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When leadership is not enough

Written by: Paul Bridle

Article Overview: Some people see leadership as being the person in charge or the person in control. The mental image of a leader is the person with the most authority. But there are many examples of organizations and countries that have had leaders and not been successful. Look at the difference between George Bush as a leader and Tony Blair. Both were leaders of their respective countries. However, people largely believe that Tony Blair was more of a leader than George Bush. The truth is, failing organizations had people who were leaders just as much as successful ones have leaders. Hitler was a great leader and so was Saddam Hussein. They were not the type of leader that I would want to have in charge of a country I lived in or company I worked for, but they were leaders.

When leadership is not enough

Real leadership is not the title or the position. Real leadership is measured by sustainable success and the feedback from the people who were led.

Let us take apart that sentence

Sustainable Success

Sustainability is an important measure. Any fool can get someone to do something once, simply through bribery or threats. Sustainability is the ability to get people to do it on a sustained basis. General Schwarzkopf said that; “leadership is the ability to get people to willingly do more than is expected of them”. I add to that and say, to get them to do it without the need for you to be around!

It goes back to one of my definitions of leadership, “leadership is the ability to work your way out of your job”. In other words, it is about people being able to continue to perform when you are not around, which frees you up to move onto other places that need your leadership ability.

Sustainable success is about the leader having got the people being led so engaged, focused and having the necessary ownership to achieve what is necessary, and doing so on a sustainable basis, even when the leader has let go and let them run with it.

Feedback from the people

This is; the way people feel about the process of being led. In other words would they do it again? The real leader is so good at it that people would do it again because of the respect they have for the person and their ability.

Respect is a big part of getting this right. It is about that “willingness” that General Schwarzkopf speaks about. It is the way that people believe that the leader did the right thing, in the situation.

You see the people on the outside will measure by results. For example, the stock exchange measures the company results or performance and if it meets their expectations, they say the leader was a good leader or not. The measurement is from the outside and is largely superfluous in terms of what we are talking about.

Real leadership comes from the measurements inside the organisation. People will tell you whether more could have been achieved or, whether it was achieved effectively or, whether it could be done again. They know whether it was worth it or not because they saw the process from inside and were privy to the method and the real results and costs.

More is needed

In the modern world this is becoming more important because innovation is so important to many businesses these days. Innovation means that more is needed from people and it goes beyond effort or hard work.

Leaders need to be able to release the ideas of people and ensure they are capitalised on. The leader needs to be able to look for opportunities and capitalise on them.

Leadership now is more about facilitation. It is about putting together teams of people that can accomplish things. It is about bringing the best out of people. It is about spotting opportunities and finding ways to bring them to life through people.

For example, Steve Jobs saw what was happening in the world and the deadlock between the music producers. He came up with an offer that the five main players bought into. He also knew various bits of technology were being developed and saw the opportunity to bring this all together. The result? The iPod. The key to his success was his ability to draw the best out of others, see opportunities and negotiate with the market place.

Leadership requires the leader to develop everyone as a leader and to help them to discover their ability to lead. It also requires people who are prepared to lead themselves, as well as the people in their team.

Paul Bridle

Leadership Methodologist

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Article Tags: bribery, definitions of leadership, fool, general schwarzkopf, job, leadership ability, nbsp, stock exchange, sustainability, sustainable basis, sustainable success, willingness



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