The fifteenth Block and Limitation to Business Genius is uninspiring leadership.
Now, admittedly, in days gone by – when the boss was the boss, others were ludicrously lucky to have a job, and that was the end of it – this didn’t matter too much.
Nowadays, however, the inspirational dimension of leadership appears to matter more than ever, for as Deborah Meaden (of the enterprising TV show The Dragon’s Den) highlights:
‘A leader’s job is to inspire!’
Unfortunately, however, inspiring (which basically means to breathe into) doesn’t come naturally to many leaders, who may be technically brilliant, and financially astute, but far less skilled at securing commitment.
So what’s the secret of ‘bringing others with you’, as Kevin Murray (author of The Language of Leaders) would say?
Well, in many ways, it is focusing as much on what you don’t do, as what you do.
Inspiring leaders, for example, don’t micro-manage, credit steal, crush creativity, talk defeat, dither with decision making, or alienate employees by behaving inauthentically.
On the contrary.
For as a leadership expert friend of mine Khoi Tu (author of Superteams) explains:
‘Leaders can easily lose followers if they can’t answer the following four questions:
Where are we now?
Where are we going?
Why are we going there?
How will we get there?’
In other words, it is the role of a leader to set direction, manage and develop talent and, perhaps most importantly, to create an environment for success!
Having said this, however, it is important to remember that even the most inspirational leaders in the world are not magicians or wizards (even though the halo effect might lead us to believe otherwise).
They can only help to bring out the best in the people they work with for, as Jim Collins writes in Good to Great: ‘Great vision without great people is irrelevant.’
It is also important to remember, however, that leadership – which President Eisenhower defined as, ‘getting others to do what you want because they want to do it’ – doesn’t apply only to the chief executives of gigantic organisations!
Far from it.
Because, as leadership specialist Fredrik Arnander makes clear:
‘We are all leaders:
leadership is not a position it is a mindset’
And this is why we need to be aware that, even if we’re not a formal leader in an organisation (who has responsibility and authority in role), we can still be a mindset leader (who takes responsibility and has authority in person).
UP! YOUR LEADERSHIP SKILLS
NUGGET
One of the most inspirational experts on leadership, over the past few decades, is Ken Blanchard (author of The One Minute Manager and Leading at a Higher Level).
Not only has he long championed the idea of catching people doing something right in the workplace, and then praising them straight away (rather than waiting for people to slip up, and then come down on them like a ton of bricks for doing so); perhaps, more importantly, he also co-pioneered the concept of situational leadership. It has been around for many years – so you may well have come across it before – however, here’s a quick taster. Historically, it’s often been assumed that you’re either a leader or you’re not. In the 1970s, however, Paul Hersey and Ken Blanchard challenged this view, based on the idea that we all have leadership potential, and that different situations invariably require different styles of leadership. Churchill, for example, was widely regarded as a great leader during the Second World War, but somehow his style of leadership worked less well after the war, which was why he was voted out of office.
Anyway, situational leadership maintains that, with any workplace task, whoever’s doing that task will have varying levels of aptitude (competence) and attitude (commitment), and so a good leader needs to be able to adapt their leadership style accordingly. If someone is new to their job, for example, they may well have low aptitude + high attitude because they don’t know what to do, yet they’re very keen to learn. In this situation, that person will probably need plenty of direction and guidance. Alternatively, if someone’s doing a task they’ve done a zillion times before, and excel at, they may well have high aptitude + high attitude so, in this situation, it would make sense to delegate, and ask how they’re getting on from time to time.
The point is, each situation requires a different form of leadership. If a leader is too hands-off with someone who requires lots of direction, they’ll feel abandoned and thrown in at the deep end; but, if a leader is too hands-on with someone who needs to be delegated to, they’ll feel micro-managed and disempowered.
