Personal Observations on Leadership

Recently I was asked to give a presentation to a corporate leadership group on what I understood leadership to be and my personal experiences that I might share.

I thought others might find it interesting to layout the key observations that I made to the group that I based on my varied military, entrepreneur, corporate and government experiences.

Combined they have given me an exposure to a very wide range of activities and the opportunity to meet and work with some outstanding individuals and teams.

I will lay that out my observations in five parts:

·      Part 1. Self. Understand and appreciate you are who you are. 

·      Part 2. The characteristics of leadership

·      Part 3. Your characteristics and style

·      Part 4. What is required in any organization?

·      Part 5. What is required of you as leader?

Part 1. Self. Understand and appreciate you are who you are. 

The first and most important point is you can’t change fundamentally who you are and how you were raised. – be it family or environment. Call it the lottery of life but those early influences on you life are with you forever. They are very hard to shake although most of the time we can build on those experiences in a very positive way. Remember the 7 Up TV series and the expression ‘show me the boy at seven and I will show you the man’. That is what I mean here.

I also believe there are three ‘self’s’ that makes us who we are. The first is the external self that we present to the everyday world. It is how we want the world to see us and think of us. The second is the inner self. This is what we are really thinking. For example whilst we may politely reserve an opinion in a discussion, event or circumstance, we privately may have a real objection but just don’t say it! Sometimes you can hide this inner self and sometimes you cant(and I usually cant!).

The third self is the inner, inner self. It is how we will really respond and usually in a crisis situation – the ‘fight or flight’ scenario. Usually we can’t totally manage how we respond to a crisis situation. It’s sometimes gets away from us. But we have all seen every day people do amazing things in these situations and the reverse is true. We wont know how we will react until we are tested! 

My main area of interest - whether in talking to a client or working with my managers or a team - is to understand what their inner self-motivation is. Invariably if you deal with that aspect of a person first and foremost the rest of what is holding them back falls away.

Part 2. The characteristics of leadership

These are my personal interpretations of the key characteristics of being an effective leader:

Technical competence – in the sense you need to know the space you are in so that you can make better decisions and engage effectively with your teams.

Ability to communicate – once you understand what you are doing and what is required you need to be able to communicate that. Reserved personalities, or those leaders with jarring personalities may have great skills but it’s pointless if they can’t motivate or guide their teams effectively as clear and positive communicators.

Ability to influence the organization – everyone knows someone that is really technically competent and is a great team communicator but they just can’t influence the organization to go in the direction they are espousing – they are nervous, or shy or abrupt (or whatever reason). If you can’t drive through your teams ideas for, or with them, through the organization to effect the change you are all seeking they will wonder why you are in charge.

 Personal attributes need no explaining here. To me they are simply being:

·      Ethical, professional, responsive, clear

·      Open, consistent, transparent 

The most important leadership attributes associated with these characteristics are:

·      You are who you say you are and you do what you say you will do

·      Being receptive and be responsive – you can still say no and be respected because you have at least listened

·      Being clear – even bad news can be accepted if its done openly and honestly

·      Being clear that ‘I as your leader’ am prepared to risk all to move an agenda forward that I (we) believe is right. In some instances this will be ahead of where my team or organization are thinking but my team trust me to be doing the right thing for the right reasons

·      My analogy is that of standing on a mountaintop looking down into a valley that is covered in a thick fog. Your leadership role is to determine what exists there and to understand and explain why you think that – even when others just see the fog - and then to decide how the team should move towards where the activity that benefits all most is likely to be.

 Part 3. Your characteristics and style

Everyone will have their own characteristics and style. We share 98.5 per cent of our DNA but that leaves 1.5% to free range and be individuals!

One of mine style aspects is that I believe there is no such thing as being right or being wrong.

It is simply what logic did you apply to come to that decision or course of action. If I sign up to your logic then I agree with your action. But if someone can add to or correct that logic then I welcome that contribution. If you want to challenge your managers of teams to greater heights then you have to expect – and allow – that at times they may not achieve their objectives. That is why it is called experience! But if you signed onto their logic then it’s a joint ‘failure’.

 Others should judge but I would consider my characteristics to be those of being Inquisitive, strategic, communicative, involved and sharing( and for a leader that means - share all the credit when it works but take all the responsibility when it doesn’t).

Above all I believe that what individuals and team want most is recognition for their efforts and that the work they are doing is both important and valued. Money is important –we all have to live - but money and being valued and recognized is game changing in terms of personal satisfaction and happiness. 

Part 4. What is required in any organization?

 Across all my different experiences and environments I found these things to be common in any ‘organization’ for a global leader:

·      Being ethical, professional, and competent. Show initiative in your area of responsibility and be able to work in ambiguous and continuously changing environments.

·      Be able manage remotely – in todays digital world this is both easier and harder! Remote-itis (the disconnection of remote teams from the core) is a corporate disease that grows and spreads quickly if not effectively managed.

·      Be able to manage different cultures, genders, ages and mixed experiences. This is how the world is made up. Everyone deserves the same level of leadership but they don’t all have the same starting point. That is the leaders job to find the common point.

·      Trust people.

 Part 5. What is required of you as leader?

Being a leader is a serious responsibility.

Apart from getting the operations component of any business right the equally important piece is getting the management of your staff right.

I always have considered developing my teams - and especially my direct managers - as a critical function of my everyday business. And if you set that example they will cascade  that through to their own teams.

You can learn things by observing other leaders and sometimes even poor leadership examples are useful opportunities to learn about what sort of leader you want to be.

As I have always said to my teams  “…take the bits of my leadership you like and discard the bits you don’t!”

End