Whether you're an experienced leader or just starting your leadership journey, understanding and mastering your personal leadership foundation is crucial. It is at the very core of how you lead and impacts your ability to inspire, motivate and guide your team - while maintaining your integrity as a leader.
Have you ever considered what defines you as a leader? What drives your decisions, your behavior and your approach to leadership? The answer to these questions lies in your personal leadership foundation, and it's a crucial factor in your success as a leader. The leadership foundation is like the foundation of a house. It's what bears the weight of your leadership challenges and decisions.
Read more about: personal leadership
In this blog post, we'll explore the concept of 'personal leadership foundation', why it's important and how you can develop and master it. Read on to discover how you can strengthen your leadership ability by understanding and working with your personal leadership foundation.
What is a governance framework?
The personal leadership foundation is the core of your approach to leadership. It is the foundation on which you make decisions, prioritize tasks and interact with your employees and colleagues. Understanding and defining your personal leadership framework is therefore crucial because it acts as your inner compass that guides you in your role as a leader.
The leadership foundation also serves as a kind of product declaration of how you as a leader interact with your employees. It allows employees to form expectations about your behavior and approach to leadership. On the other hand, the leadership foundation also acts as a "wish list" for good people management, clearly defining what actions and behaviors you as a manager prefer from your employees. This contributes to a more effective development of both leadership and people management for the benefit of both the leader and the organization as a whole.
The leadership foundation is a personal statement and a powerful element of personal leadership, and it must therefore be expressed in 'I-form.' It contains both 'I offer' and 'I want.' Of course, the 'I-form' is not meant to undermine or replace the overall leadership foundation. Leadership is ultimately about action, which is why the leadership framework should focus primarily on desired behaviors and less on attitudes and thoughts. While behavior is of course a consequence of leadership values, it is the actions that are crucial to creating a positive impact.
The foundation of your personal leadership foundation
Your personal leadership foundation is created by a combination of three key elements: values, beliefs and experiences.
Values are the fundamental principles and norms that you hold dear. They define what's important to you in life and at work. Your values reflect what you believe in and form the basis for the decisions you make. For example, values such as honesty, collaboration or integrity may be central to your personal leadership foundation.
Read more: Values-based leadership: Navigate safely towards common goals
Beliefs are the deep-seated perceptions and attitudes that shape your understanding of the world around you. Your beliefs affect how you interpret information, react to challenges and make decisions. It's important to be aware of your beliefs as they can have a big impact on your leadership style. For example, a belief that everyone has the potential to develop can motivate you to invest in employee growth and development.
Experiences include the experiences you've had throughout your life and career. Your experiences can include both successes and failures, and they have shaped your knowledge, skills and approach to challenges. Reflecting on your experiences and learning from them is crucial to developing your personal leadership foundation and improving your ability as a leader.
Why create a governance framework?
Having a clear and intentional personal leadership foundation plays a crucial role in a leader's effectiveness and influence. It serves as a foundation for one's leadership style and has a profound impact on decision-making and relationships with employees.
The main purpose of establishing your personal leadership foundation is to create clarity, promote openness and strengthen the dialog about leadership. This is essential to improve collaboration and establish a forum where managers and employees can have honest conversations about their specific leadership relationships. This initiative serves to prevent leadership from remaining an unclear and unsolvable task where interpretations, assumptions, emotions and judgments take precedence over actual intentions and goals.
By having a clear understanding of each other's goals and motivations, you can minimize wasted time as everyone is on the same page and knows what is expected. It also helps reduce conflict as there are fewer misunderstandings. When you and your employees share your leadership foundation, you can better collaborate to achieve your organization's goals and avoid unnecessary conflicts that can arise from a lack of clarity and openness.
If this isn't quite you, read about: systemic leadership
How to get started with designing your personal leadership foundation
When you start creating your personal leadership framework, the first important point to remember is that there is no fixed framework. It can be on a whiteboard, on your website or a simple drawing on your door. The way you visualize and articulate your leadership framework is highly dependent on the context and target audience.
It's also essential that the design of the leadership foundation is not seen as a duty or burden, but rather as an opportunity that can help strengthen your leadership. At the same time, it should also not be seen as a static truth, but rather as a dynamic element that can be revisited and changed as your leadership evolves.
In relation to the actual creation of the leadership foundation, the Leadership Commission has recommended that you do these five exercises when working on the creation of your own personal leadership foundation.
Exercise 1: Use common words to describe your thoughts on good leadership.
In this exercise, try to break down the concept of "good leadership" into simple and easy-to-understand words. This will help clarify your basic thoughts on what good leadership entails and make it easier to communicate these thoughts with others.
Exercise 2: Imagine what you would like to hear from your employees when you leave your current position.
This exercise encourages you to think about the long-term perspective of your leadership efforts. What do you hope your employees will say about you when you one day leave your current role? This can help you define your long-term goals and values as a leader.
Exercise 3: Identify the dimensions on which you will assess your own leadership performance when you leave the position.
Here you need to think about how you will measure your own success as a leader. What are the main criteria you will use to evaluate your performance? This can help you set clear goals and expectations for yourself.
Exercise 4: Briefly share examples of three situations where you know your leadership was exceptional.
This exercise allows you to reflect on your past successes as a leader. By identifying specific situations where your leadership has had a positive impact, you can learn from your own experiences and strengthen your leadership skills.
