1. What Makes A Leader and What is Leadership
• John Maxwell frequently references this wisdom: “If you think
you're leading and no one is following you, then you're only
taking a walk.”
• Michael Maccoby’s three word definition of a leader is
“someone people follow”. i
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2. • Obviously, more is entailedii
than Maccoby’s short definition. That “more” ranges
from the six personal qualitiesiii
identified by Warren Bennis, the six leadership
passages identified by Ram Charaniv
, the six extras that build power and
organizational leadership identified by Rosabeth Moss Kanterv
, to concerns about
charactervi
. Though answers abound, here are two of my most recent favorite
definitions: “Leadership [is] creating the conditions in organizational systems so
that people can do their best workvii
” and ”Leaders define or clarify goals for a
group, which can be as small as a seminar or as large as a nation-state and
mobilize the energies of members of the group to pursue those goalsviii
.” In
addition, there are at least three imperatives for becoming a great leader:
“managing yourself, managing your network, and managing your teamix
.”
What Makes A Leader and What is LeadershipContinued
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3. • Short definitions of leadership include “problem solving is the core of leadership”
and “the art of accomplishing more than the science of management says is
possiblex
.” Obviously, more is also entailed. For example John Kotter reminds us
that leadership “is about coping with changexi
”, about “motivating and inspiring---
keeping people moving in the right direction, despite major obstacles to change…
xii
”; a leader must have vision (the ability to see ahead and what is coming), a sense
of direction (including where you are and how much farther you need to go to
successfully arrive at a specific end destination or goal) and change management
skills.
What Makes A Leader and What is LeadershipContinued
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4. What Is Leadership?
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• “Leadership [is] creating the conditions in organizational systems so that people
can do their best work.”
• ”Leaders define or clarify goals for a group, which can be as small as a seminar or
as large as a nation-state and mobilize the energies of members of the group to
pursue those goals.”
• “Problem solving is the core of leadership.”
• “The art of accomplishing more than the science of management says is possible.”
• “Is about coping with change”, about “motivating and inspiring---keeping people
moving in the right direction, despite major obstacles to change.”
• “Is…a matter not of ‘doing’ excellence but of ‘inspiring’ excellence in others. ”To
lead is to Measurably Help Others Succeed”---Tom Peters, The Little Big Things,
201.
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5. Leadership Lesson #1: Don’t try to solve everything by
yourself; even superheroes have sidekicks.
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6. Leadership Lesson #2: The Fundamental Things Do
Apply, As Time Goes By
• Learn everything you
can, from every source
you can, at the lowest
cost you can.
• Learn from anywhere
and anyone you can in
order to produce the
required performance.
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7. Leadership Lesson #3: Know Where You Are and
What’s Really Going On
“You are not in Kansas anymore.”
“You are on Pandora.”
In the words of Yogi Berra: “You can observe a
lot just by watching.”
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8. Leadership Lesson # 4: There Is Never Enough Time To
Do Everything, So Prioritize Execution of What is Most
Important
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9. Leadership Lesson # 5: Deliver What You Promise, When You
Promised
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11. Leadership Lesson #7: Stay Accountable
• “Accountable individuals… make
solid agreements and take 100%
responsibility for their
experiences and commitments.
They look inside themselves,
wondering about their
contribution to problems, rather
than making them somebody
else’s fault. “
• “Accountable individuals
communicate frequently with
updates, they’re reliable on tight
deadlines, and they rarely drop
the ball. If they must change an
agreement, they let those who
will be affected know and
renegotiate that agreement.”
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12. Leadership Lesson # 8: Take advantage of change
• “Change can be a disguised opportunity, but you may need
the perspective of someone else to see it, and you may
need more than one perspective to go from seeing to
visioning. Visioning is expressed and ends in one thing:
performance.”
• A powerful image has the ability to capture our
imaginations, inspire our spirits, and energize us to go
beyond normal limitations. Simply put, such an image can
be transformative. An example is Chief Petty Officer
Brasher (Men of Honor).
• “While there is nothing that builds confidence more than
winning against the odds, believe it or not, losing against
great odds builds it as well.”
