Tag Archives: Kennedy

Leadership

Does A Best Leadership Style Exist?

So much is said [and written] about leadership. All questions are answered, it seems. How should you lead? What are the requirements to be a successful leader? How should a leader handle his/her followers? What are the better leadership styles? Everyone knows how to delegate, discipline, and develop your followers. We are also taught how to determine and use vision, mission, motivation and the like. In general, we live in times where the science of leadership, in all aspects has been thoroughly covered. Or has it?

I have often queried the fact that leadership gurus feel so secure in their statement that a ‘one best leadership style’ does not exist. How can they make such a statement when they have not properly researched the leadership style of the most important leader of all times? In my thesis and subsequent series of books on True Shepherd Leadership, I provide much evidence that a best leadership style does in fact exist, and that Christians are in fact instructed to apply the same leadership style. It is not as if we received a hint, pointing to the fact that if all else failed, we could perhaps consider this as a last resort, or handy alternative. We are admonished to go and do as Jesus did. We were supposed to lead according to the style that Jesus described and exhibited. We are supposed to be True Shepherd Leaders according to the example of Jesus.

Questions that need to be answered are: [a] How did Jesus lead, and [b] how do we know that it is the best leadership style?

Let us start with the second question, which to my mind is the easiest to answer. How can we say that the True Shepherd Leadership style, [the leadership style of Jesus Christ] is the best of all leadership styles? My suggestion to the doubtful ones is always to answer the following two easy questions: [i] Was Jesus in fact the most important leader ever on this earth, and [ii] would Jesus [being the Son of God] use an inferior leadership style, considering that He had all knowledge from eternal past to eternal future at His avail?

Beginning with the first question, all you need do is go to your local newspaper to prove that in fact Jesus is the most important leader ever. How does the newspaper prove this? Look at the date. It declares that today, [whatever the date], came up a certain number of years, months and days after the birth of Jesus. Wonderful is it not? Your calendar, diary, newspaper and magazines all witness to the existence of Jesus. Now, how many newspapers have you seen dated from the birth of Hitler, Kennedy, or Napoleon? If somebody had been printing such dates on papers, I have not seen any. I will not spend any more space to prove that Jesus is the world’s most important leader ever, but if you disagree, do some research yourself on who had the greatest influence on the human race ever, and I am confident you will also come to the same conclusion.

Secondly, how do we prove that Jesus applied the best ever leadership style? Answer this: Why would the Son of God, who had foreknowledge of everything from the beginning of the earth, NOT utilize the best leadership style available? In all honesty, I have not heard any worthwhile argument against Jesus exercising the best leadership style.

But, for the sake of the doubtful ones, let us think this over. The eternal all-knowing God provided mankind with a complete and perfect redemption plan. This plan was not only perfectly planned, but also perfectly timed. Making a study of God’s redemption plan, you cannot but stand in awe. Everything was so perfectly planned, and nothing was left to coincidence. You can look at many examples, such as for instance crucifixion as mode of capital punishment, or the total eclipse of the sun after Jesus’ death. Jesus’ crucifixion was foretold by prophets hundreds of years before. The words that Jesus uttered on the cross are recorded in the book of Psalms. There are so many facts making up the totality of the redemption plan, that it is unthinkable that God would have left anything to chance.

Why then, would He not have specifically designed and planned the leadership style of Jesus in the same meticulous manner? Jesus’ leadership style would have been perfectly planned as everything else, and therefore I cannot be convinced that He made use of a leadership style which was anything but the best.

Returning to the first part, namely what was the leadership style of Jesus really like, let us consider a few facts. Jesus [again without coincidence] came to earth in a time when farming [and especially sheep farming] was well-known and widely practiced. If a person came to any local school today and started talking about the behaviour of mountain sheep, chances are that no child in the school would have any knowledge about it. Not so in Jesus’ time however. Sheep, sheep farming, and the behaviour of sheep were well known. Sheep farming were part of the community.

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Leadership

Turn Your Speech Into A Leadership Talk

My experience working with thousands of leaders world wide for the past two decades teaches me that most leaders are screwing up their careers.

On a daily basis, these leaders are getting the wrong results or the right results in the wrong ways.

Interestingly, they themselves are choosing to fail. They’re actively sabotaging their own careers.

Leaders commit this sabotage for a simple reason: They make the fatal mistake of choosing to communicate with presentations and speeches — not leadership talks.

