Leadership Stories

Gina Hernez-Broome and Dianne Nilsen

What is good leadership? Is it offering a novel vision for your organization? Forecasting the future in your market? Offering never-before-thought-of, knock-your-socks-off ideas to solve problems? All of these are certainly examples of leadership, but in the following six stories, senior executives attending CCL's Leadership at the Peak program often cite apparently more mundane, but no less important, examples.

“Our firm was asked to sign a contract to participate in a large manufacturing project. The profit level would have been high, but the project would have affected the whole company and our relationship with other clients. The president of my company turned down the project. His action showed us that relationships and good customer satisfaction are more important than just short-term profit. He reinforced our relationships with our other clients and our employees.”

“The business was facing a crisis and its key market segment was under attack from competition. It needed to develop a breakthrough technology to maintain and expand market leadership. Without R&D funds, it would have become a cash cow facing downsizing. The leader put his career on the line in front of everyone to get the R&D funds necessary. He promised tangible results within the fiscal year and put together a detailed development program with milestones to get funding. He and his team never failed to give weekly progress reports. The team was on a mission! They worked sixty-plus hours a week for eight months. Finally, they achieved a breakthrough and their profits boomed. Their success resulted in promotions and recognition for key players.”

“The first major off-site meeting of the top forty executives in the company was into the end of the first day, with one day to go. The agenda was crowded and no clear purpose for the meeting was identified. Many executives, meeting for the first time, were feeling demotivated. The professional facilitator failed to diagnose or ameliorate the problems. The chairman decided overnight to scrap the second day's elaborately constructed agenda and fire the professional facilitator. He got up very early and wrote a seventy-five-minute speech from the heart, going over what he had hoped the meeting would achieve. He delivered his speech, sitting down, using a low-key fireside chat style. The meeting was rescued. By the end of the second day, some worthwhile progress had been made in communicating a sense of mission and developing a common understanding of values.”

“Eight years ago our organization was totally without technology. At that time I was working on trying to improve this area. One day I got into a taxi and began a conversation with the driver. I discovered that the driver also worked with computers. He said he might be able to help. I asked him to come in and write a plan for solving the technology problem and I hired him. Today the division has sold, developed, and collaborated with twenty-five other companies and it projects millions in revenue under the taxicab driver's direction.”

“The general manager developed an innovative approach to product development and manufacturing. This new approach involved many things that had not been tried before and required the organization to spend hundreds of millions of dollars. Despite opposition from management above him, the general manager provided resources to fund his ideas. He put his personal reputation on the line in his active support of the program. He passionately pursued his ideas and fought institutional bureaucracy that wanted to stop the program. In the end, the organization adopted the general manager's ideas and incorporated them into its other product development efforts. He will be remembered as the leader who championed the innovation rather than taking the low-risk get-along-and-go-along philosophy. ”

“Expansion of our law firm in Chicago had been discussed among the partners for quite some time. Although our competitors had opened Chicago offices, much controversy existed about the feasibility and wisdom of doing so. Our managing partner was strongly in favor of having a Chicago office and made it very clear that he would push this agenda until he succeeded. Notwithstanding what might end up being a significant cost, he engineered a merger with another firm in Chicago. He made it clear that he would use his financial control of the firm to punish people who opposed him. While such dictatorial behavior may be routine in certain organizations, law firms most often rely on consensus building. The senior partner's behavior was distasteful to many, who felt that open discussion had been stymied and that they no longer had a meaningful say in the management of the firm.”

So what do these stories teach leaders? A great deal, we think.

To be a good leader, look for answers in unusual places. Although you probably won't hire a cab driver to run your business, ask questions and listen for information in unconventional places. Be open to learning from everyone around you. Model the belief that creativity is not restricted to those in leadership positions. Everyone has the potential, regardless of function and level.

To be a good leader, don't make decisions based solely on short-term profit. If your vision for leadership involves more than making money, truly use this vision to guide your decisions. The leader in the first story gave up short-term profit but gained clarity in the organization's values.

To be a good leader, be a champion for research and development efforts. Be a risk taker and support risk taking by others. Recognize and promote creativity.

To be a good leader, sometimes you have to scrap the elaborate plans and work from your heart.

In the last two stories, each leader moved the organization in a new direction. Each took a risk and tried something that had not been done previously. Each championed unpopular ideas despite obstacles and a lack of organizational support. And each succeeded in accomplishing his goals. However, in the first example, the person writing the story appears to regard the leader in a positive light. The second example conveys a poor impression of the leader.

What factors are at work here? What makes the last two stories so different? Leaders often have to go against popular opinion. How they do this is critical in determining how they will be perceived. A leader who uses power and authority indiscriminately to manipulate or force an issue elicits negative reactions. A leader who is determined yet fair will gain the respect of others, if not their endorsement.

From these two examples, we might hypothesize that good leadership is independent of the outcome of the leader's behavior or the situational factors. In both stories, the leader achieved his objective, took a risk, and tried something new. The difference was in the methods each used. Thus, the key to being seen as a good leader has to do with how people are treated. Be mindful of whose toes get stepped on or whose authority is undermined. To steamroll people is to guarantee you will be seen as arrogant. People do not necessarily have to agree with a leader's stand to feel that he or she is practicing good leadership, but they must be able to respect the leader and feel respected in return.

Gina Hernez-Broome is a research associate at CCL in Colorado Springs. She has a Ph.D. degree from Colorado State University. Her e-mail address is [email protected]

Dianne Nilsen is a senior associate at CCL in Colorado Springs. She has a Ph.D. degree from the University of Minnesota. Her e-mail address is [email protected]