Real Leaders Don't Boss Page 12

  Change Agents

  Few people like change; it is especially difficult to implement changes in a large organization. But as a leader, you can get the wheels of change moving with your courage, resolve, patience, and interpersonal skills. Real leaders understand the importance of initiating changes that will be lasting. They know how to fully and properly prepare employees and staff for change, and how and when to step aside so employees can embrace and take ownership of it. A leader does all this while maintaining a leadership role.

  For real and aspiring leaders, the first step in the process is to recognize the importance of preparing your team for changes that lie ahead. Then with the right tools and training, your team—and you—will succeed. Often companies without real leadership today fail to see beyond the near term and aren’t willing to invest the time or money on the front end in preparation and training, and consequently lose out on the back end and bottom line. Employees often end up disgruntled, unhappy, and unproductive, because they haven’t been given the proper preparation or environment in which they could do their jobs. Despite today’s economy and tight job market, some discontented employees may even quit, leaving a company with the headache, hassle, and cost of having to replace them.

  “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”1

  —R. Buckminster Fuller

  Retired Adm. Thompson is an exceptional facilitator who is able to smoothly effect change. He has infectious enthusiasm about whatever he does. He is modest, kind, and humble, yet also determined, deceptively sharp, well-connected, and highly respected for his professionalism, ethics, and knowledge. Both in his military career and after his retirement as president of the U.S. Navy Memorial, Adm. Thompson exemplified the role of a real leader.

  Thompson facilitates success with an all-encompassing approach: he outlines his goals, obtains the backing of his superiors to help support those goals, and then organizes a team of experts to study, analyze, and suggest ways to accomplish the goals. By enlisting others in the process, he helps remove any barriers to implementing changes. Thompson will lay the foundation, which includes making sure roles and responsibilities of each team member are clearly defined, then he adopts a low profile. He steps out of the way so he doesn’t interfere with the process that’s been established. He lets his team members do what they were trained to do to accomplish the clearly defined goals. His team members know, though, that if they need counsel, a sounding board, or something more, Thompson is always there.

  Two other superb leaders I have worked with are Navy Captains Ron Wildermuth and Jim Mitchell. I worked around the clock with the very accomplished Wildermuth during the late 1980s when the Navy hit radar sites in Libya. During the early 1990s, I supported NATO operations related to the Bosnian War under the very skillful guidance of Navy Captain Jim Mitchell. Wildermuth and Mitchell were savvy, skilled, industrious, and excellent teachers.

  Another real leader who facilitated success with his actions and approach is Adm. William J. Crowe, Jr., who, among other appointments, served as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 1989 while I was on annual active duty in their Public Affairs Office. The office consisted of a team of public information officers, enlisted personnel, and civilians charged with serving multiple commands worldwide. The team members were required to have broad knowledge of current operations and events, great flexibility, and lightning-fast reaction time. The job also required a well-oiled operations machine that could do an incredible job no matter the task. The information team’s superior efficiency was not solely due to the fact that it was a military operation. It was because of the leadership ripple effect: Crowe, one of the very few commanders I ever met who had a PhD, set the tone and the stage for the team to assist and support commanding officers across the globe on a moment’s notice. The team members enjoyed doing the job and doing it well. The team was respected, appreciated, and treated well, and, in turn, did the best possible job. Not surprisingly, attrition on that team was low.

  The Momentum Phenomenon

  Enthusiasm is contagious. Real leaders use that to their and their company’s advantage. Both Thompson and Crowe not only had the right idea about how to manage a team, but their enthusiasm toward their goals was infectious, with top-notch work as the result. Their team members wanted to do the best job possible because that’s what their leader expected of them. From a business perspective, that kind of enthusiasm provides nearly unstoppable momentum that propels employees and others to levels of achievement well beyond set goals. Those goals can be small and personal, or seemingly overwhelming with far-reaching effects. Whichever the case, real leadership can mean the difference between great success and great failure in accomplishing any goals.

  Remember Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center’s Paul Levy, mentioned in Chapter 4? The medical center was facing major layoffs during the current recession. Levy persuaded the entire staff to accept pay adjustments so that lower-paid employees could keep their jobs. As a real leader—one with inherent abilities of persuasion—Levy set a monumental goal, believed in the goal, worked with others to understand the importance of the goal, generated momentum to move forward toward the goal, and eventually achieved it.

  No matter the scale of the goal or the degree of change required, it all starts with real leadership. After preparing their team, real leaders then work toward achieving their goals one step at a time, building on each successful accomplishment of those they lead.

  Adversity as a Motivator

  Reading all the leadership books in the world doesn’t automatically make someone a real leader. Knowing how to lead takes experience and experimentation with different solutions for different situations. After all, no two situations in the workplace will ever be exactly the same, and rapidly increasing changes in the world will ensure that this will continue.

  Adversity and failure, too, provide some of the best experiences and the greatest lessons in life. The key, though, is to look at life’s adverse lessons with a positive spin, and approach them with patience rather than panic. Then, you emerge from difficult circumstances with more success and poise, and learn the important lessons of leadership in the process.

