Business Leadership Myth

Business Leadership Myth ?

I am trying to share my general thoughts nothing in specific about any person. Just someone driven me to write this now, which I was think for some time.

I have a feeling that today’s “business leaders” are something like a missing boat. Today’s business leaders are more business managers than they are business leaders. Mostly they are more to incline to manage things than driving the outcome. And while sound management is important, the cost of weak leadership is very high. Low morale, high turnover, mediocre performance and lack luster customer service are just a few of the costs of weak leadership. And it doesn’t take a lawyer to figure out that these costs, though tough to measure, have a direct impact on your bottom line. I was closely discussing few instances with a founder & CEO of a startup & make me collect all these thoughts. Let’s start analyzing this.

The Problem

The problem is there are not enough books written or seminars given on the topic of

Leadership. A search on Amazon revealed that there are a mere 12,045 books on the topic. And, if you’re like me, you probably only receive 5 to 10 flyers for upcoming leadership seminars per month. So obviously, we need to recruit more authors and speakers. Actually, the problem isn’t that there is not enough documented, shared wisdom on the topic of leadership. Some of the best managers go to one or two leadership seminars per year and clap till their hands fall off at all the wonderful things the speaker is saying. So what’s the real problem?

The REAL problem is the link between knowing and doing, between hearing and living, between mental assent and true understanding. People at these seminars are plagued with what I call the “nod factor.” They nod vigorously at all the truth shared by the famed and, undoubtedly, wise speaker on the topic of leadership. It’s like they sit there thinking, “Finally, someone is articulating what I have known for years.” And I don’t doubt that they actually have known a lot of it, but from my experience there are a lot more people who know and do not, than those who know and do.

The Solution

First, learn the difference between management and leadership. The differences are real, and are important. The roles and goals of leaders are markedly different than the roles and goals of managers. Let’s look at a few of the basics.

Managers focus on speed, methods, and efficiency (i.e., doing things right). Leaders focus on vision, purpose and direction (i.e., doing the right things). Managers direct, organize and discipline employees. Leaders empower, inspire and motivate employees. Managers solve problems. Leaders trust their followers to solve problems.

How come so many of today’s “senior” level managers, not to mention mid-level managers, are consumed by 80% management activity and only 20% leadership activity? Shouldn’t it be the other way around? I suggest, YES.

After you have developed a clear picture of leadership and how it differs from management, step up to the leadership plate determined to hit a home run. Put what you know into practice 24/7, everyday, all day. Develop an action plan that will force you to walk the talk. Seek out one or two accountability partners to keep you on track. Be sure to choose people whom you trust and who will be objective and honest. Don’t be afraid to select from among those whom you expect to follow you; after all, they have the biggest vested interest in your leadership ability.

Why Should You Care?

The main reason you should care is because it is the right thing to do. It is right for you; it is right for your organization and it is right for those who are subject to your leadership.” Strong, effective leadership can, and usually does, transform an organization.

The American Heritage dictionary defines transform this way: “a marked change, as in appearance or character, usually for the better (emphasis added); the change undergone by an animal cell upon infection by a cancer-causing virus.” Wouldn’t you like to infect your organization as effectively as a cancer causing virus, only with a positive instead of a negative result? I hope so.

Leadership is your number one competitive advantage; your number one strategic asset. Just ask GE, Southwest Airlines, Starbucks, or Microsoft.

There are many great books on the subject of leadership, If you haven’t read them I challenge you to do so. I assure you it will also challenge you.

he first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. The last is to say thank you. In between the two, the leader must become a servant and a debtor. That sums up the progress of an artful leader.

Concepts of leadership, ideas about leadership, and leadership practices are the subject of much thought, discussion, writing, teaching, and learning. True leaders are sought after and cultivated. Leadership is not an easy subject to explain. A friend of mine characterizes leaders simply like this: "Leaders don't inflict pain; they bear pain."

The goal of thinking hard about leadership is not to produce great or charismatic or well-known leaders. The measure of leadership is not the quality of the head, but the tone of the body. The signs of outstanding leadership appear primarily among the followers. Are the followers reaching their potential? Are they learning? Serving? Do they achieve the required results? Do they change with grace? Manage conflict?

I would like to ask you to think about the concept of leadership in a certain way. Try to think about a leader, in the words of the gospel writer Luke, as "one who serves." Leadership is a concept of owing certain things to the institution. It is a way of thinking about institutional heirs, a way of thinking about stewardship as contrasted with ownership. Robert Greenleaf has written an excellent book about this idea, Servant Leadership.

The art of leadership requires us to think about the leader-as-steward in terms of relationships: of assets and legacy, of momentum and effectiveness, of civility and values.

Leaders should leave behind them assets and a legacy. First, consider assets; certainly leaders owe assets. Leaders owe their institutions vital financial health, and the relationships and reputation that enable continuity of that financial health. Leaders must deliver to their organizations the appropriate services, products, tools, and equipment that people in the organization need in order to be accountable. In many institutions leaders are responsible for providing land and facilities.

But what else do leaders owe? What are artful leaders responsible for? Surely we need to include people. People are the heart and spirit of all that counts. Without people, there is no need for leaders. Leaders can decide to be primarily concerned with leaving assets to their institutional heirs or they can go beyond that and capitalize on the opportunity to leave a legacy, a legacy that takes into account the more difficult, qualitative side of life, one which provides greater meaning, more challenge, and more joy in the lives of those whom leaders enable.

