We toss the word leadership around like rolling papers at a Grateful Dead concert but we never have glommed onto the concept. The military have tried to quantify leadership qualities, as they are important to the operation of that organization. Businesses have also tried to pin numbers on it, but leadership has proved to be elusive. So, we’re going to take a run at it.
Leadership is a set of demonstrated actions, qualities and values that inspire others to emulate the behaviours and actions of the leader. Wha?? It is actually easier to say what leadership is not.
Insignia is not leadership. That means having things sewn on your collar, like rank, always traveling on the private corporate jet, or having a business card that says “boss” are merely touchable things that infer the status of the wearer.
Stealing and Lying are not leadership. A CEO that has jiggled the books and pieced off his or her retirement after 12 hours on the job is not a leader. A Board of Directors that signs off on golden parachute agreements are not leading the company. Lying is not leadership as evidenced by WorldCom, Enron, Nortel and the rest. The Securities and Exchange Commission calls it restating earnings, but its good old fashioned lying through your teeth about very important things.
Let’s look at what leadership is.
Honour: This is a strange word that has fallen from favour lately. If you always tell the truth about things, you have an element of honour. If you don’t feather your own nest at the detriment of others, then you have some more honour.
Loyalty: Another odd word, missing in modern life. An example should suffice. A certain system integration company would have the mid and senior managers look at the quarterly reports and see a loss coming. The bosses would fire a ton of junior folks, receptionists and clerks, report the savings in payroll expense and get the bonuses.
A few weeks later, when there was more work than people, they’d bring back the same people, as new hires at the bottom of the pay pile. The interesting point here is that the same bosses would publicly decry the lack of affordable talent and the lack of employee loyalty.
Vision: Understanding the relationship of assets on hand to the accomplishment of goals. Militarily it can mean we have nine soldiers with very little equipment, but we have to take that objective over there to keep the other soldiers coming later from being shot up. So, hey ho, off we go, fighting with sticks, bricks and fists. There is also a taste of honour and loyalty in there too.
In business, it usually becomes a four page vision statement written by a committee that took six months to come up with the compromises. A business vision statement should contain no more than about four points and cover no more than a half-page.
A simple one is:
1: We want to keep our customers happy because they give us money. See Point 4
2: Our people will make the right decisions. See Point 1
3: We want to be the best at what we do. See Point 2
4: We want to make a profit. See Point 3
Even if you have a debilitating head injury this is an understandable concept. It doesn’t involve Sigma Seven, TQM or an MBA. Those things are mere frippery on the parade float, an attempt to quantify and qualify the painfully obvious.
Integrity: Another ugly word for business wanks. It means you don’t set up a price fixing scheme to screw over your clients. If you make a mistake, fix it immediately and make it better for the customer. Militarily, it is more about honour. If you said you would, you do it.
Leadership is all of those things. Leading by example is the best way to communicate leadership. If a top boss is just as willing to fill in on the assembly line as ride around visiting offices, then they have demonstrated Leadership in a way that any employee can see it.
Will the employee emulate it? Quite possibly they will, because leadership is so lacking in business. Will the employee try to get even by stealing from the company? No, because the company has shown that they act with Loyalty and Integrity and Honour and Vision and expect if from their people.
Is this a radical concept? Not really. Leadership at its essential core makes everything in business easier, which causes the function of the Vision Statement to kick in, which if you paid attention, you would see has profit as the 4th step. Actual profit? Holy Hannah! A company making money without resorting to Creative Accounting? Now that sounds like a radical concept.
RoadDave 