

a.       Fundamental – The foundation knowledge required to learn something bigger. The fundamentals lay the ground work for learning in the future. This step is often forsaken in favour for more meaty bits of knowledge. Take time to lay the foundations to ensure successful learning.

b.      Core –Knowledge essential for the skill or knowledge set. Core information forms the bulk of a topic or principle to be learned.

c.       Electives – Knowledge and information that required to master a field, skill or attitude. Elective knowledge sets help learners specialise in a field of study.

When teaching or guiding people or teams into new concepts or knowledge, be aware that learning is best done in small chunks, moving from the known to the unknown, starting with the simple and ending with the complex.

2.       Competence Process: No one starts out being an expert. We all start as clumsy beginners. Practice and time turns our efforts into a beautiful skill. The competency process has four stages:

a.       Unconsciously Incompetent – a person is not aware of a skill or what it would take to master that skill.

b.      Consciously Incompetent – the person has discovered the skill, and realise they suck at it (hahaha) as they have not learned any skills yet.

c.       Consciously Competent – The person has now got some information and performs the skill with a lot of concentration.

d.      Unconscious Competence – The person now performs the skill well, without too much concentration, and is able to focus on other things simultaneously.

3.       Communication Process: Leaders must be aware of the process of communication. This principle describes a Sender of information and a receiver of information.

4.       Team Development Process: Team Development describes 5 phases in a team’s progress, which is essential knowledge to a leader. Please read full article here.

Process is defined as:  a series of actions or steps taken in order to achieve a particular end. Leadership is riddled with processes that build one layer upon another, in order to produce quality and sustainable outcomes. Such processes take time to plan and produce, requiring a leader to use his greatest asset – Patience. Be patient, your “overnight success” is growing.