Exercise 5: Identify the four leadership values that you consider most important to your own leadership practice.
Here you need to think about the core values that guide your leadership style. By identifying these values, you can gain a deeper understanding of what drives you as a leader and how you can stay true to your own principles in your leadership practice.
Based on these five exercises, the Leadership Commission also recommends that you as a leader organize a workshop with 2-4 other experienced leaders or trusted sounding boards. These participants can either be in the process of developing their own leadership framework or offer constructive feedback on your answers to the exercises, and together they can help refine and structure them into a coherent leadership framework.
To ensure a targeted and efficient process, it's also worth considering holding additional workshops as needed. It's a good idea to have an internal or external facilitator present to facilitate discussion and ensure progressive development of the process.
Two examples of leadership foundations
The members of the Leadership Commission have prepared ten examples of personal leadership foundations that can serve as a source of inspiration for how the wording can look in practice.
- Alfred Josefsen - Former long-time manager at Irma
Leadership is about creating results through others and making things happen that wouldn't have happened on their own. So it's not me who creates the results. It's 'others' (read: management), which is why I define my management function as one whose finest task is to create the best possible framework and conditions for management to succeed.
I am ambitious and want to create good, sustainable and lasting results. I believe the best way to do this is through value-based management, which is why I fight hard for proper values, to make them understandable, accepted and usable. Values must be used in daily work - otherwise they don't matter. In the long run, you can't disagree with me on the most important values.
I find it easy to delegate, give space and create leeway, but this requires that I feel well-informed and have a general overview of both sorrows and joys, things that succeed and things that are difficult.
I am happy to relinquish the responsibility and authority to make decisions, but conversely I expect everyone to behave properly, fairly and responsibly. To make an effort and try to do their best.
My leadership style is based on trust. That's because there is no alternative. But it also means that those who cheat, manipulate or lie for personal gain will be fired.
I try to qualify myself to influence through inspiration. Inspiration is the most important component in my toolbox, so I strive to be perceived as an asset.
I'd rather work with managers and employees who do a lot, knowing that they will make mistakes, than with managers and employees who are slow and cautious. Of course, I expect them to avoid endlessly copying mistakes.
It doesn't motivate me to check, follow up on rules, procedures and the like. That's why it's important to me that my business partners are capable of self-monitoring and otherwise independently following the rules.
My management goal is that the people I manage will say that "it was fun, we created good results and we developed as people" during the time they spent with me.
- Emma Winther - Many years of management experience in elderly care from Vejle Municipality
It is my responsibility that we at Kastaniehaven assist citizens who are dependent on help to maintain a safe and dignified everyday life. My most important asset is all of you who work here. Together, we create good weekdays that bring light and sparkle to everyday life, making it a great place to live and work. Everyone who works at Kastaniehaven is a co-creator of good weekdays and good results and can expect to be met through dialog, trust and an attentive management style.
I must create the framework and conditions for you as employees to be able to perform your tasks. First and foremost, it's about trust, and I must earn your trust, just as I expect you to manage my trust in you. It is important to me that you as staff know where I am, that I am trustworthy and that you can count on me. I am ambitious and deeply committed to creating the best possible results - for the elderly and for you who carry out the task. I place high demands on every single employee, I set the team, and I am committed to ensuring that we constantly strive to provide ethically and professionally sound and sustainable solutions. We must be skilled, and each individual must be willing to continue to learn, develop, change and modify behavior and implement new knowledge in the field. If you persistently work against our agreed changes, you should not be employed at Kastaniehaven.
I'm always on the lookout for special personal and professional skills that we can bring positively into play in the organization. I believe in each and every one of you and know that everyone can contribute to good solutions. I expect and demand openness, and I will not accept anyone creating distrust based on misinterpretations and private 'opinions'.
We articulate and celebrate everyday successes - even the small 'contagious' ones. It gives job satisfaction. Courage and initiative are important, and I really appreciate it when you dare to try new ways to create good days and good professional results. I value a high degree of freedom in the individual teams. You can count on great support and backing to manage this freedom. You can also be sure that I will step in and intervene if something is moving in the wrong direction. Not all things are created equal, and we articulate the core mission over and over again. It's the focal point for opt-ins, opt-outs and adjustments. I expect us to learn from experience and be systematic. I always accept mistakes as long as we learn from them, admit mistakes and share experiences. I have a strong drive and try to be clear about direction and meaning. I am very development-oriented and strive to drive the organization towards new and better solutions. I am aware that this can be hard to be a part of. It's okay that over time you sometimes contribute more and sometimes less to the development part, and I'm very considerate if someone needs special support for a period of time. On the other hand, I don't accept that anyone is freewheeling. I'm not averse to conflict and I'm happy to address issues, but this requires openness. I expect to be informed and involved in the event of disagreements and irregularities that go beyond the core task. I want to be closer to everyday life and I practice prioritizing, accepting and being happy with the time I have available. I strive to be proactive and solution-oriented, even under pressure. It's my responsibility to spot opportunities, but I rely on us creating good solutions together. I find it easy to delegate tasks and have great confidence that we work together to solve tasks conscientiously.
My goal is that you as employees can say that you are proud to be part of Kastaniehaven and that it is fun, stimulating and never boring. Together we create good working days.
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