The Foundation of a Leader

Dark clouds rolled through the evening sky. The birds silenced. Animals sought cover. 

Winds howled and a precursive rain followed on its tail.

Every brave knew a storm was coming. There were no weather reports or barometers, but they knew. 

As they stored their supplies and scrambled to secure belongings, they looked to the chief. 

He stood among them, staring towards the incoming storm. 

The angle of the wind-whipped trees and smell of rain told him what he needed. His bones felt the change and his heart felt fear, but he stood against the gale.

The braves shared these thoughts and feelings. They could sense the destruction of the storm in the deepest parts of their being, but still, they looked to their chief. 

Their worry was clear so he spoke with calm, offering comforts and guidance to his tribe. He nodded at a passing brave, arms filled with tanned skins, a small boy following at his heels.

It wasn't that he had more information or knew something the others didn’t. He was aware of the situation and had earned the trust of the tribe. They listened to him.

He was their leader.

What Makes a Leader

These lists are a dime a dozen. Google this section header and you’ll get thousands of results from reputable sites that debate their point of view. Still, it’s important for leadership enthusiasts to hash out their thoughts, as well as read a variety of perspectives. Reading a single viewpoint limits your span of knowledge and can cause you to adopt that belief as your own without question.

One of the best leadership development classes I completed was with a group of junior leaders in the Army. When I say junior, I mean the youngest and most direct. These were men who’d been in the Army for less than three years that were in charge of three men.

Due to our personnel cycle, our platoon faced the challenge of training a brand new group of team leaders. We pulled them into our office, filling every available space, and I asked what qualities make someone a leader.

The debates went on much longer than intended. 

After we’d completed a list with everyone’s input, I challenged them to rank order each trait from the list.

Of course, there were large discrepancies.

The issue, I showed them, is there’s no formula for the best leader. Each individual needs something different and every situation has different demands. There is no leader that’s perfect for every problem. Rather than picking arbitrary traits, I asked them to consider what makes the core foundation of a leader.

Semantics aside, whether qualities or characteristics, these are the three essential elements of a leader.

Trust

When followers trust their leader, they’re not afraid to take chances. They’re worried less about minor errors than letting down their leader by failing to live up to their potential. Workplace hostility decreases, employees become more receptive to feedback, and creativity improves. The most powerful benefit, though, is how trust breeds new leaders. 

Without trust, people fight to stay alive. Employees will stab each other in the back for promotions, ideas are held close, and growth is diminished. Team members won’t accept responsibility for their mistakes and will let others fail, rather than lending a helping hand. 

With the establishment of trust, leaders and subordinates are able to accept risk. A leader can trust the team to get the job done and doesn’t need to hold their hand throughout the process. The team can try new techniques, knowing that as long as they’re aiming at their leader’s intent, there’ll be no fallout.

Trust works differently at the varying stages of leadership. At the direct level, it's earned through the daily grind. The team watches and assesses the leader’s actions and decisions through every project. This is the level that can take the longest to earn trust but because the leader is part of the effort, suffering and succeeding with them, it’s the easiest level to maintain at.

At the organizational and strategic levels, initial trust is based on past performance. There is an assumption of experience that comes with operating higher in an organization. A leader may join a team, already having credibility, but that can change if their performance doesn't live up to expectations.

So long as HR is working right, new hires will fall into the company's set of value. Those values are what build the company's culture and businesses with a positive climate make it easier for a leader to gain trust. The set of values offer a common ground for all employees.

Oppositely, a leader who does not share the same values as the organization can break trust faster than anything. This does not reflect poorly on the leader, but shows a disconnect in their current priorities.

How to Build Trust

First, find an organization that aligns with your core beliefs. It’s not impossible to work somewhere that has different beliefs, but if the culture is contrary to yours, it’ll breed problems.

Commit yourself to the team. Show them that you care by accepting responsibility for failures and offering praise for successes. Keep any promises you make and always do what’s required of your position. Committing like this will prove you’re dependable and easier to trust.

Stand true to yours and the team’s values. This is the meaning of integrity. People model the individuals who strive to do the right thing all the time. Be consistent with your actions and competent with decisions.

Share your knowledge. Similar to committing yourself, sharing your knowledge will show followers that they can depend on you. It builds credibility and the team will learn to rely on your abilities, therefore opening a path for more trust.

Mutual trust is the foundation of every relationship. Whether that be a marriage, a business partnership, or friendship, trust is the keystone that holds it together. Because of this, if a leader doesn’t trust his followers he will fail just as fast as if they don’t trust him.

Communication

While strong leaders often conjure an image of a confident public speaker, this isn't the fundamental root of good communication.

A strong leader must be able to clearly explain concepts, outline goals, and establish a shared understanding of the team's purpose. This doesn't require the leader to have a bold command of language, but rather the intelligence to know the best way to illustrate a message.

