THE EXECUTIVE TRUTH: LEADERSHIP INTELLIGENCE (LQ) – YOUR ESSENTIAL SUCCESS TOOL

Many executive leaders and business owners want desperately to move from struggle to thriving success. But, they often confide that they struggle knowing how to consistently create success while leading today’s multigenerational workteams.

Here’s how I coach them to understand and expand their Leadership Intelligence (LQ)—the most powerful success tool in their toolkit…

Last week, THE EXECUTIVE TRUTH discussed an essential strategy for Bridging Leadership Gaps: Centering Leadership Intelligence (LQ).

Today we will examine LQ in more detail, and most importantly, why it matters to you as a leader in creating and sustaining success.

WHY LEADERSHIP INTELLIGENCE (LQ)?

This exploration of LQ is designed to introduce you to a proven, effective way of leading—a way that creates breakthroughs for you and for your teams—by discovering better ways to do and be, and contributes solutions that make a difference in your life, and in the lives of others.

Of critical importance is your openness to change the lens through with you look to lead.

WHAT IS LEADERSHIP INTELLIGENCE (LQ)?

Like its more familiar cousins Intelligence Quotient (IQ) and Emotional Intelligence (EQ), Leadership Intelligence (LQ) is the assessment of each individual’s ability to effectively lead themselves and others in a wholistic manner.

Popularized by Dr. Stephen Covey, author of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, LQ is a function of four essential, interconnected elements (what Covey calls “The Four Essential Roles of Leadership”):

Source: FranklinCovey Co.

The Four Essential Roles of Leadership

1. Establish + Inspire Trust

2. Create Vision

3. Execute Strategy

4. Coach + Develop Potential

These four elements are particularly sequenced to not only create results, but to do so in ways that are sustainable, empowering (of all involved) and rewarding.

CENTERING LEADERSHIP INTELLIGENCE (LQ)

21st Century leadership begins (and ends) with the leader’s ability to inspire trust. Trust is the first imperative of exceptional leadership. Without trust, nothing is possible.

Only once trust is established and sustained, can the leader then turn their attention to the remaining three imperatives of exceptional leadership: Creating vision, Executive strategy, and Coaching potential.

In today’s ecosystem, the sustainable results you are looking for occur only as a by-product of maximizing these imperatives.

WHY SHOULD YOU CARE ABOUT LEADERSHIP INTELLIGENCE (LQ) ?

You are leading a 21st Century business. Are you practicing 21st Century leadership? Or are you replicating 20th Century leadership practices that are out of step with today’s teams and working environments?

20th Century leadership practices are holding you and your success back.

Why? How? Because by holding to outdated, incomplete leadership practices, you have unintentionally missed opportunities to identify and utilize the strengths of your teams. You have unintentionally limited your own strengths (and success) as well.

20th Century teams tended to be homogenous, single- or bi-generational (Boomers, Gen X), primarily male, and sharing a unified definition of work as progressive identity with individual and organizational financial success as the primary measuring stick.

21st Century leadership represents the most complex—and ultimately most rewarding—leadership challenge in history.

21st Century teams are the richest tapestry of humans ever assembled: Traditionals, boomers, gen X, gen Y, millennials, gen Z, gig workers, consultants, remote/hybrid workers, socially-conscious, vastly diverse racial identities, gender-identities, differently-abled, neurodivergent, offshore teams, and global citizenry.

With this rich diversity of identity, thought, capability and life-experience, can you truly afford to lead using 20th Century principles?

THE FUTURE OF WORKTEAMS

In the next decade, we will see the greatest transition of workteam talent in decades. As Traditionals, Boomers, and Gen X move into retirement, not only will the demographics of work transform, but also the mindset of those in work and their definitions and demands for work environments (characterized beyond financial performance) will also transform.

If you have risen to become leader, and plan to head your organization over the next decade, it is imperative that you understand that your success is reliant on understanding, meeting and integrating the mindset and needs of the rising generation of workteams.

Assuming that they will adapt to your style of leadership is self-delusion. Building a bridge and meeting them in the middle is essential.

And, if you were not aware, here is your wake-up alarm: The next generation of workteams wants, needs, and demands Leadership Intelligence (LQ) from you, or they will find a leader who does possess and practice LQ!

Remember: LEADERSHIP INTELLIGENCE (LQ) IS A 21st CENTURY LEADERSHIP METRIC. Your results will reflect the degree to which you accept, embrace and embody this metric going forward.

HOW TO EVOLVE YOUR LEADERSHIP STYLE

The secret to 21st century leadership is to be willing to accurately look/assess where you are as a leader, where your people are, and to each build bridges to meet in the middle.

If you are practicing 20th Century leadership, that’s okay—you are likely doing so because you haven’t yet recognized the benefit and practice of evolving your own styles to resonate with what your business and teams need.

But, you are also unintentionally adding more risk than is necessary, and limiting not only your professional impact, but also that of those you are leading.

LEADERS: SEE THE WORLD DIFFERENTLY, AND CREATE A DIFFERENT (BETTER) WORLD

Leaders, you are highly-capable, and highly-accomplished. However, the 21st Century success game is evolving. Your responsibility is to evolve with it.

It can be a short distance from struggle to success, but it requires your willingness to see (and be) a different leader as you envision the future.

EXECUTIVE PRACTICE: HOW TO EXPAND YOUR LQ

(1) Honestly assess your current leadership:

· What is leadership (to you)?

· What are (your) the essential qualities of a good leader (3-4)?

· Where do you excel as a leader?

· Where do you need to develop as a leader?

(2) Consider the essential elements of Leadership Intelligence

INTELLIGENCE QUOTIENT (IQ)

· Competence (situational)

· Understanding of roles

· Understanding of limitations

EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE (EQ)

· Access to own range of feelings

· Ability to stay in under stress

· Ability to self-regulate effectively

· Ability to accurately recognize the emotions of others

· Awareness of/facility with diversity of emotional response

RELATIONAL INTELLIGENCE (RQ)

· Ability to consider “the other”

· Ability to act with empathy/compassion

· Ability to stay in relationship equally under stress

· Collaboration vs. adversarial orientation

TRUST INTELLIGENCE (TQ)

· Ability to create/connect spaces of personal safety with/for others

· People-centered decision-making

· Active listening/acknowledgment

· Zone of Genius recognition and alchemy

(3) LQ Self-Evaluation: Honestly evaluate your current and desired state of LQ:

On a scale of 1-10, where would you CURRENTLY rate yourself?

IQ: ________

EQ: ________

RQ: ________

TQ: ________

On a scale of 1-10, where would OTHERS rate you?

IQ: ________

EQ: ________

RQ: ________

TQ: ________

On a scale of 1-10, where would you LIKE TO rate yourself at the end of our engagement?

IQ: ________

EQ: ________

RQ: ________

TQ: ________

If this leadership concern rings true for you, contact me today to schedule a complimentary, confidential discussion.

For more than two decades, heads of state, CEOs and Executive Leaders around the world have sought me out to serve as their trusted advisor, create breakthroughs by discovering better ways to do and be, and contribute solutions that make a difference in the lives of others.

Let’s discuss how best to co-design a different, more effective way of leading for you that yields greater results and legacy, with increased fulfillment, satisfaction, and peace of mind.

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