In terms of boosting one’s career, the difference between the two methods of leadership communication is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug.

Speeches/presentations primarily communicate information. Leadership talks, on the other hand, not only communicate information, they do more: They establish a deep, human emotional connection with the audience.

Why is the later connection necessary in leadership?

Look at it this way: Leaders do nothing more important than get results. There are generally two ways that leaders get results: They can order people to go from point A to point B; or they can have people WANT TO go from A to B.

Clearly, leaders who can instill “want to” in people, who motivate those people, are much more effective than leaders who can’t or won’t.

And the best way to instill “want to” is not simply to relate to people as if they are information receptacles but to relate to them on a deep, human, emotional way.

And you do it with leadership talks.

Here are a few examples of leadership talks.

When Churchill said, “We will fight on the beaches … ” That was a leadership talk.

When Kennedy said, “Ask not what your country can do for you … ” that was a leadership talk.

When Reagan said, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” That was a leadership talk.

You can come up with a lot of examples too. Go back to those moments when the words of a leader inspired people to take ardent action, and you’ve probably put your finger on an authentic leadership talk.

Mind you, I’m not just talking about great leaders of history. I’m also talking about the leaders in your organizations. After all, leaders speak 15 to 20 times a day: everything from formal speeches to informal chats. When those interactions are leadership talks, not just speeches or presentations, the effectiveness of those leaders is dramatically increased.

How do we put together leadership talks? It’s not easy. Mastering leadership talks takes a rigorous application of many specific processes. As Clement Atlee said of that great master of leadership talks, Winston Churchill, “Winston spent the best years of his life preparing his impromptu talks.”

Churchill, Kennedy, Reagan and others who were masters at giving leadership talks didn’t actually call their communications “leadership talks”, but they must have been conscious to some degree of the processes one must employ in putting a leadership talk together.

Here’s how to start. If you plan to give a leadership talk, there are three questions you should ask. If you answer “no” to any one of those questions, you can’t give one. You may be able to give a speech or presentation, but certainly not a leadership talk.

(1) DO YOU KNOW WHAT THE AUDIENCE NEEDS?
Winston Churchill said, “We must face the facts or they’ll stab us in the back.”

When you are trying to motivate people, the real facts are THEIR facts, their reality.

Their reality is composed of their needs. In many cases, their needs have nothing to do with your needs.

Most leaders don’t get this. They think that their own needs, their organization’s needs, are reality. That’s okay if you’re into ordering. As an order leader, you only need work with your reality. You simply have to tell people to get the job done. You don’t have to know where they’re coming from. But if you want to motivate them, you must work within their reality, not yours.

I call it “playing the game in the people’s home park”. There is no other way to motivate them consistently. If you insist on playing the game in your park, you’ll be disappointed in the motivational outcome.

(2) CAN YOU BRING DEEP BELIEF TO WHAT YOU’RE SAYING?
Nobody wants to follow a leader who doesn’t believe the job can get done. If you can’t feel it, they won’t do it.

But though you yourself must “want to” when it comes to the challenge you face, your motivation isn’t the point. It’s simply a given. If you’re not motivated, you shouldn’t be leading.

Here’s the point: Can you TRANSFER your motivation to the people so they become as motivated as you are?

I call it THE MOTIVATIONAL TRANSFER, and it is one of the least understood and most important leadership determinants of all.

There are three ways you can make the transfer happen.

* CONVEY INFORMATION. Often, this is enough to get people motivated. For instance, many people have quit smoking because of information on the harmful effects of the habit

* MAKE SENSE. To be motivated, people must understand the rationality behind your challenge. Re: smoking: People have been motivated to quit because the information makes sense.

* TRANSMIT EXPERIENCE. This entails having the leader’s experience become the people’s experience. This can be the most effective method of all, for when the speaker’s experience becomes the audience’s experience, a deep sharing of emotions and ideas, a communing, can take place.

There are plenty of presentation and speech courses devoted to the first two methods, so I won’t talk about those.

Here’s a few thoughts on the third method. Generally speaking, humans learn in two ways: by acquiring intellectual understanding and through experience. In our schooling, the former predominates, but it is the latter which is most powerful in terms of inducing a deep sharing of emotions and ideas; for our experiences, which can be life’s teachings, often lead us to profound awareness and purposeful action.

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