Mobile Edition
Print
Get the Mag
Weekly UpdatesThe following is a preview of one of the topics to be covered during Leadership Training Institute seminars at the Congress of Cities, held November 10-14 in San Antonio.
Within American communities, there is an ongoing cycle of change and demographic shifts. Depending upon where you live, these changes can present a new frontier to political leaders every six months.
Encounters in these communities involve a series of face-to-face human interactions, different experiences, perceptions, paradigms, values, biases, cultures and assumptions.
In these one-to-one interactions, the political leader has no control of the other person. The other person is reacting to the verbal and nonverbal behavior displayed by the political leader and vice versa. In many of these one-to-one interdependent relationships, we receive behaviors from others who may not be in our best interest.
At that moment, there is a tendency to point the finger at the other person and blame that person for your own behavioral choices. The other person may be reacting to behaviors that you unconsciously demonstrated. As a leader, it becomes important to increase your individual awareness about behaviors that you demonstrate to others, verbally and nonverbally.
The most critical area of leadership behavior will be demonstrated via nonverbal behaviors. It is generalized that 90 percent of a message is derived and demonstrated by nonverbal behaviors. Individually, a person may have at least 20 percent awareness of their own nonverbal behaviors. Consequently, a person could be unaware of nonverbal behaviors being demonstrated to others such as shaking hands, eye contact, how close you stand to another person, hand gestures, etc. One of the most powerful nonverbal behaviors is demonstrated by the voice--tone, speed, pitch and volume. It's not what you say, but how it is said.
Leaders need to individually assess their one-to-one interactions within the diverse communities they serve, figure out what's influencing their behavior and the choices, and determine the net results of these interactions.
Most often, when there are differing perceptions and paradigms, there is a tendency for expressed phrases such as "you're wrong or "I disagree." Others can interpret these phrases as they are wrong and you are right. Working within diverse communities requires that leaders develop different approaches when responding to differing perceptions. For example, you can say, "Please share with me why you perceive it the way that you do." This approach provides opportunities to hear how others are influenced by their own assumptions, biases, values and expectations.
Political leadership, in these changing communities, requires that the leader examine their personal values, biases and assumptions, and the impact upon the varied one-to-one human interactions, within the diverse communities they represent.
Awareness of the diversity within communities creates the need for leaders to individually assess their one-to-one interactions within the diverse communities they serve. By exploring what's influencing their behavior and examining the choices they have, leaders can improve the net results of their interactions with their constituents.
Details: Hurst will lead Leadership Training Institute seminar L14, entitled "Leadership in Changing Communities: The Impact of Paradigm upon Perception," on Wednesday, November 11 from 9 a.m. to noon. For more information or to register for Leadership Training Institute seminars, visit www.nlc.org.
Claude Hurst is president of claude Hurst Associates.
FEED