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13. Leadership Lesson #9: To Everything There Is A Season. A
Time to Reap. A Time to Sow. A Time to Come. A Time to
Go.
Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the fastest lion
or it will be killed. Every morning a lion wakes up. It knows it must outrun the slowest
gazelle or it will starve to death. It doesn’t matter whether you are a lion or a gazelle.
When the sun comes up, whether in Africa, or in public sector leadership, you better be
running.
“To everything there is a time. To everything there is a season. There is a time to start,
and a time to stop. But in between those times, keep moving.Leadership 13
14. Leadership Lesson #10: If You Are In Charge, Follow Jeffrey
Fox’s Great Boss Simple Success Formula
“1. Only hire top-notch, excellent people.”
“2. Put the right people in the right job.
Weed out the wrong people.”
“3. Tell the people what needs to be done.”
“4. Tell the people why it is needed.
“5. Leave the job up to the people you’ve
chosen to do it.”
“6. Train the people.”
“7. Listen to the people.”
“8. Remove frustration and barriers that
fetter the people.”
“9. Inspect progress.”
“10. Say “Thank you” publicly and privately.”
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15. Leadership Lesson #11: Jeffrey Fox Says, And I Believe,
That Companies (Agencies and Departments) Do What The
Boss Does
• “People take their cues from the boss. The boss sets the tone and the standards. The boss sets the
example. Over time, the department, the office, the store, the workshop, the factory, the company
begin to do what the boss does.”
• “If the boss is always late, punctuality becomes a minor obligation. If the boss is always in
meetings, everybody is always in meetings. If the boss calls on customers, customers become
important. If the boss blows off customer appointments, the sales force makes fewer sales calls. If
the boss is polite, rude people don’t last. If the boss accepts mediocrity, mediocrity is what she
gets. If the boss in innovative and inventive, the company looks for opportunities. If the boss does
everyone’s job, the employees will let him. If the boss gives everyone in the organization a World
Series ring, then everyone wants to win the World Series. If the boss leads a charge, the good and
able employees will be a step behind.”
• “Great bosses understand this phenomenon. Great bosses position the organization to succeed,
not with policies, but with posture and presence. If the great boss wants a policy of traveling on
Sunday or practice before presentations, he or she travels on Sunday and practices presentations.
If the boss doesn’t want little snowstorms to make people late to the office, he gets in early the day
of the storm and makes the coffee . . . and serves coffee to the stragglers as they arrive.”
• “Some bosses lead purposefully, others innately. Whether intentional or not, the great boss shapes
the organization. Because the company does what the boss does, the boss better perform, or the
company [agency or department] won’t.”
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16. Leadership Lesson #12: Follow Rumsfeld’s Rules
• Don’t let the urgent crowd out the
important.
• First law of holes: If you get in one,
stop digging. (Denis Healey)
• If in doubt, don’t. If still in doubt, do
what’s right.
• If you are working from you inbox,
you are working on other people’s
priorities.
• If you expect people to be in on the
landing, included them on the
takeoff.
• If you foul up, tell the boss and
correct it fast.
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17. Leadership Lesson #12: Follow Rumsfeld’s Rules
Continued
• If you’re coasting, you’re going
downhill.
• Learn from those who have been
there.
• Talent hits a target no one else can
hit. Genius hits a target no one else
can see.
• The first consideration for a meeting
is whether to call one at all.
• The last consideration for a meeting
is “What have we missed?”
• What you see is what you get. What
you don’t see gets you.
• When starting at the bottom, be
willing to learn from those at the top.
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18. Leadership Lesson #13: Three Things A Leader Must Have
• Vision (the ability to see
ahead and what is coming).
• A sense of direction
(including where you are
and how much farther you
need to go to successfully
arrive at a specific end
destination or goal)
• Change management skills
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19. Leadership Lesson # 14: Have Conversations With Your
Internal and External Customers in a Focused Context
• Having a customer conversation in a focused context is not always easy. “In the
proverbial 10 words or less, here is the key to customer service: Ask customers
what they want, and give it to them.” However, “If Henry Ford had asked his
customers what they wanted, it would have been a faster horse.” You have to ask
the right questions in order to get something productive out of the conversation.
