Leadership

I see many posts on LinkedIn from folks who pay homage to, and/or take plaudits for, great leadership.

In my 50 year career before retirement in 2023 I experienced many forms of leadership and I’ve been reflecting on what it really meant to me and the impact it had.

Spending 36 years in IT sales and marketing often exposed me to the kind of behaviours that are assumed to exhibit leadership. Those of Sales Managers, Directors, Vice Presidents (and various other important job titles) which invariably boiled down to one simple desired outcome: “let me remind you that you need to make your numbers as that will help me make my numbers and get me promoted and/or keep my job”??

Of course, this was not always the case and I always preferred the style of leadership that was prefixed by another word and that word is “inspirational”. That word transforms the leadership experience into one that teaches, guides, advises and coaches the individual or team in a way that is far more encouraging and rewarding. Unfortunately, in my experience, far too few leaders realise or practice this approach.

In my opinion, words in job titles such as manager and director have been overused and I found it increasingly easy to ask myself the question “what does my manager actually manage for me and do I gain benefit from that management?” It becomes even more of a rhetorical question when I ask “What does that Director actually direct?” There’s an awful lot of management and directing going on in the corporate world these days it seems.

I contrast the above with the leadership I hope I delivered when I was a ship’s captain which was the culmination of the first 14 years of my working life. Being responsible for the safety of the lives of everyone on board ship as well as the myriad of day to day tasks and activities that make for a successful and efficient ship requires leadership of a different kind. This was about as far away from monthly sales figures, territory reviews and maximising the profitability of that next deal as you could possibly get. However, there are a number of common denominators that connect these disparate worlds together. The main one for me is the ability for me to ask myself these questions of my leader.....…..”Would I follow him or her over the hill into battle? Would I trust him or her implicitly? Does he or she have my back?”

I rather like this definition of leadership from a leading consultancy: Leadership is a set of mindsets and behaviours that aligns people in a collective direction, enables them to work together and accomplish shared goals, and helps them adjust to changing environments.

The last 6 words there are very powerful and often forgotten- the importance of adjusting to change. If I was a leader at work today I'd be deconstructing that sentence and looking for examples of me displaying those traits.

I’m not having a pop at managers or directors here….. I’m just reflecting on what I saw, heard and experienced across many years of working.

In these unfortunate times where ageism in the workplace is rife the benefit of experience can easily be overlooked. At the age of 67 I hope my musings here will at least cause some reflection and potential learnings. As I continue my retirement I am grateful for the things I’ve learnt along the way and hope this article helps others in some way.

Don’t forget: You don’t have to be a Manager or a Director or a Vice President or a President to be a leader.