DIRECTION, ALIGNMENT, COMMITMENT:
ACHIEVING BETTER RESULTS THROUGH LEADERSHIP
IDEAS INTO ACTION SERIES
This series of books draws on the practical knowledge that the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL®) has generated, since its inception in 1970, through its research and educational activity conducted in partnership with hundreds of thousands of managers and executives. Much of this knowledge is shared—in a way that is distinct from the typical university department, professional association, or consultancy. CCL is not simply a collection of individual experts, although the individual credentials of its staff are impressive; rather it is a community, with its members holding certain principles in common and working together to understand and generate practical responses to today’s leadership and organizational challenges.
The purpose of the series is to provide managers with specific advice on how to complete a developmental task or solve a leadership challenge. In doing that, the series carries out CCL’s mission to advance the understanding, practice, and development of leadership for the benefit of society worldwide. We think you will find the Ideas Into Action Series an important addition to your leadership toolkit.
DIRECTION, ALIGNMENT, COMMITMENT:
ACHIEVING BETTER RESULTS THROUGH LEADERSHIP
CYNTHIA MCCAULEY
LYNN FICK-COOPER
IDEAS INTO ACTION SERIES
Aimed at managers and executives who are concerned with their own and others’ development, each book in this series gives specific advice on how to complete a developmental task or solve a leadership problem.
LEAD CONTRIBUTORS
Cynthia McCauley
Lynn Fick-Cooper
CONTRIBUTORS
Janny Brust, Robert Burnside, Julie Willems Van Dijk, Bill Drath, David Horth, Lynn Miller, Harold Scharlatt, Preston Yarborough
DIRECTOR OF ASSESSMENTS, TOOLS, AND PUBLICATIONS
Sylvester Taylor
MANAGER, PUBLICATION DEVELOPMENT
Peter Scisco
EDITOR
Stephen Rush
ASSOCIATE EDITOR
Shaun Martin
DESIGN, LAYOUT, AND COVER DESIGN
Ed Morgan, navybluedesign.com
RIGHTS AND PERMISSIONS
Kelly Lombardino
EDITORIAL BOARD
David Altman, Elaine Bleich, Regina Eckert, Joan Gurvis, Jennifer Habig, Kevin Liu, Kelly Lombardino, Neal Maillet, Jennifer Martineau, Portia Mount, Laura Santana, Harold Scharlatt
Copyright ©2015 Center for Creative Leadership.
All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Printed in the United States of America.
CCL No. 00462
978-1-60491-553-2 - Print
978-1-60491-554-9 - Ebook
Center for Creative Leadership
CONTENTS
Do You Have a Leadership Problem?
Step 1: Assess Current Levels of Direction, Alignment, and Commitment in the Group
Step 2: Look for Factors Contributing to Low Levels of Direction, Alignment, or Commitment.
Step 3: Identify Changes That Could Improve Direction, Alignment, or Commitment.
DO YOU HAVE A LEADERSHIP PROBLEM?
Is your group getting results? Is it hitting targets, achieving quality standards, meeting deadlines, making timely decisions, or exceeding stakeholders’ expectations? If you answered “no” to any of these questions, whether you are the leader or a member of the group, you should explore the roots of the problems your group might be experiencing.
Do you have the right talent or resources in the group to get the job done? Is the group basing its work on faulty assumptions (e.g., what clients or customers value most, the promise of a new technology, the willingness of different agencies or divisions to cooperate)? Has something in your organization’s environment changed, such as additional competition or new forms of regulation, making the group’s original aims unrealistic or irrelevant?
Or, do you have a leadership problem?
The most common definition of a “leadership problem” is a “leader problem”—a problem stemming from the person or people in charge, such as managers, chairpersons, or team leaders. Are they not doing their jobs? How can they improve their effectiveness? Do they need to be replaced? It is reasonable to examine what the individuals with formal authority in the group are or are not doing that is contributing to the group not achieving results. However, the quick leap from “leadership problem” to “leader problem” can create tunnel vision.
Leadership involves far more than the person who holds the leader title. It is a social process that enables individuals to work together as a cohesive group to produce collective results—results they could never achieve working as individuals. Central to the process are the interactions and exchanges between the formal leader and group members, and among group members themselves. The process is influenced by the beliefs and values of the individuals involved, the quality of relationships in the group, formal structures and procedures, and the group’s informal routines. To diagnose the source of problems in this process, one needs to take a whole system rather than an individual leader perspective. Formal leaders are an important part of the system, yet they are only one component in the multifaceted and dynamic process of leadership.
How do you assess the effectiveness of a group’s leadership process? The most useful place to start is with the immediate outcomes that the leadership process needs to produce. When the leadership process in a group is effective, it generates three crucial outcomes: direction, alignment, and commitment (DAC).
DIRECTION is widespread agreement in the group on overall goals. In groups with strong direction, members have a shared understanding of what group success looks like and agree on what they are aiming to accomplish. In groups with weak direction, members are uncertain about what they should accomplish together, or they feel pulled in different directions by competing goals.
ALIGNMENT is coordinated work