The Tenets of Sustainable Leadership

Improving Leadership

My new year's resolution??

Help the world by helping leaders to develop themselves.

Yes, leadership is one of the keys to a better world. Unfortunately, leadership is often mediocre, and sometimes it's harmful.

Let's avoid making a mistake and overestimating the number of toxic leaders. They are out there causing much harm, but their numbers are small. Most leaders do a good job or have the right intention to do so. But more is needed.

The Tenets of Sustainable Leadership

1. It's about Generating Movement

Leadership is about moving people from A to B. That is the essence. The B can many things: a higher level of performance, a new strategior position, a project, a target. Getting people to move is a matter of ability and motivation. Leaders provide a sense of direction, an experience of support, and a desire to progress. But too often we see that leadership kills engagement.

2. Humanity

To create a movement, leaders could resort to pressure, power, position, and popularity. But there are more sustainable sources of leadership. Leaders who show empathy, kindness, fairness, and reciprocity will find that people will respond more favorably to their leadership.

Leadership is not "soft" or "lofty". At the end of the day, there is progress needed. Standstill cannot be a product of leadership. And even when a strategy is conservative, people will need to move to achieve its objectives.

3. It's about Relationships

Leadership effectiveness is determined by the leader's ability to build qualitative relationships with their team members. If they can build trust, they are halfway. In this sense, trust is the first output of leadership. That is why sustainable leadership builds on human behavior, as mentioned before. Pressure, position, and power do not build trust.

Trust is the first output of leadership.

3. Competence over Confidence

We confuse competence with confidence. People who are confident seem to seduce us and we think that they have the answers. So, confident people get promoted. In order to avoid this, we need to focus much more on selection of future leaders.

4. The Myth of the Strong Leader

Beware of the "strong" leader, the hero who will save the organization. Characteristics such as charisma, confidence, and influence can cause leaders to derail. Too much of a good thing is never good. We measure derailment risks through Hogan's Development Survey, a sound assessment tool.

5. Zero Tolerance for Toxicity

When toxic leadership occurs, it must be dealt with immediately. Zero tolerance for toxic behaviors (also when a team member displays them) is crucial.?There aren't that many toxic leaders around, but when there is one, the consequences can be devastating. As these leaders possess many positive skills and contribute to the results, organizations are often reluctant to deal with them. And that is a huge mistake.

6. Power Matters

Make no mistake. Leadership and power go hand in hand. A leader who wants to avoid having influence will not be successful. But we should be careful if the power motive dominates and is individualistic or materialistic. We need to help these leaders use their power to benefit the organization and the employees and not themselves.?

7. Versatility Works

There is no such thing as "one" effective leadership style. Leaders must be versatile in applying different approaches when dealing with different people and situations.

Every leader needs to adopt both supportive and directive styles. It's never only one of both. However, adopting a supportive style makes leadership more sustainable. Don't forget that leaders must display the "right" level of behavior.?

8. Top-Down

Culture trickles down, and so does the predominant leadership style. People look up to find "effective" examples. The leadership style at the top shapes leadership throughout the whole organization.?

9. Emerging

Leadership is emerging. It is an unstoppable force that people have and need. In every situation, we see that people are attributed to the leadership role, even when they are not "nominated." Leadership emerges when there are people working together. It is, therefore, important to detect leadership potential.

10. Leadership is shared

Leadership is a collaborative act. Collaboration occurs between members of a leadership team but also between leaders and team members. In that sense, leadership is shared.?

11. A Long Term Approach

Leadership development will only be effective when it is organized in the long term. There are no quick fixes or one-shot solutions. Today's investments in leadership and culture will yield results in the future.?

What's next?

These are principles I use when working with organizations on developing leadership capability. Let's have a debate on how we can improve leadership in your environment. Leadership is too important to neglect.