USEFUL TIPS AND
ESCAPE STRATEGIES
If you want to UP! your leadership skills, here are three practical tips and strategies that may help:
1 DEVELOP SELF-AWARENESS
Back in the early 1900s – when autocratic leadership was the norm, and the scientific management of Taylorism prevailed – self-awareness wasn’t exactly top of the agenda.
Leaders were there to give instructions, and employees were there to carry them out.
As we highlighted a moment ago, however, in the modern goldfish bowl world in which we live, business leaders increasingly need strong people skills (to help inspire, influence and foster innovation). Or, to use academic-speak, they not only need transactional leadership skills, they also need transformational leadership skills, too.
Evidence suggests, however, that one of the best ways to UP! our people skills is simply to UP! our self-awareness.
Professor Rob Goffee and Professor Gareth Jones of the London Business School, for example, spent years researching what makes great leaders great, and finally came to the conclusion:
‘Leadership begins with you – and you will not succeed as a leader unless you have some sense of who you are’
More to the point, in their book Why Should Anyone be Led by You?, they go on to say that the secret of leadership is to ‘be yourself, more … with skill’.
In other words, self-awareness is not something we do only once, and then move on. Far from it.
As Professor Graham Ward (adjunct professor leadership and coaching at INSEAD) recently told me: ‘Great leadership is a lifelong process of self-development and self-management … Put simply, if you don’t do the work on yourself you’ll be outdistanced by those that do.’
2 LEAD BY EXAMPLE
If there’s one thing that’s more likely to burst the balloon of inspirational leadership (more than anything else) it’s hypocrisy.
That’s to say, people at work often despise ‘Do as I say, not as I do’ leadership.
If you saunter up at your annual conference, for example, ready to give a talk on why business is tough at the moment (and why managerial bonuses need to be suspended for the time being), but then park your brand new and ludicrously expensive car directly in front of the venue, what sort of message is that likely to send out?
Similarly, if you go around telling everyone how you have an open-door policy (but then bite the head off anyone who dares to come to see you), it won’t take long for that open- door policy to lose its currency.
Please be aware that recent times have seen the rise of what’s called authentic leadership – i.e. the appeal of the real – so make sure that what you say to your employees (your social message), and what you really mean (your psychological message), are one and the same thing.
3 LOVE YOUR PEOPLE
Forgive me if this one sounds a bit clutzy, but the point’s an important one.
Not long ago I was chatting to Major-General Jonathan Shaw (a former head of the UK’s Special Forces) at Oxford University who’d been giving a talk on leadership.
One of his key messages was how – if you want to be an inspirational leader – you need to have a genuine love for your people, and not just focus on the bottom line because, if you can get the people bit right, the figures will follow.
‘Leadership’, as he said, is fundamentally about ‘being creative with people’.
Inspirational leaders are those who genuinely care about their people, and take pride in helping their people to achieve more, for, as Peter Drucker once said:
‘Leadership is lifting a person’s vision to higher sights, the raising of a person’s performance to a higher standard, and the building of a personality beyond its normal limitations’
BUSINESS GENIUS IN ACTION:
NEXT STEPS …
In summary, if you want to UP! your leadership skills, here’s how:
- Pinpoint how inspirational leadership is as much about what you don’t do, as what you do (from not micro-managing, to not credit stealing, and not crushing creativity to not talking defeat).
- Investigate positive role models of leaders (to discover the secrets that have helped them to excel in bringing others with them).
- Leverage the power of direction (for, as Khoi Tu makes clear, leaders can easily lose followers if they’re unsure about where they are now, where they are going, why they are going there, and how they will get there).
- Orchestrate a plan for improving and developing your self-awareness (because self-awareness never really stops and, as Professor Graham Ward points out: ‘If you don’t do the work on yourself, you’ll be outdistanced by those who do’).
- Target lifting people’s vision to higher sights (by taking a genuine interest in your people and empowering them to stretch beyond the ordinary to achieve the extraordinary).
UP!SPIRATION
‘As we all look ahead to the next century, leaders will be those who empower others.’
Bill Gates (founder of Microsoft)