Mastering Three Roles:
Leadership Must-Do's

When you focus on the three key roles of a leader, great things happen! Use these guidelines and examples to deepen your understanding of Honoring, Disrupting and Aligning.

HONORING
1 esteem somebody or something; 2 distinguish, exalt or ennoble somebody; 3 pay tribute to somebody: to praise and pay respect…; 6 keep promise: to keep a promise or fulfill the terms of an agreement or contact.

Honoring is the least tangible and most fundamental of the three essential roles. In the theatre, a director honors the script by trying to be true to its intent; honors the actors by placing them in roles where they can excel; and honors audiences and backers by delivering an entertainment experience as advertised. The act of honoring includes:

Keeping commitments and agreements. Leaders must demonstrate their consistency at every moment, by keeping their word and walking the talk. To inspire trust, which is necessary to effect organizational change, leaders must mean what they say, and do what they say they will do.

Honoring qualities, talents and potential in others. Since people often live up to (or down to) the expectations we have of them, leaders do well to try to catch people doing the right things and to give people the benefit of the doubt. By honoring, leaders can bring out the best in people and avoid supporting and sustaining mediocrity. One way of honoring and showing respect is to place people in the roles and assignments where they can shine.

Exalting and distinguishing the purpose of the organization. Ego should never get in the way of purpose. Leaders who honor organizational purpose focus on achieving organizational results, rather than worrying about who gets the credit or blame.

Showing respect for themselves - mind, body and spirit - through self-renewal practices. In The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey calls this "sharpening the saw" and writes, "This is the single most powerful investment we can ever make in life - investment in our selves…We are the instruments of our own performance, and to be effective, we need to recognize the importance of taking time regularly to sharpen the saw…"ii

The skills of Honoring include holding yourself and others accountable to a bigger purpose, maintaining positive personal practices, defining purpose, and taking responsibility. Without Disrupting and Aligning, Honoring yields a people-centered culture that may not produce big returns on investment. But Disrupting and Alignment are meaningless when there is no Honoring.

DISRUPTING
1 interrupt: to interrupt the normal course of a process or activity; 2 destroy order: to destroy the order or orderly progression of something.

When leaders disrupt the normal course of things, they infuse the system with energy as a response to a perceived threat or a significant opportunity. The stimulated system enters an excited state, in which resources mobilize to deal with the danger or opportunity; and self-organization, rather than regular channels and processes, guides action.

Disruption is important on both a large and a small scale. There are times in the life-cycle of any organization when leaders must be disruptive to enable the organization to find new ways of working and to tap into the power of its people.

Using our theater analogy, imagine that you are the director of a play that is going badly in rehearsal. Here are two ways to disrupt the dismal trend:

Amplify the problem and its potentially dire consequences. You might say, "This is the worst interpretation I've ever seen of this play. Eugene O'Neill must be rolling in his grave. I don't know whether to fall asleep or throw up. At this rate the critics will kill us, and we'll close after one performance. None of us will ever get hired again unless you shake this thing up and make it great."

Provoke by framing. With this technique, you get people to look at things from a different angle, or in a fresh way. As the director in a rehearsal you might say something like this. "What I'm seeing makes me feel like I'm coasting down a gentle hill on my bike. This scene is supposed to bring tears to the audience's eyes. What could you do differently that would touch me and move me? Is there anything in your own experience that you could draw on to make this a powerful moment in the play? Show me what this scene means emotionally for you?"

Even if the ship is not sinking and the play is not in imminent danger of flopping, great leaders disrupt the status quo on a day-to-day basis. Shaking things up is the way to elicit the best new ideas, strategies and tactics. It also allows employees to develop the skills that will be needed to grow the organization. Disrupting is like pruning a rosebush to make it flourish and flower more abundantly.

The skills and tools of Disrupting include: adaptive change management techniques, inquiry-based management, conflict diagramming, and complex system dynamics understanding. WARNING: Disrupting unaccompanied by Honoring and Aligning is irresponsible and leads to damaged relationships and diminished organizations.

ALIGNING
1 bringing something into line: to place something in a line, or in an orderly spatial relationship…2 bringing into correct position: to bring something, for example, different parts of a machine or structure, into the correct position with respect to each other or something else…, 3 declare support for somebody or something: to declare your support, or the support of somebody or something you represent, for a particular person, group, argument or point of view.

Great leaders keep attention and interactions focused on the things that matter most in regard to the organization's purpose. Like the director of a play, the leader keeps the big picture, the entire system, in mind. Especially in a setting that is highly improvisational, a director must make sure that the actors and actresses have the right focus and aim their actions accordingly. In order for alignment to work, leaders must be clear about purpose while remaining in touch with the needs and desires of the "audience" - the employees, customers and marketplace. Leaders connect action with purpose in ways that help individual pieces of a complex system, or organization, move in concert with one another. Like a good stage director, a good leader helps each actor understand how his part fits into the whole and advances the plot.

The skills of Aligning include listening, clarifying, systemic thinking, directing, gaining commitment around non-consensual decisions, discerning cause from effect, and connecting local actions to global targets.

1. All definitions are from: http://encarta.msn.com/dictionary Encarta (R) World English Dictionary [North American Edition] © & 2003 Microsoft Corporation.
2. "Leadership That Gets Results," Daniel Goleman. Harvard Business Review, March-April 2000Stephen R. Covey, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1990), p. 289.