CHAPTER 1

Leadership, People Skills, and You

Rather than think of this as a book merely to be read, think of it as a resourceto be used in your role as a leader where you work. We hope you will startputting into practice the proven concepts we offer.

Simply stated, this book is intended to help you become a more productive leaderthrough the use of people skills. To do that, let's first define our terms.

A productive leader sees to it that people do their jobs with the skills andcommitment needed to produce the best obtainable results at the lowest feasibleoutlay of money, time, and resources.

People skills is an umbrella term for four related sets of abilities:

1. Sizing-up skills. Productive leadership requires the ability to a) observewhat people do in work situations as objectively as you can, and b) figure outwhy they do it, so that you can make sense out of what you see. This, in turn,helps you interact effectively with other people by selecting the appropriateaction from a whole range of actions you might take.

2. Communication skills. Sizing up is only the beginning. Once you've diagnosedyour own and other people's behavior, you must devise a communication strategyfor finding out what others think and for getting your own ideas across. Thisability to exchange ideas is essential to productive problem-solving anddecision-making, and both are necessary for productive leadership.

3. Motivational skills. It takes more than communication to get people to workproductively. It takes motivation — the creation of an environment inwhich people do what they're capable of because they have a compelling reason todo so.

Before they'll put themselves into their work, people want the answer to thequestion, "What's in it for me?" It will take your motivational skills toprovide the incentive that makes it worthwhile for them to tap into theirreserves of ability and energy.

4. Adaptive skills. Productive leaders relate to people as unique individuals.They don't deal with everyone in the same way. They vary their communication andmotivation techniques to meet the variety of people's needs. Therefore, the mosteffective leaders are creative. They shape their actions to fit the individualsfor whom they're intended.

So, along with the necessary technical skills (engineering, marketing,manufacturing, etc.) and administrative skills (planning, organizing,controlling, etc.), these are the people skills essential to productiveleadership.

Understand that most leaders have already learned some fundamental peopleskills. We call this using our common sense. If leaders weren't using commonsense skills, they wouldn't be able to carry out their assignments. We are notconcerned with creating all new skills from scratch, but with building on theseexisting ones.

However, developing better people skills takes both understanding and thewillingness to practice them. This book is designed both to enhance yourunderstanding of how people skills work and provide the opportunity to practicethem with judgment and insight. You'll be able to use people skills in the rightsituations, at the right times, and in the right ways.

360-Degree Leadership

One reason people skills are so important is that they help you work moreproductively with others at any level in your organization. With people skills,you can become a 360-degree leader.

Leadership, after all, isn't always from the top down. The people you must workwith to get things done aren't always direct reports. They can also be thepeople for whom you work and your peers. To function productively, you must beable to take effective action at all levels. People skills can help. Let's seehow.

1. Leading your direct reports. With people skills, you can do a better job ofdeveloping, coaching, and motivating your direct reports. You can overcome manyof the problems inherent in any top-down relationship — problems thatarise whenever power is unevenly distributed.

Perhaps most important, people skills can help you do a better job managing allkinds of employees. You probably have to deal with people who run the gamut frompushy to timid, from systematic to sloppy, from cocky to insecure. Your job, ofcourse, is to help each of them produce optimal results. You need a wide rangeof people skills that will work with any behavior in any circumstance.

2. Collaborating with your peers. With people skills, you can better coordinateyour efforts with those of your fellow workers. Here again, what counts isversatility — the ability to work with all types of people, from the co-worker who is easy-going and cooperative to someone who is fiercely competitiveand contentious. Like your direct reports, your peers differ in their attitudes,ambitions, and work habits. To work productively with all your peers, you needpeople skills.

3. Working with your boss. Finally, people skills will help you do a better jobof meshing your efforts with those of your boss. Whether he is a dogmatist whoknows all the answers, a loner who keeps people at arm's length, a "nice guy"who refuses to take charge, or some other variety of boss, you'll find it easierto deal with him if you use people skills. Like everyone else, bosses can bemanaged if you know how.

The importance of people skills becomes crystal clear when you consider two facts:

1. According to estimates, typical managers spend 70 to 80 percent of theirworking time in one-to-one interactions. This time is expended among directreports, peers, or bosses. Although teamwork is growing in importance, only one-fourth of their time is spent working in groups of more than two or bythemselves.

2. Our own extensive research and data from other sources reveal that many ofthe managers passed over for promotions are rejected primarily because theycannot handle people. It's their style — how they do something, ratherthan what they do.

These managers often have excellent technical and administrative skills.However, they lack the ability to size up,...