Introducing the PSG Leadership Map
The PSG Paradoxes of Leadership blog series is a look at four crucial areas where complimentary leadership skills must be developed. The successful leader will be able to move quickly from one skill to another, providing their teams with whatever leadership style is needed in that moment rather than defaulting to their natural comfort zone. This series is additive to the PSG Leadership Map and will help you to understand your personalized results.
We begin this introduction with a question: Why does leadership matter?
Fact: If leadership were easy, everyone would love their boss and every business would succeed.
Question: Then why does everyone hate their boss and why do most businesses fail?
Answer: Because good leadership is rare and becoming a good leader is one of the great challenges in human history.
At the PSG we embrace that challenge. Being a good leader is the work of a lifetime and we are dismissive of programs, advice and memes that offer simple solutions to an endlessly complex problem: How can I be a better leader?
Socrates said that “To know thyself is the beginning of wisdom” and at the PSG we believe that the journey of the complete leader begins with the knowledge of self. We have developed an easy first step in that journey called the PSG Leadership Map - a data-driven, proprietary assessment of your most important leadership traits.
The knowledge of self and of your preferred leadership style is important because the truth is that there are no simple answers when it comes to leadership. Leaders must make difficult choices in a variety of contexts and there is no one skill that will ensure that you will always get it right every time. The best leaders have a deep skill set that they can call on as needed for success in a wide variety of scenarios.
This is a hard truth to accept because what advances us initially in our careers is subject matter expertise; a very specific focus that illustrates excellence to the people around us, building trust in our professional abilities. But once you achieve a position of influence in a broader context, too much focus is a handicap, resulting in a myopia that prevents you from seeing the entire range of options that are available.
And that’s why we built the PSG Leadership Map: To help you see the range of possibilities available to you as a leader or a manager in your business. With your leadership map, you will come to understand what your most comfortable ways of leadership are today and what growth possibilities exist for you in the future.
When you complete the PSG Leadership Map, you will receive a score that places you on a spectrum between leadership traits that are desirable and additive to one another, but which (for most leaders) are very hard to exercise at once. Those traits are as follows:
Courageous vs. Strategic
Charismatic vs. Collaborative
Creative vs. Focused
Adaptable vs. Resilient
The complete leader must choose between traits as conditions require and PSG Leadership Map measures which trait (or style) you naturally are more comfortable with and by how much. It is also true that every strength comes with potential weaknesses that the leader should be aware of and the PSG Leadership Map will help you to understand your strengths and your weaknesses, no matter which leadership style you choose.
We hope you enjoy the first step on your journey towards being a complete leader.
How complete is your leadership style and what do you need to improve? Click here to get your free PSG Leadership Map