  Academy Award winner for Best Picture, The King’s Speech tells the story of a leader faced with a tremendous crisis of conviction. Trying to overcome a lifelong speech impediment and a timid spirit to answer the call of leadership at the outset of World War II, King George VI of England had to learn trust in others, admit and face his weakness, and persevere to reach a goal.

  This kind of adversity can be a great motivator. If, at a job interview, you have ever been asked “What is the biggest failure or the biggest challenge you’ve ever experienced?” you have no doubt been faced with the dilemma of exposing a weakness at the time when you most want to promote your strengths. The truth is that many people are at their best and do their best work when everything else appears to be at its worst. The lessons of history have taught us that leaders and people in general often emerge from adversity better and more accomplished. How an individual deals with and emerges from serious challenges, adverse circumstances, or failures can often provide an insight into his or her individual capabilities and true persona.

  Moreover, among the most fundamental tasks of a leader is to prepare the organization for a crisis, and then be able to function effectively when a crisis occurs. In his book Managing the Non-Profit Organization, Peter F. Drucker writes:

  The most important task of an organization’s leader is to anticipate crisis. Perhaps not to avert it, but to anticipate it. To wait until the crisis hits is already abdication. One has to make the organization capable of anticipating the storm, weathering it, and in fact, being ahead of it. That is called innovation, constant renewal. You cannot prevent a major catastrophe, but you can build an organization that is battle-ready, that has high morale, and also has been through a crisis, knows how to behave, trusts i
tself, and where people can trust one another.2

  Rebounding With Strength

  Rebounding from adversity is a skill that cannot be taught. An individual has to experience adversity firsthand, and struggle out of it, to understand what it is and to comprehend its value for success in life. Some of the greatest business leaders on record are people who faced tremendous adversity and emerged stronger, wiser, and with more passion and determination to succeed. These losers-turned-winners, with their indefatigable spirits, are able to nurture complete trust among their staff and, because of this, have an innate ability to inspire a workforce to reach new heights and do their best work.

  “Smooth seas do not make skillful sailors.”

  —African proverb

  Credentials, a top-notch education, a strong upbringing—even impeccable values—also aren’t enough to make a great leader. Instead, it takes the added experience of enduring hardship—even failure—and persevering to learn the secrets for knowing what to do in any situation. A few real leaders I know of who have triumphed over adversities include:

  Paul Orfalea, whom I brought to the Corporate Leaders Breakfast speaker series I started. The founder of Kinko’s, he discusses his condition in his book, Copy This: Lessons from a Hyperactive Dyslexic Who Turned a Bright Idea into One of America’s Best Companies (Workman Publishing, 2005).

  Bill Walsh, legendary coach and general manager of the San Francisco 49ers. He was blackballed by Cleveland Bengals’ coach Paul Brown in a move that nearly ended his NFL career.

  U.S. Sen. John McCain. His Navy plane was shot down during the Vietnam War, then he was imprisoned and tortured in the notorious “Hanoi Hilton” in North Vietnam.

  Hank Greenberg, baseball Hall of Famer. He performed magnificently despite constant anti-Semitic verbal abuse and death threats.

  Frank Gehry, well-known and much-lauded architect. He had to overcome strong anti-Semitism early in his life.

  Actress Marlee Matlin, a profoundly deaf but skilled and talented actress. She took the Oscar for Best Actress in 1986.

  Muhammad Ali, three-time heavyweight champion of the world. He was confronted by racial hatred early in life.

  U.S. Sen. Daniel Inouye, a Japanese-American and World War II hero. He lost his hand when he was severely wounded in combat.

  C. Paige Vickery, a highly successful classical musician, conductor, and educator and now a diplomat who overcame Tourette’s syndrome.

  Drew Barrymore, actress. She overcame a troubled childhood and resurrected her career.

  Building Tomorrow’s Leaders

  Across the globe, international leaders struggle with a multitude of crises—from economic and political to environmental and social. In the United States, partisanship and rancor seem to trump compromise and consensus from Sacramento, California, to Washington, D.C. Unfortunately, the absence of effective leadership is not limited to the halls of state legislatures or Congress, but also plagues both Wall Street and the C-suites of the nation’s companies. Where are the real leaders who can effectively guide us through the crises that we face? Government and business must develop many more leaders with the expertise to balance long-term strategy with a predisposition to tackle urgent problems and teach as they go.

  Today’s businesses and institutions must make a conscious commitment to teach managers as well as lower-level employees how to become leaders. Presidents, CEOs, and members of the executive team who take the time to teach, mentor, and guide their lieutenants and associates are more successful in driving performance. Staff retention is also higher, and that cuts costs, too. Additionally, developing young talent ensures that the company has an easy transition when it comes time for a leader to step aside.

