What is true Leadership?

What is true Leadership?

At a time when certain leaders and their leadership is under scrutiny, putting Politics to one side, let’s look at what I believe makes a great leader ...

Firstly, I believe the premise an organisation reflecting its leader to be absolutely correct. Business, sport, Politics, in any and every walk of life, the character and values of the leader permeate through the organisation. So, for me, it is paramount to establish this first rule of leadership. “Know thyself” - this principle can be attributed to the Ancient Greek philosopher Socrates, self-understanding and self-awareness are the building blocks of leadership. What makes you tick, how you engage with others, how you react to both positive and negative pressures. Your organisation will pick-up on and reflect your principles, your demeanour, your body language, what you say and what you do.????

We can all trot-out a bunch of attributes a leader must have: Integrity, charisma, vision, vulnerability, empathy, understanding – the list goes on, great words. But they are just words unless you live those virtuous values.

As a leader, it’s what you do and how you do it that determines your “ranking” from zero to hero at any given point in time.

I am a huge fan of Simon Sinek, much of my leadership inspiration comes from him, this piece is inspired by him.

Sinek believes the greatest strength required of a leader is courage. Not necessarily in the sense of leading your people into battle, but in the sense of having the courage to stick to your values, your vision, your own self, when the pressure is on.

The example of courage he gives is resisting the temptation to move away from a company’s vision and long-term goals to “fix” any short-term issues. He goes on to sight the immense pressures on CEOs of publicly quoted companies expected to react to short-term hits on the share price just to help line the pockets of “greedy” shareholders, often to the detriment of the long-term vision. It takes courage to say no.

Yes, we can and do vary tactics and strategy to react to here and now adverse forces, ask anyone who has run a business over the last two or so years, but the vision, purpose and fundamentally the DNA of the organisation should remain unbreakable.

It takes unbelievable courage not to put the urgent ahead of the important or be side-tracked into short-term gain at the cost of the long-term goal.

Aside from courage, the good leader has an undying belief in their vision, more importantly the entire team shares the same undying belief, when that happens, you know your leadership is a success, hero. ????????

Another Sinek mantra is to start with the WHY:

It’s not about “WHAT you do” or "HOW you do it" but it’s "WHY you do it." Making a profit cannot be the WHY, it's a result. The WHY is about What's?your purpose??What's?your cause??What's?your belief??Why does your organisation exist? Why do you get out of the bed in the morning and why should anyone care?

If you haven’t already, Look-up the 2009 Simon Sinek TED talk, you can find it on YouTube.

Start with why -- how great leaders inspire action | Simon Sinek | TEDxPugetSound - Bing video

Have clarity, discipline and consistency ???

Clarity of WHY – If you don’t know WHY you do WHAT you do, how do you expect anyone else in your team to know? Clarity of the vision, clarity of purpose and of course clear communication, enables a good leader to embed the WHY throughout the organisation.

Once the entire organisation has the WHY then customers, suppliers and all stakeholders will know.

Sinek is clear,

“To inspire others to follow, starts with having clarity of WHY”.

"People don't buy "WHAT" you do, they buy "WHY" you do it"

In the context of leadership, I suggest the use of buy, is actually: buy-in/commitment/loyalty to the cause.?

Discipline of HOW?-?Have clarity in WHY will lead you to the question of HOW will you do it??HOW you do things are your values or principles that bring your cause to life. As mentioned previously, having the discipline necessary to never veer from your cause takes courage. To be accountable to HOW you do things is the most difficult part.

It's not about "integrity", it's "to always do the right thing." It's not "innovation," it's "look at the problem from a different angle." Turning these great leadership nouns into verbs is the key.?

Consistency of WHAT?- Everything you do and say, must be proof of what you believe. Your "WHAT" is the result of your beliefs and the actions you take to realise the belief.?It's everything you say or do; your products, service, marketing, PR, culture, and the people you recruit.

Another Sinek quote I love - "If you're not consistent in the things you say and do, no one will know what you believe." Again, no political point intended.