If a leader fails to establish a mutual understanding, the team will fall apart. Groups and individuals will work in different directions, moving away from the purpose of the project. When the leader clearly articulates expectations, individual assignments will align towards the common goal.

In this regard, it doesn't matter how the leader communicates, so long as the message is received. Whether through a presentation, an email, or conversation, it must establish its intent.

The ability to communicate well includes tailoring the message to the situation. This is more than knowing your audience. It means explaining what to do when a step-based project is underway and sharing why it’s being done for anything outcome-based.

How to Strengthen Communication

Be present in daily operations. While this becomes more difficult as you climb the ladder, being around employees is the only way to hear their ideas and their side of any issues. Email and phone calls may make us more efficient but they cut out the body language that’s required for a true understanding of someone’s perspective.

Be focused on the person talking. Rather than thinking of what you’re going to say next, commit to hearing them out. Once they’ve shared their thoughts, take a moment to absorb the information and plan a proper response. Everyone has had a leader who speaks before understanding and everyone knows the feeling of having your thoughts ignored.

Ask the right questions. Rather than giving directives at every opportunity, take a note from Socrates and ask questions that lead them to the answer. Team members will remember the points better if they come to the conclusion. They may also surprise you with a better solution to the problem.

Stop talking long enough to listen. Whether you’re transmitting or receiving, it should be weighed for each situation. Some leaders will take in all the information they can before issuing direction. Others will react immediately. A strong leader understands the right time to do both.

Hone your message. Don’t beat around the bush. Keep your message concise so that the important information isn’t lost.

Awareness

A strong leader will demonstrate a profound sense of awareness. This quality is fourfold, including the self, individuals, the team, and the environment or situation.

Awareness of the self requires taking stock of your strengths and weaknesses. It means understanding your tendencies in specific situations. While one leader may be good at rapid decisions another may tend to get all the facts before committing. Either can be useful depending on the situation but an aware leader understands when to push away from those tendencies.

Self-awareness also requires a knowledge of your goals and fears. Being honest with yourself and able to identify the true reason behind your decision is what sets a leader apart from a manager.

Awareness of others enables the leader to understand the aspirations and intention of those he leads. Every individual adds value. An accountant, who's passionate about numbers, could sit in his mother's basement with a calculator. Instead, he's chosen to work for your company and wishes to contribute to the team.

A leader can inspire others based on the values they want to add. This is an inherent trait of individuals with a high emotional IQ.

Awareness of the team requires a leader to look at his organization as a whole. What are the group’s strengths and weaknesses? How does the structure influence its effectiveness? Does its performance align with the goals?

A leader is aware of how each individual plays a role in the larger picture of the team and is looking ahead at how it needs to be shaped.

Finally, awareness of the situation or environment. With an ever-changing landscape across new marketing channels, clientele, and corporations, a leader must be aware of what information surrounds the decision he makes.

How to Improve Awareness

Awareness in all facets requires reflection. In the self, it can be through meditation and mindfulness. Identifying traits and their polar opposite, then placing a marker on a sliding scale can assist a leader in knowing where they stand. The sliding scale allows them to be aware of their tendencies and how they can influence it depending on the situation.

Awareness of others requires being amongst your team. Like with communication, you need to listen to employees to understand what's happening. More important, it requires you to assess the underlying causes of their thoughts.

When learning about the individuals that make up your team, pinpoint what type of leader could best help them achieve their, and the team’s, goals. One person may need more guidance while another could get a project running after receiving the basic intent. Knowing how they each interact to different leadership styles can make you and your team more effective.

For awareness of the team, a lot of information can shows through the results of your projects. If performance is high, the team is functioning correctly. If the results were lackluster, you must identify where the faults lie. Recognize that high performance doesn’t mean things can’t get better.

Look at how the team varies in levels of experience. Often, new minds can be as useful as veteran perspectives in your organization. New employees will often look at projects without habits or preconceived ideas on the steps. They’ll be more open to new and, potentially, faster ways. Veteran employees will be efficient at what they know but may resist change. Knowing what your team needs at the time will allow you to adjust as necessary.         

Awareness of the situation and environment requires keeping up to date with current trends and market news. Identify if the environment, at the moment, is static or dynamic and how that affects your team’s situation.

Anything that stops you from knowing what’s going on is a hazard to your organization. Find any distractions or obstacles that would hinder the collection of information and eliminate them.

Setting the Foundation

Back to the chief.

Leaders can be made in a variety of ways. We’ve all had different experiences and learned from different people to get where we are. While my fabled chief is here to serve as an example, you’ve likely worked with someone of his caliber.

It’s the leader who could panic and seek cover, but instead they take in the situation. They assess themselves and the team and they take action.

It’s the leader that relies on his team as much as they rely on him, mutually trusting each other to reach the goal.

It’s the leader who knows what to say, whether it be through words, presentations, or body language.

It’s the leader we all want to become.

 

What do you believe makes up the foundation of a leader?