I was recently interviewed by Anna Farmery for the Engaging Brand Pod-cast and before we spoke I had a look at her excellent blog. The first thing to say is that I highly recommend it - it was really interesting to see a marketing angle on the things I talk about so often as a organisational psychologist.
One of Anna’s recent posts (22/02/08) was about over-confidence and how it can be damaging to think that you can control everything. This is an interesting area and you see this happening in all sorts of contexts in our ‘me’ society, including the entertainment industry, professional football and in the business arena. When people are constantly being told that they are brilliant and their results bear this out they can lose touch with reality and start to narrow their range of behaviours to those that have brought them success.
In business you often see successful people who over-use their strengths. A good example of this is a person whose confident behaviour has got them to a senior position, who makes the assumption that majoring on that confidence is always the right thing to do. In this sense, the person over-relies on a personal attribute or set of behaviours that is not always the most appropriate to draw on….and it won’t be long before what used to be a strength starts to look like an area for personal development.
The best leaders are aware of their natural style and the impact it has on those around them. They know when it works and when it’s best to try something different. There will still be plenty of occasions on which their natural style can flourish, but it’s supported by a broader and more adaptive set of leadership behaviours.
You can find out more about an approach that draws on these ideas called Leadership Impact on my University spin-off company’s website:
http://www.robertsoncooper.com/pages/todays-challenges/Leaders-Define-Organisations.aspx
http://www.robertsoncooper.com/Pages/Products/Leadership-Impact/Leadership-Impact.aspx