  The military often provides an excellent training ground for honing leadership skills that can be used throughout life and work experiences. For example, whether you’re at sea or a member of a squadron or a platoon, working in a closed environment forces you and your team to solve problems quickly and successfully, because lives are often at stake. If team members are empowered, if they understand the importance of taking the lead to resolve issues, if they recognize clarity of purpose, and if they believe in their abilities, they are much more likely to be successful. All this contributes to nurturing leadership skills.

  Start Early

  Our two sons were born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, at the University of Michigan Hospital. They both had mastered the famous fight song “Hail to the Victors” before they were in kindergarten. One of the numerous benefits of growing up in a university community is that renowned scholars, leaders, and families from all over the world surround you. The richness of diversity in Ann Arbor cannot be overstated.

  We were fortunate that our two sons had some of the most knowledgeable, caring, and committed coaches during the 14 years we lived in Ann Arbor and later in Indianapolis, where our sons graduated from Park Tudor High School. Tom Huntzicker, Larry Darling, Tom Page, and Scott Fischer were some of the coaches we remember fondly, for they were real leaders. These men applied discipline with genuine care and concern for the students’ welfare. They taught youngsters how to play for the love of the game, no matter what sport they happened to be playing at the time. They also taught them how to behave on and off the field, court, or ice with class, dignity, and respect for all. And, they all emphasized the importance of doing well academically.

  The GE Difference

  There’s a reason why leader extraordinaire John F. “Jack” Welch (of General Electric fame) and his successor, Jeff Immelt, are often mentioned in books on leadership, management, and training. They both believe strongly in grooming tomorrow’s leaders as a part of their personal leadership responsibility. In fact, Welch groomed Immelt, his successor at GE’s helm.

  For decades, General Electric has been committed to training its future leaders through GE Crotonville, now known as the John F. Welch Leadership Development Center. Based in Ossining, New York, today it is an international leadership training organization that every year hosts thousands of employees from GE’s operations worldwide. Among its offerings for future leaders are:

  Executive courses in leadership, innovation, strategy, and manager development.

  Leadership courses for new managers focusing on development, business impact, and external focus.

  Essential skills courses, such as hiring, presentations, team building, and project management.

  Customer programs including executive briefings, change management, and integration.3

  As a testament to the program’s success, 90 percent of GE’s top 600 leaders have been promoted from within the company. They have to be doing something right!

  Go Inside!

  Many corporations mistakenly act as if building leadership means hiring talent from top-shelf consulting companies or hiring up-and-comers from the best academic institutions. Both are strategies that sap financial resources in tough and not-so-tough economic times; more important, neither strategy fills the bill.

  Several years ago, I had just joined a large corporation and had aspirations of climbing the corporate ladder. As an enthusiastic new hire, I wanted to make the most of the opportunities the company offered. So I asked my boss what programs the company had to identify and develop future leaders from within the company. My obviously surprised and confused boss responded by saying that the company’s current practice was to recruit talent from the outside. To spend institutional resources on leadership development, he said, would create unrest in the C-suite, lead to controversy because there would be “winners and losers,” and amount to showing preferential treatment in an otherwise-egalitarian environment. I didn’t stay at that company very long. Any business, large or small, that prefers to recruit from the outside rather than groom and promote from within—intra-organizational leadership development—dooms itself to failure over the long haul.

  Leadership learning shouldn’t be confined only to upper echelons of corporations, either. Companies and their executives must
develop an organizational culture that builds future leaders from the ground up, that teaches not only leadership skills, but also an understanding of business strategy and culture. That approach helps deliver lasting results and true innovation. The core of a diverse organization, after all, should be internally developed leaders who understand the business strategy and culture, and who have the staff and network to speed the delivery of work and the internal credibility to drive insightful change.

  “The degree to which firms (small, medium and large) work on leadership development within an organization typically is directly correlated to an organization’s continuity of strong leadership and management,” says Limoneira’s Harold Edwards.4 Managing this discipline from the top down is a critical job of the CEO. Edwards offers a few thoughts on his approach to intra-organizational leadership development:

  In any size organization, I feel it is important to embrace a process of defining critical leadership competencies for each managerial role within an organization. It is then important to identify and evaluate the actual competencies displayed by each manager within an organization and to compare them to the defined leadership competencies for each managerial role. This process will create a “gap analysis” that will identify areas of competency and leadership development requirements critical for tomorrow’s leaders to display. Once these gaps are identified, it is easier to create leadership development programs that strengthen and enhance the competencies in which managers need to improve.5

  The Power of Empowerment

  Leadership in the 21st century is about leading at all levels, and not simply restricting it to job title, agrees Rick Lash, director of the Hay Group’s Leadership and Talent Practice and co-leader of the Best Companies for Leadership Study. Among the Top 20 companies for leadership, 100 percent provide employees at every level of their organization the opportunity to develop the capabilities needed to lead others, according to their study released in early 2011. “Ninety percent of the Top 20 companies report that people are expected to lead regardless of whether they have a formal position of authority,” the study reports.6