...accurately, about getting people complete the right work productively. To do that, leaders need to enhance these enablers:

* Build up their power, both formal and informal, to gain influence.

* Uncover and successfully introduce ideas to explore options.

* Moderate tenstion to increase people's efficiency.

Then, and only then, leaders need to get the group to commit to and complete action.

Since the first article, many of you have asked me for suggestions on how to get your organization to embrace leadership as an enterprise competency. The answer, of course, is to exercise leadership yourself.

Power

The first question, do you personally have power within your work group? When you speak, do your colleagues listen? Are your emails circulated? Do you speak at staff meetings, do your comments have impact? Injoy's John C. Maxwell sums it up: "All leadership is influence."

For managers, do your employees follow you? Are they committed or just putting in the hours? Do you share power well?

If you don't have power, you may want to work intensively on your power skills and tactics.

Does your work group have power within the enterprise? Does your budget reflect your priorities? Do you have allies in high places? Is there a CLO? For whom have you done great work before? That is your power base. If you don't have a power base, you need to build it aggressively.

You can build power by documenting your great ideas and seeing them through. Complete simple yet strategic projects to show your competence. Target the rising stars in the company, have lunch with them, and learn and discuss their priorities. If that all seems impossible, develop internally, or bring in someone from the outside, who has formal power skills. Whenever you rake on a project, negotiate to earn a bit of profit even if you're a cost center. That's power. In most projects, you aren't a partner but a subcontractor. Leverage that role well.

One of the most effective ways to build power long-term in training groups is...

NOTE: All illustrations and photos have been removed from this article.



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