Glenn's theory on leadership from shareholders' perspective using story telling

Glenn's theory on leadership from shareholders' perspective using story telling (Based on successful companies with great leadership)

A small little invasion has occurred and the wise king called upon his two generals in the middle of the night to report to him with their troops.

Both generals reported with their lieutenants and armies.

General Zheng reported in his relaxing pyjama while General Zhai reported in his full battle armour suit.

The wise king observed the generals as well as their lieutenants and armies, before deciding to send General Zhai and his troops to battle.

General Zhai died and lost the battle. The wise king was not surprised.

Then the wise king sent General Zheng and his troops to battle and they won easily. The wise king was not surprised.

Why did the wise king send General Zhai first?

Moral of the story...

In the story, the wise king represents the shareholders in today’s world (in retrospect of successful corporations). The generals represent the CEO, MD, GM or the top bosses answerable to the shareholders. The lieutenants represent the Senior Managers, Managers and key personnel of the company. The army represents the Executive Staff and the majority Labour Force of the companies.

When it comes to great leadership, the wise king does not just study the generals, but he will also observe the lieutenants and the troops. Looking at their morals, attitudes, integrity, cohesiveness, etc. For the generals, their appearances and how they appeared to the king is no longer important, especially at the urgent call of meeting in the middle of the night. Their achievements and results speak louder than their dressing appearances.

Although General Zhai is full dressed for the occasion, the wise king can see that his lieutenants and troops are in poor shape. In a poor leadership organisation, the CEO always wanted to look good in front of the shareholders at all times but neglected his people. The staff generally will only give their minimum efforts and appearances. In a political and powerful organisation, the quickest way to clean up such underperformance staff is to give them the simplest tasks and wait for them to fail at every opportunities. Their rewards are low with little recognitions. Dealing with such tactics lead to staff leaving and organisation becomes messy and unstable. Eventually it will fall apart even with a small invasion. The king can seize such opportunity to do a complete clean up and re-gather those who remain and capable to perform in that group.

Although General Zheng appeared in pyjama, the king can see the qualities of his lieutenants and armies. A good leader does not need to look good in appearance all the times, his achievements are way pass that. In fact, a great leader always seize every opportunities to let his men look good. When they look good, the leader naturally will look good. Just as when the great general achieved a victory, the king will still take the glory.

If you look at the most successful organisations and their leaders, most of the time they look generally simple and normal (Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, etc). They have the class to look simple and their organisations are filled with pictures of their employees to let them look good and give them pride and ownership. When you look at organisations with poor leaderships, you realised the leaders always make themselves look very good on the appearances and their pictures are all over the place.

Great leaders make others look good because they believe in them and love to make them feel good. Poor leaders make themselves look good because they need it badly due to lack in results in other areas.

Zheng, 正 – upright, right, exactly, pure, main, centrally located, correct.

Zhai, 窄 – Narrow

From the biblical context, our God is about giving, loving and making His people looks good. He believes in His people, so that they will come to believe in Him. When Christians are blessed and look good, others will see who their God is and Jesus will take all the glory.