This is the Single Most Important Leadership Behavior

There has been considerable discussion about leadership behavior in recent years in various suggestions have been made concerning the single most important leadership behavior. For many leaders, their most important leadership behavior is MBWA ( Management By Walking Around). They sincerely believe that this contributes most to their effectiveness as a leader. However, a totally different view has emerged that has been backed up by extensive research. Dr. Judith Komaki, professor of psychology and leadership researcher, has carried out important behavioral research to reveal vital leadership behaviors.

She and her research team have discovered that the most important leadership behavior is, what she describes as monitoring. At first glance, this looks like it is related to Management By Walking Around but there are very important differences because the research pointed out that there was only one topic of conversation that had any relevance.

The core of her research is that the most effective leaders seek to gather information but only information regarding performance. In her definition, monitoring is the deliberate inquiry into the relationship between the person and their work. One of the questions that could help to focus on this relationship would be, "How did you do that?" And let the person explain how they achieved their result. When you ask this question, you are implicitly doing several things. You are showing respect for their achievement, you are asking the question, you are listening to them, you are recognizing the importance of their work and you are giving them positive reinforcement.

Another question you can pose is, "What were the challenges in achieving that result?" This question also recognizes that they have exerted some effort, either mental or physical, to achieve the result. To develop other questions, reflect on yourself and the questions that you would like to be asked about the relationship between you and your work.

When you reflect on your progress during the day you can ask yourself, "Who taught me something today?" When you answer the question you will know who you positively reinforced during the day.

If you consider your followers one by one, ask yourself what are the things that you can do to positively reinforce them in conjunction with their work. Remember that there is one almost universal positive reinforcer, and that is the relationship between their work and its contribution to the overall objective. There is another one but it only represents a small portion of what is reinforcing. It's useful to know that when they teach or show you something that they know or can do, they are immediately positively reinforced.

Everybody in a leadership or management position should be able to use this concept successfully straight away.