I’ve got a leadership challenge for you. You can do better. Read on.
If the rift in popular sentiment around political leadership tells us anything it’s that we still value leaders, especially great ones. It is human nature to want someone at the helm to who we entrust the hardest decisions, even those we may vehemently disagree with him or her on.
It’s not different in any field of human endeavor. From the Whitehouse to the boardroom to the playing field we seek out the qualities that earn the mantle of leader.
It’s no surprise that so much is written about leadership. This month alone I’ve counted 24 articles posted in Inc.com (not including this one or others posted today) that speak directly to leadership. And that’s typical. You’d think that with all of the attention paid to leadership, with all that’s written about it, and with the way in which we scrutinize it as individuals and as a society, we’d have figured it out by now.
There’s a reason why we haven’t.
The late management guru and father of modern management theory, Peter Drucker, once said to me, in response to my question ” What makes a great leader?” that the only quality he could consistently point to was that great leaders had lots of followers. That’s sort of like saying that what all fast cars have in common is that they are in front of all the slower ones.
But there’s a truth to what Drucker said that we do not want to accept because it puts the ones of being a great leader right back on each one of us. Namely, that there is no formula. Each leader has to figure out how to be exceptional in the unique set of circumstances that he or she is presented with.
“People will rarely follow you because you’re great, They follow because you enable them to feel great about themselves.”
While there are many qualities that on the surface appear to be common among leaders, such as integrity, decisiveness, transparency, and empathy there are as many lousy leaders who have all of these and just as many great leaders who seem to defy common wisdom.
So, why even try to wrote yet one more column about leadership when it is apparently a unique exercise in each case? Because while there is no universal formula there is a single unyielding goal that every great leader creates for those who surround him or her; they challenge those who follow them to be part of something greater than themselves and to achieve more than they through they could.
And that is precisely what makes leadership a unique exercise; it is unique because the passion that drives each of us to excel is similarly unique, a mash up of a lifetime of experiences, insecurities, attitudes, and beliefs.
Leading people can not be generalized and applied in a uniform cookie cutter manner because the people you are leading are not uniform and cookie cutter. The onus is on you to understand the way those people who you lead are driven and to then challenge them in ways that both acknowledge and then stretch their strengths and limitations.
People will rarely follow you because you’re great, They follow because you enable them to feel great about themselves.
I recall a dinner conversation with Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak where I asked him about Steve Jobs management style. What I recall most was how Woz recounted occasions when Jobs would stick his head into a closed door meeting where some sort of problem was being solved, take quick pulse of the room, scan the white boards and flip charts, and then simply say something to the effect of, “You can do better.” Sometimes that was it, then he’d leave the room. Crass? Perhaps. I think it’s brilliant. The most powerful four words you can utter as a leader, “You can do better.” Because when Jobs told you that you could do better you sure as hell tried and more often than not you did.
Towards the end of that same conversation with Drucker I asked him, “So, what is the ultimate responsibility of the leader when it comes to those he or she is tasked with managing?” Drucker’s response has been a compass for me in how I lead in every aspect of my life, from how I interact with those I’m charged to grow professionally, to my children, and even within my interpersonal relationships. It was short, tough, and profound, “You do not manage them. You challenge them.”
You’re only a leader if you’re up to that challenge.
By Thomas Koulopoulos
Source: Inc.com
CEOs are spending more time on making the business case for their environmental and social commitments, and they’re building more rigorous mechanisms for addressing thorny issues and mitigating PR risks. To avoid communications missteps, CEOs should ensure they have the organizational capabilities and tools in place to monitor and analyze emerging issues and to gauge the sentiment of key stakeholders.
The vast majority of business leaders responding to a recent survey said they’re concerned they can’t train employees quickly enough to keep up with AI and tech developments in the next three years. A similar amount said AI and other tech disruptions will require companies to rethink skills, resources and new ways of doing work.
If you were to ask a random person on the street what an HR professional does, their answer would probably be conflict resolution, or that HR folks deal with employee salaries and benefits. And while that is part of an HR professional’s responsibilities — to ensure employee safety, respect and accountability — that doesn’t even scratch the surface.
