Leadership Building

1. Leadership Building Michael Dennis, Ph.D. Chestnut Health Systems, Bloomington, IL Presentation at “UT CAN Local Academy 2006 Celebration, Integration and Painting the Vision”, June 5-7, 2006, Salt Lake City, Utah. The content of this presentations are based on S.A. Pires (2002). Building Systems of Care: A Primer. Rockville, MD: Center for Mental Health Services (CMHS), Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) under contract 270-2003-00006 and several individual grants. The opinions are those of the author and do not reflect official positions of the consortium or government. Available on line at www.chestnut.org/LI/Posters or by contacting Joan Unsicker at 720 West Chestnut, Bloomington, IL 61701, phone: (309) 827-6026, fax: (309) 829-4661, e-Mail: junsicker@Chestnut.Org

2. Core Leadership Group • The group that is managing the change and has a vested interested in seeing it succeed • Can include: • Federal, state, and local funders/officials • Program directors, clinical staff, other staff • Community leaders, parents, youth • Researchers, local evaluators, data managers • Others • 4 C’s of Effective Leadership groups • Constituency • Credibility • Capacity • Commitment

3. Change in Typical Leadership Style as the System Evolves • Initial: Charismatic visionary • Developing: Facilitative (giving away power) • Maturing: Strong Management Skills • A versatile leader may shift between the above styles as needed • These leaders could come from any of the constituencies groups

4. Effective Collaboration • Takes real time, resources and efforts • Is best done with there is a clear and common purpose and set of objectives

5. Principles of Collaboration • Agree on core values and common goal to be achieved • Develop common language, respecting the knowledge/words of each stake holder • Recognize the strengths, limitations, and needs of each partner and identify ways to maximize their participation • Assume the best intentions of all partners and give them the benefit of the doubt • Build and maintain trust to share information, perceptions, and feedback to work as a cohesive team • Honor all voices by respectfully listening and attending to each partner • Share decision making, risks and credits as a team

6. Busting Common Barriers

7. Leadership Skills Test (LST) • Measures attitudes and beliefs about leadership strengths in 10 dimensions • There is no right or wrong answer or style and this test is only suggestive. The point here is to help you identify where your strengths are and to match you up with tasks that take advantage of those strengths. • It is obviously useful to also avoid situations that involve your weaknesses, to partner with people who have complementary strengths, and/or to get assistance in these other areas.

8. Leadership Skills Test (LST) Higher Scores in a dimension represent are leadership strengths Higher Total Scores Represent Greater Versatility in Leadership Lower Scores Represent Areas to Avoid, Partner or Seek Training/ Assistance with

9. Matching Leadership Tasks to Strengths • Coaching: Improving the competencies and commitment of employees through a process of coaching that employs the functions of counseling, mentoring, tutoring and confronting with respect to problems and situations that can affect their job • Communicating: Establishing and maintaining open, two-way communication with employees that provides them with essential job related information and obtains feedback about their problems, concerns and suggestions. • Empowering: Developing the competencies and influence of employees, both as individuals and as teams of individuals, in a way that involves shared responsibility, shared rewards and a focus on meeting performance objectives.

10. Matching leadership Tasks to Strengths • Facilitating: Intervening in the work activities of employees for the purpose of helping them to increase their full performance potential, to solve work related problems and to achieve their performance objectives. Strengthening employees by providing resources, clarifying roles and norms and helping them develop effective work processes. • Influencing: Achieving leader acceptance and willing followers by using the process of influence based on the power of expertise and referent power, by inspiring and by creating challenging, achievable goals for employees. • Communicating: Managing Change: Being an effective agent for change by focusing on goal attainment and maintaining a sense of control during periods of uncertainty while at the same time demonstrating flexibility and adaptability. Preparing employees to respond to change in a constructive way.

11. Matching leadership Tasks to Strengths • Managing Projects: Envisioning future events and developing strategies for dealing with them. Being able to develop project plans, train and develop project team skills and establish and follow appropriate project control measures to ensure goal attainment. • Servicing Customers: Providing quality service to both internal and external customers. Committing oneself and one’s team to meeting all of the customer's needs and expectations. Using customer feedback for purposes of continuous improvement. • Solution Finding: Defining the problem and understanding the real problem or decision issue. Effectively using both creative and rational problem solving skills in a way that assures full inclusion of all members of the team.

12. Matching leadership Tasks to Strengths • Team Building: Accomplishing performance objectives through effective teamwork. Building teams by training employees in team skills, encouraging team interaction and by facilitating team development through open feedback and constructive critique. • Did your scores match your perception of your own strengths and weaknesses?

13. Questions • Does our cooperative have a clear purpose with common goals? • Who is our leadership group? • Is our leadership representative, credible and committed? • How have we ensured that our leaders have the capacity to lead effectively? • Are we paying attention to the types of leadership we need at various stages of development? For various roles within the systems of care? • How are we helping to match, pair, and/or develop leaders based on their strengths and weakness?