This is by far the most important aspect of the Flow Leadership Framework and Mindset. This is one of the new roles for managers as they transition from management to leadership.
As I have stated in the past, I can’t make anyone great. That must come from within the individual. If a person has a passionate desire to pursue excellence, then Flow will help them perform, consistently and sustainably, at the highest levels possible.
This is why it is absolutely vital that each leader has gone through the mindset shift themselves, otherwise their ability to lead any kind of successful transformation will be next to impossible. In Flow, we hammer home the necessity to not just “talk-the-talk,” but to actually put some action and credibility behind your words and “walk-the-talk.”
As I have shared in the past, you have at least 30 mindset areas that you need to master in order to apply Flow leadership:
Let’s look at becoming an awesome mindset guide through the Four Lenses of Transformation:
Individual Mindset Guide
As I mentioned above, you must master the mindset shift yourself, first. Otherwise it’s akin to the blind-leading-the-blind (where they’ll both fall into a pit). If you think you can transform others without first transforming yourself, then you might want to rethink your viewpoint. In the “What’s your Passion #48 – Winning Transformations” post from just a few weeks ago, I go into your personal transformation journey more in-depth. As I have observed and experienced during the past two decades, it can take some people up to two years to transition their mindset from the old way of thinking to the new way. Multiply that by the number of people in your organization and you’ll start to get an idea of the magnitude of change that is involved in creating a successful and sustainable transformation.
Team Mindset Guide
Having a high-performing team takes having high-performing individuals. How many people do you know that have a laser-focus in their personal pursuit of excellence? That quickly becomes a rather finite universe from which to create your winning teams. This is unfortunate, but it is also the reality you will face.
Crafting teams that can perform at the highest levels is completely dependent upon the quality of the team members. Take a quick look at my recent post on “What’s your Passion #44 – Leadership & Personalities” and you get a quick understanding that you need to understand people and personalities to a higher level than what you were doing before. Transformations happen person-by-person, team-by-team, product-by-product, program-by-program, portfolio-by-portfolio until you have ultimately transformed the enterprise and/or organization. Using what we teach in the Flow Leadership Framework and Mindset, you can cut that journey in half from five to seven years down to two or three years.
Product Mindset Guide
It will help if you have an MBA in Marketing to even begin to appreciate the journey in this area. Those that have gone through a 2-day Product Owner course are in no way prepared for leading a transformation in this area.
Program Management, Line Management, Process Management, etc. are also included in this area. So, if you do not understand organizational politics, you will end up road kill (that’s an American euphemism to describe the aftermath of when a car hits an animal on the road).
Since Program Management is included in this area, then Scaled Agile (which is really nothing more that Agile Program Management) needs to be taken into account. In another of my posts, “What’s your Passion #9 – True Transformation” I touch on the topic of what really has to happen to succeed in rolling out a transformation. For large organizations, they need to understand this (would recommend checking out my transformation series on YouTube that covers this topic). Having worked in this area for more that two decades, Flow can help you avoid some of the landmines that you will encounter on this part of your journey.
Organization Mindset Guide
Finally, once you have mastered the Individual, Team and Product Mindset Guide roles, your final step is to master the organization-level Mindset Guide role. The key skill that separates good leaders from great leaders is their ability to listen, process what they hear and then apply it to their organization and culture. In another post I address listening and why it is so important: “What’s your Passion #49 – Listening“
Life is too short to work with leaders that refuse to listen. For those that have to self-awareness and humility to take a long, hard look in the mirror, then Flow is going to help them shine bright lights into the darkest corners of their hearts and souls. And, for those that can actually walk-the-talk, the return on investment will be astronomical.
Want to learn more about how Flow will help you become an awesome mindset guide?
Then let’s chat!
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The results for the LinkedIn poll I conducted on “is management really evil?” are in:
This poll is qualitative (not quantitative), but it gives you a sense of where people are at. It is encouraging that 75% understand that management isn’t evil. And, this ties directly into today’s post on how to become a great mindset guide … it all begins with walking-the-talk.
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For those that are not familiar with the Flow Leadership Framework, it is what’s next for businesses and organizations that are ready to succeed regardless of the methods, frameworks or management tools that they use throughout their enterprise.
Are you ‘in the zone’ of optimal performance right now as a person, team or enterprise? Did you get there by accident or by focused intentional acts?
“Flow” gives you the tools and practices needed to create and maintain an optimal state of high performance as an individual, team or organization.
The Flow Leadership Framework turbocharges “business agile” leadership.
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PS Here are the associated links to this blog post for:
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