Besides owing assets to their institutions, leaders owe the people in those institutions certain things. Leaders need to be concerned with the institutional value system which, after all, leads to the principles and standards that guide the practices of the people in the institution. Leaders owe a clear statement of the values of the organization. These values should be broadly understood and agreed to and should shape our corporate and individual behavior. What is this value system based on? How is it expressed? How is it audited? These are not easy questions to deal with.

Leaders are also responsible for future leadership. They need to identify, develop, and nurture future leaders.

Leaders are responsible for such things as a sense of quality in the institution, for whether or not the institution is open to influence and open to change. Effective leaders encourage contrary opinions, an important source of vitality. I am talking about how leaders can nurture the roots of an institution, about a sense of continuity, about institutional culture.

Leaders owe a covenant to the corporation or institution, which is, after all, a group of people. Leaders owe the organization a new reference point for what caring, purposeful, committed people can be in the institutional setting. Notice I did not say what people can do—what we can do is merely a consequence of what we can be. Corporations, like the people who compose them, are always in a state of becoming. Covenants bind people together and enable them to meet their corporate needs by meeting the needs of one another. We must do this in a way that is consonant with the world around us.

Leaders owe a certain maturity. Maturity as expressed in a sense of self-worth, a sense of belonging, a sense of expectancy, a sense of responsibility, a sense of accountability, and a sense of equality.

Leaders owe the corporation rationality. Rationality gives reason and mutual understanding to programs and to relationships. It gives visible order. Excellence and commitment and competence are available to us only under the rubric of rationality. A rational environment values trust and human dignity and provides the opportunity for personal development and self-fulfillment in the attainment of the organization's goals.

Business literacy, understanding the economic basis of a corporation, is essential. Only a group of people who share a body of knowledge and continually learn together can stay vital and viable.

Leaders owe people space, space in the sense of freedom. Freedom in the sense of enabling our gifts to be exercised. We need to give each other the space to grow, to be ourselves, to exercise our diversity. We need to give each other space so that we may both give and receive such beautiful things as ideas, openness, dignity, joy, healing, and inclusion. And in giving each other the gift of space, we need also to offer the gifts of grace and beauty to which each of us is entitled.

Another way to think about what leaders owe is to ask this question: What is it without which this institution would not be what it is?

Leaders are obligated to provide and maintain momentum. Leadership comes with a lot of debts to the future. There are more immediate obligations as well. Momentum is one. Momentum in a vital company is palpable. It is not abstract or mysterious. It is the feeling among a group of people that their lives and work are intertwined and moving toward a recognizable and legitimate goal. It begins with competent leadership and a management team strongly dedicated to aggressive managerial development and opportunities. This team's job is to provide an environment that allows momentum to gather.

Momentum comes from a clear vision of what the corporation ought to be, from a well-thought-out strategy to achieve that vision, and from carefully conceived and communicated directions and plans that enable everyone to participate and be publicly accountable in achieving those plans.

Momentum depends on a pertinent but flexible research and development program led by people with outstanding gifts and unique talents. Momentum results when a corporation has an aggressive, professional, inspired group of people in its marketing and sales units. Momentum results when the operations group serves its customers in such a way that the customer sees them as their best supplier of tools, equipment, and services. Underlying these complex activities is the essential role of the financial team. They provide the financial guidelines and the necessary ratios. They are responsible for equity among the various groups that compose the corporate family.

Leaders are responsible for effectiveness. Much has been written about effectiveness—some of the best of it by Peter Drucker. He has such a great ability to simplify concepts. One of the things he tells us is that efficiency is doing the thing right, but effectiveness is doing the right thing.

Leaders can delegate efficiency, but they must deal personally with effectiveness. Of course, the natural question is "how." We could fill many pages dealing with how to be effective, but I would like to touch on just two ways.

The first is the understanding that effectiveness comes about through enabling others to reach their potential—both their personal potential and their corporate or institutional potential.

Sometimes, to be sure, a leader must choose who is to speak. That is part of the risk of leadership. A leader must assess capability. A leader must be a judge of people. For leaders choose a person, not a position.

Another way to improve effectiveness is to encourage roving leadership. Roving leadership arises and expresses itself at varying times and in varying situations, according to the dictates of those situations. Roving leaders have the special gifts or the special strengths or the special temperament to lead in these special situations. They are acknowledged by others who are ready to follow them. (See "Roving Leadership.")

Leaders must take a role in developing, expressing, and defending civility and values. In a civilized institution or corporation, we see good manners, respect for persons, an understanding of "good goods," and an appreciation of the way in which we serve each other.

Civility has to do with identifying values as opposed to following fashions. Civility might be defined as an ability to distinguish between what is actually healthy and what merely appears to be living. A leader can tell the difference between living edges and dying ones.

To lose sight of the beauty of ideas and of hope and opportunity, and to frustrate the right to be needed, is to be at the dying edge.

To be a part of a throwaway mentality that discards goods and ideas, that discards principles and law, that discards persons and families, is to be at the dying edge.

To be at the leading edge of consumption, affluence, and instant gratification is to be at the dying edge.

To ignore the dignity of work and the elegance of simplicity, and the essential responsibility of serving each other, is to be at the dying edge.