Leaders need a following

Being a leader requires having people that choose to follow you, so how do we gain a following? Firstly, you must get people to buy into your vision and get them committed to your beliefs and the greater cause, people who just choose to work for you, will only be there for the salary, not to help deliver the vision.

Quite simply, the most important element in gaining a following, is found in trust. Trust only truly emerges when you demonstrate you share the same values and beliefs, you say and do the right thing and you clearly demonstrate you are there for the common good, not just for selfish reasons.

To serve, going beyond duty of care ?

I read something a while back, I can’t remember where exactly, which suggested being a leader was like being a parent. Parents protect, nurture, care for their children and provide opportunities, just as a good leader should, we build self-confidence, we coach and yes, we discipline when we must. But just like parents are proud, caring and protective of their children, as leaders, we should also show the same pride, care and protection.

As employers, we are all aware of our legal duty of care One thing that drives me to distraction is the way “duty of care” is adopted in some organisations. There, provision of care is merely a tick box exercise to satisfy a legal obligation, in other words the care which is provided to the most valuable resource in a business is seen as no more than perfunctory.?

Conversely, some leaders who get it, provide real care for their people, they really understand them and consequently, not only does everyone buy into the vision, but everyone is happy in their work and motivated to deliver exceptional results. Companies with happy, motivated, and cared for people, consistently deliver above market norm profits and something to consider in a tough labour market, excellent staff retention rates.

?Here is the US top ten of happiest companies (2021 Large company category) with employee quotes:

?1.????Adobe – “I love working with passionate, creative, and truly brilliant people who are incredible at what they do. Every day is motivating.” ??

2.????Ring Central - “I love what I do and firmly believe in the importance of what we do for the organisation. My boss picking-up the phone and just asking me how I am doing every so often is huge.”

3.????HubSpot – “The people, the culture, the solve for the customer first attitude and the benefits are all pretty great.” ?

4.????Peleton – “I’ve always wanted to work at Peleton and I am excited to market a product I so wholeheartedly believe in. I love my projects and how I get to be creative.”

5.????Microsoft – “I love getting to solve technically complex issues for our customers and helping to make the World turn every day.”

6.????Farmers Insurance – “I am very happy with the autonomy I am given as well as the challenges each day.”

7.????IBM – “Solving complex issues with my team makes me happy. I love collaborating with them to solve issues. No better feeling than closing out an issue/project together.”

8.????Medallia – “I never feel like I will not succeed. Success is constantly set-up for me.”

9.????Zoom Video Communications – “I get to solve problems that may have never been solved before.”

10.?Experian – “I am appreciated and valued not just for the work I do, but for the personal experience I bring to the table. I work with people that make it not seem like work.” ?

Source: www.comparably.com

Can you spot the common themes? I love the Microsoft employee comment; they genuinely believe they help the World turn every day … who would argue with that?

It’s worth taking some time to research the leaders of these great companies, their WHY, their WHAT and their HOW. ??

The bottom line, pun intended, investment in caring for your people does provide a huge ROI.

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Service above Rank

Leadership is not a rank. Simply having the authority does not make you a leader. There are people who have no authority, but they themselves are leaders.

We call them leaders because:

• They go first, they take the risk before anyone else does.
• They choose to sacrifice so that their people may be safe, protected so everyone gains.

When they do, the response is incredible.?Their people will sacrifice for them, give them their blood, sweat and tears to see their shared vision come to life. When they are asked "WHY" the response is always the same; "Because they would have done it for me.” Isn't that the type of organisation we all would like to work for? That's the question Simon Sinek leaves us in his remarkable TED Talk, "Why Good Leaders Make You Feel Safe."

Conclusion

We all know the textbook definitions of true leadership and I am sure we all try to aspire to become a better or an ideal leader. However, the challenge is putting the definitions into practice, to resist the many temptations and pressures to veer from the visionary path.

Put simply:

·??????Know Thyself

·??????Know your WHY

·??????Have Clarity of vision

·??????Care for and Inspire your people

·??????Live and breathe the Values of Leadership

My inspiration for this article is taken from Simon Sinek and the Manufacturers' Alliance