• But see also Luke Hohmann’s blog on Innovation, Software, and Customer
Understanding for some further insights. (“Innovation occurs from a deep
understanding of your customers — their problems, their needs, expressed or
unexpressed. Suppose that Henry had asked a customer “What do you want” and
the customer has answered “I want a faster horse”. I’m willing to bet that Henry,
one of the greatest entrepreneurs of all time, would have explored this a bit
further, perhaps using the 5-Why’s approach to root cause analysis. Henry: “Why
do you want a faster horse?” Customer: “So I can get to the store in less time.”
Henry: “Why do you want to get to the store faster?” Customer: “So I can get
more work done at the farm.”)
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20. Leadership Lesson #15: You cannot lead anyone
further than you have been yourself or further than
you are willing to go yourself.
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21. Leadership Lesson #16 Before you can stand up or sit
down with a purpose, you have to have the courage of
conviction to stay standing or stay seated when
someone tells you to stop or get up, if someone asks
you what do you think you are doing or why are you
doing that.
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22. Leadership lesson #17 You must have self-confidence,
unshakeable faith, and sometimes self-sacrifice is
required to be a leader.
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23. Leadership lesson #18: Keep a sense of humor because
some things in life are a laughing matter.
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24. Leadership lesson #19: Don’t ever forget who you are,
where you come from, where you are going, and who is
leading you to fulfill the purpose and plan for which
you were created and for which on one day you will be
called.
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25. Leadership Lesson #20: You are responsible for who
you are and for what you do.
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Notes de l'éditeur
1. The Leaders We Need: And What Makes Us Follow http://centerforpublicleadership.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=364&Itemid=241
ii. See for example The Handbook of Leadership Theory and Practice , edited by Harvard Business School's Nitin Nohria and Rakesh Khurana, as well as, Barbara Kellerman, Bad Leadership . (“How is Saddam Hussein like Tony Blair? Or Kenneth Lay like Lou Gerstner? Answer: They are, or were, leaders. Many would argue that tyrants, corrupt CEOs, and other abusers of power and authority are not leaders at all—at least not as the word is currently used. But, according to Barbara Kellerman, this assumption is dangerously naive. A provocative departure from conventional thinking, Bad Leadership compels us to see leadership in its entirety. Kellerman argues that the dark side of leadership—from rigidity and callousness to corruption and cruelty—is not an aberration. Rather, bad leadership is as ubiquitous as it is insidious—and so must be more carefully examined and better understood…The book also illuminates the critical role of followers, revealing how they collaborate with, and sometimes even cause, bad leadership. Daring and counterintuitive, Bad Leadership makes clear that we need to face the dark side to become better leaders and followers ourselves.”) http://centerforpublicleadership.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=364&Itemid=241 iii. Integrity, dedication, magnanimity, humility, openness, and creativity. Warren Bennis, On Becoming A Leade r. http://changingminds.org/disciplines/leadership/articles/bennis_qualities.htm iv. The Leadership Pipeline: How To Build the Leadership-Powered Company, http://www.ram-charan.com/leadership_pipeline.htm v. Colleagueship, opening doors, extra resources, framing issues, strong commitment, external diplomacy. (“When Ann Moore was on her way to becoming CEO of Time Inc ., before women were found in top management ranks, she won loyalty by, among other things, spreading a perquisite of her magazine publisher job to peers and subordinates: preferred seats at the best sporting events in New York. Across the Atlantic, Maurice Levy was appointed CEO of Publicis while still a junior employee, in part because of his fervent commitment when the headquarters in Paris caught on fire , and he ran into the offices to rescue client files. High achievers don't turn into leaders, even if they seem to have the right skills, without the power that comes from going beyond the letter of the job and doing what I've come to call the Extras. “ http://blogs.hbr.org/kanter/2010/10/six-extras-that-build-power-an.html vi. Nannerl “Nan” Overholser Keohane, former President of Wellesley University, Duke University, Laurance S. Rockefeller Distinguished Visiting Professor of Public Affairs and The Center for Human Values at Princeton University, and member of the Harvard Corporation quoted in “What It Takes To Lead”, Harvard Gazette, February 11, 2011. (“I’m nervous about this notion that character in an admirable sense is a building block of leadership. There are leaders who are quite effective who pursue horrific goals, including Adolf Hitler who was especially competent at mobilizing Germany in his early years as Fuhrer.”) vii. Monica Higgins, professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and former professor at Harvard Graduate School of Business, quoted in “What It Takes To Lead”, Harvard Gazette, February 11, 2011. viii. Nannerl “Nan” Overholser Keohane, former President of Wellesley University, Duke University, Laurance S. Rockefeller Distinguished Visiting Professor of Public Affairs and The Center for Human Values at Princeton University, and member of the Harvard Corporation quoted in “What It Takes To Lead”, Harvard Gazette, February 11, 2011. ix. Being the Boss: The 3 Imperatives for Becoming a Great Leader , co-written by Linda A. Hill, the Wallace Brett Donham Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, and former executive Kent Lineback, quoted in Harvard Business School, Working Knowledge, January 17, 2011.
