Contrast of Side by Side Leadership and Top-Down Leadership

The Five Spheres of Leadership, Part I

There is no one single way to lead. What works for one individual will not be as effective for someone else. Different interests and abilities promote strengths in different spheres of leadership. Leaders can be as effective overall, but they have different combinations of skills. Rather than one list of leadership attributes, the five spheres of side by side leadership provide a framework for the study and development of leaders. Leaders can succeed with their own unique pattern of abilities and interests. A successful leader does not have to be strong in every sphere. The most effective leaders today walk side by side with their superiors, peers, and individual contributors to get work done. They listen. They respond. They lead two-way-both by listening to others and sharing their own ideas in an ever-changing internal and external environment. And they frequently do it without organizational power of a formal management position. Included below are some of the actions that help a leader develop their side by side leadership skills in both the personal and knowledge spheres. Specific Actions to Improve Your Side by Side Personal Leadership
•	Identify your personal core values related to work and life;
•	Identify and develop one or two personal visionary goals that represent your work and life values;
•	Plan your week schedule to always spend at least four hours working toward your visionary goal or doing an activity that supports your highest personal values;
•	Identify how to strive toward achieving your personal visionary goals while simultaneously assisting your organization to achieve its most important goals;
•	Write down the tasks you do daily or weekly that someone else could do. Work with these people side by side to empower them to take over the tasks;
•	Identify work tasks where you need more empowerment yourself. Negotiate with your supervisor or manager on how to have greater authority;
•	Spend some time alone thinking about your values, visionary goal(s), and recent achievement(s); and
•	Get enough rest to maintain emotional balance.

Specific Actions to Improve Your Side by Side Knowledge Leadership
•	Identify new proven knowledge that would help you achieve your personal visionary goal and succeed in your current job;
•	Contact experts with proven knowledge and share side by side with them;
•	Before you present new knowledge or skills to others, either in coaching or training, find out what they want to learn and why they want to learn it;
•	Before you present new knowledge or skills to others, either in coaching or training, find out what they already know about the topic;
•	As you train or coach specific skills, have the team members present knowledge to you and the group where they have expertise;
•	Link the training or coaching that you provide to achieving the organization's visionary goals;
•	When your team or organization has experienced a success, debrief with the contributors to identify what factors caused it be a success-create organizational learning; and
•	Even though you may be an expert in an area of knowledge or work performance do not act like an expert-practice two-way leadership by being willing to learn from others.
Please contact Hillary Keith for permission to reproduce Side by Side Leadership® articles from the on-line Leadership Community site: E-mail: community@sidebyside.com Phone: 1-800-204-3118.