The Abc's Of Leadership
A recent new study by the Center for Public Leadership at Harvards John F
. Kennedy School of Government and U.S. News & World Report (September 2006) reports that 70% of folks in the U.S believe there is a leadership crisis in America. So do I!
If you had Googled the word leadership as I did in January 2007 when preparing to write my first book you would have gotten 163 million references on the Internet. If you had Googled followership at that same time you got 192,000... a little over one-tenth of the sites for leadership. We have a fascination for leadership and how it is to be executed. We used to believe that leaders were born not made. In recent decades we have come to know differently. The fact is that because leaders are at the pinnacle of organizations they are expected to somehow magically (and single-handedly) lead their organizations to greatness.
There have been almost innumerable studies and research on what makes leaders successful. As a senior level HR executive for many years I have personally drawn upon this vast array of research to help coach and counsel lots of leaders in corporations on how to improve their game. What I learned over the years is that, like everything in life, the answers can often be complex but the solutions can be quite simple if the individual is willing to learn more about themselves, their colleagues and the organizations they serve.
A very good friend of mine, Ken Hampton, a Senior Vice President with the Waco Chamber of Commerce has a great perspective about leader-ship:
A great leader is one that sees himself as a steward of the resources and lives that hes been tasked with achieving the defined business results.
My idea of leadership is emphasizing collaboration, trust, empathy, and the ethical use of power. The leader is a servant first, making conscious decisions to lead because he wants to serve the enterprise and individuals rather than be absorbed in driving his own need for power.
A great leader enhances the growth of individuals in the organization to increase teamwork and personal involvement to drive effective business results.
To be a great leader you have to be a great follower. Even more importantly, a great leader sees himself as the same as those he leads. No one is more important than the other, they just have different roles.
Leadership employs vision, principles, and commitment to drive great behavior, teamwork, results and experiences for those of which hes been privileged to serve under his leadership.
A New York Times study in 2001 revealed 25% of employees reported being driven to tears in the workplace. 50% of workers are calling their place of work a place of verbal abuse and yelling. 30% of workers believe they are regularly given unrealistic deadlines and half of them report that they have to work 12 hour days to get the work done.
The Harvard Business Review estimates that presenteeism (workers who come to work but arent productive at all) costs in America to be at $150 billion annually. The Gallup Organization studies say that as much as 30% of the average workforce is actively disengaged!
My take on what this means is just this...if an employee is actively disengaged they are not only not working for you, they are deliberately working against the goals and objectives of your organization!
It has also been my experience that employees will undermine the organization (if only in an innocent way) until leadership address the dysfunction. My question is what are organizational leaders doing about this? Do they even know about it? Overwhelming stats like these are a clear call for better leadership.
My personal experience in working for some of the finest organizations in the world is that there is no magic bullet that will instantly work for everyone. In fact, every leader is different, and the skills and competencies each needs to work on will be different.
There is an array of factors that spell success for organizations and their leaders. However, almost all of the skills and competencies for great leadership can usually be agreed upon.
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.
Leonardo Da Vinci
Leadership is designed to be simple and therefore easy to learn and apply.
I challenge you to ask yourself questions... lots and lots of questions about your experiences with leadership, your organizations effectiveness in light of your leadership, and what new level of performance can be achieved if you focused on it for just a moment. I hope you will find those questions provocative and insightful. Use those moments to help develop a plan of action to succeed as a leader.
by: Doug Bender
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