x. Orin Harari, The Leadership Secrets of Colin Powell” at 13 and at 163. xi. What Leaders Really Do, Harvard Business Review of Leadership, at 40. xii. Id. At 41
As Michael Jordan observed, “There is no ‘I’ in team but there is in ‘win’. So “we’ should find the best practical solution to “our” challenges in a strategic alliance. The Boston Consulting Group stated this proposition this way: “There is power in numbers. The members of a broader team will provide complementary skills and multiply the manpower and brainpower available to tackle critical issues.”
You never know when that so called esoteric or arcane bit of knowledge will be transformative, leading you to ask an “I wonder”, or “Why not” type question and to see a way “how to”. In the same vein but in a very different venue, Arthur ‘Dooley’ Wilson, otherwise known as the piano playing singer “Sam” in the 1942 film “Casablanca” had it right, the fundamental things do apply as time goes by. Sam’s singing observation that the fundamental things apply could also be translated into the way Stephen Covey expressed the idea in First Things First: “the main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.” In real life, Wilson was a drummer and a singer who led his own band in London and Paris in the 1920’s. In the film Wilson pretends to play the piano which was actually played by an off-screen African-American pianist whose hand movements Wilson imitated on-screen. This exemplifies another lesson: learn from anywhere and anyone you can in order to produce the required performance.
For example, in the film Men of Honor, Carl Brashear (Cuba Gooding, Jr.), has his leg partially amputated, and wearing his prosthesis is faced with the challenge of having to take 12 steps wearing a diving suit weighing 290 pounds. Despite the impossible odds and the enormity of the challenge, Master Chief Petty Officer Brasher, with Master Diver Billy Sunday (Robert DeNiro) providing verbal support —“The Navy diver is not a fighting man. He is a salvage expert. If it’s lost underwater, he finds it. If it’s sunk, he brings it up; if it’s in the way, he moves it— pushes the principle of perseverance and practices the discipline of determination to complete the twelve steps, triumphantly salvaging his career. This is the type of vision you need in your business to meet the challenge of changing times. And remember. “A leader always has to be looking beyond the next horizon. He or she has to be aware of the old Chinese proverb, Be careful what you wish for; you may get it. He or she has to be asking, constantly, ‘what happens if, against all these long odds, I succeed?
![• Obviously, more is entailedii
than Maccoby’s short definition. That “more” ranges
from the six personal qualitiesiii
identified by Warren Bennis, the six leadership
passages identified by Ram Charaniv
, the six extras that build power and
organizational leadership identified by Rosabeth Moss Kanterv
, to concerns about
charactervi
. Though answers abound, here are two of my most recent favorite
definitions: “Leadership [is] creating the conditions in organizational systems so
that people can do their best workvii
” and ”Leaders define or clarify goals for a
group, which can be as small as a seminar or as large as a nation-state and
mobilize the energies of members of the group to pursue those goalsviii
.” In
addition, there are at least three imperatives for becoming a great leader:
“managing yourself, managing your network, and managing your teamix
.”
What Makes A Leader and What is LeadershipContinued
Leadership 2](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7)