5 Conclusion
Really great leadership boils down to:
Getting the right people on the bus, in the right seat (Collins)
Knowing who you are, where you are going and effectively communicating it.
Leading by example. Including in building people up and developing mutual respect and coherence.
Your organization’s Values matter. Codify them and live them out. At least one of your core values must have a direct connection to physical reality. These values are the foundation upon which decision making rests.
"Only three things happen naturally in organizations: friction, confusion, and underperformance. Everything else requires leadership."
- Peter Drucker
What the leadership being referred to in the above is very often decision making in the absence of a 100% complete picture, often with input from the team. This is otherwise known as judgement and discernment. Discerning judgement is a key competency which is downstream of Wisdom. Organizations that can develop people with discerning judgement will have a competitive advantage. These organizations will be able to decentralize decision making to empowered team members and respond better to customer needs. If these decentralized leaders with good judgement are also able to lead with the use of minimal authority and lead by example, really good things will happen.
Leading by example with good habits in alignment with the stated values is incredibly important. The leader must be a source of order and not chaos. The world is increasingly chaotic and people are hungering for structure they can count on, places where sensemaking is still working. You as a leader connected to your people can provide a place of coherence, and cohesiveness.
The model Covey (Covey, 2008) presents regarding Trust is concordant with the model presented here. Covey argues for the four cores in building trust of:
Integrity
Intentions
Competency
Results
I have argued for Kish’s model of Intent based leadership where the leader and their companions must act with Integrity in the building of Competency continuously achieving the desired Results. Leading with intent is central to Willink’s decentralized command and decentralized decision making. According to their models and the one presented here this will result in a team with a high degree of mutual trust where there are great efficiencies to be gained in the speed at which things can be done. Major competitive advantages manifest.
To make this work you need to get the right people on the bus in the right seats and the wrong people off. Be disciplined and uncompromising in your hiring practices. Narcissistic behaviour is cancerous to the building of mutual respect and when recalcitrant, the people exhibiting this behaviour need to be exited without delay. The ability to keep narcissists out will be a competitive advantage.
The cynic may remark that this is all just manipulative in service to the goal of extracting as much as possible out of employees. Outside of our family, what we do with our careers is one of the things that can give the most meaning to our lives. If we are able to healthfully sustain a high output for our families and through our work, there is a broad benefit to the overall productivity of the society we live in and consequently to the overall quality of life for everyone in that society. The individuals who work with leaders committed to their success benefit via the building of competency. It’s a win-win-win.
We are entering a time where there is increasing conflict between Virtuals and Physicals. The physicals are already drowning in influence from the virtual world with many of Chesteron’s fences being torn down recklessly. The Virtuals need to come back down to earth. The perceptions of reality are totally different. The physicals are grounded in physical reality, their actions have consequences that manifest in the physical world providing a feedback loop to correct errors. Virtuals live primarily in an abstract world where critically tangible and real feedback is almost entirely absent. Without this feedback an element of humanity is lost. The feedback loop needs to be re-established before it is too late. Leaders from the virtual side need to get Grounded.
The journey in leadership is high adventure. You will have failures and they will be difficult; learn from them. With the humility to recognize your part in them, the persistence to keep going and the emotional intelligence to make sense of situations and to stay positive you will improve and have some tales to tell.
With the right people on the bus:
“Treat people like adults and they will act like adults.”
RESERVED for Customers
“A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves.“
– Lao Tzu
6 References
Contact me if you want the complete list of references.
7 Must Read Books
Aurelius – Meditations
Blanchard – Leading at a Higher Level
Cialdini - Influence
Collins - Good to Great
Covey - 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
Covey - Speed of Trust
Kish - 5 to 50 to 500
Kotter - Leading Change
Willink - Extreme Ownership
Willink - Dichotomy of Leadership