Tag Archives: Winston Churchill

Leadership

Real World Leadership and Real World Leaders

What Is Leadership?

There are few questions that have had as many attempts at being answered as that of what is leadership?

For as long as I have been interested in leadership, it has always seemed to me that much (the overwhelming majority, no doubt) of the literature on leadership concentrates on the exceptions (Shackleton, Churchill, Napoleon, choose whoever are your favourites to expand the list). Just one example must suffice. A book by John Adair entitled Inspiring Leadership has the subtitle Learning from Great Leaders. As the title and subtitle suggest, the book is a roll call of a plethora of historic leadership figures.

I do not for a moment suggest that this is wrong nor that we cannot learn from such leadership studies. However, the leadership that happens day in day out in colleges, schools, offices, factories and other organizations, at all levels, I should suggest, is carried out by very ordinary people whose names will never enter the history books. People who have not been born great; will never achieve greatness, nor have it thrust upon them.

Leadership In The Real World

In Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, Malvolio reads out aloud a letter that had been written with the design of tricking him into making a fool of himself with Olivia. If the comedic effect of the letter is put to one side, as so often with Shakespeare, the words offer an acute observation of human nature, albeit a minute section of it. A few leaders are born great (perhaps, Winston Churchill, William Gladstone), some are driven to achieve greatness (Napoleon Bonaparte, perhaps) and others have it thrust upon them (Ernest Shackleton, for example). No doubt the three categories overlap.

It is my contention that the overwhelming majority of leaders do not fall into any of those three categories. Some are born highly talented, some are driven to succeed and no doubt some find themselves in the right place at the right time to achieve something special. However, leadership, says Hasib Muhammad, writing for the Huffington Post, is not reserved for extraordinary people:

“Everyone, regardless of talent or caliber, has leadership. Leadership is about leading yourself and others. In today’s society, those who lead others are celebrated because the results of their choices are easily seen. What about the man who has worked long, silent nights to provide for his family?”

I think the point in the above quotation is one that is well made. We are tempted always to equate leadership with greatness. But why should that be. There will always be acts of great leadership and there will always be great leaders who are defined by their leadership. On the other hand, there will always be, there always has to be, a whole army of very ordinary people who day in day out exercise leadership in a way that is nothing more than competent.

Referring to these acts of leadership as nothing more than competent is no insult. Indeed, it is quite the reverse. Modern society could not function unless there are people who are prepared to take on the tasks of real world leadership. They will never be honored; they will hardly be known outside of their communities; they will never be written about. But without them, our lives would be far more burdensome.

In short, it is my contention that day-to-day leadership is exercised not by people who fall into one of Shakespeare’s elite triad but by people who are born competent, achieve competence or have competence thrust upon them.

Garry Costain is the Managing Director of Caremark Thanet, a domiciliary care provider with offices in Margate, Kent. Caremark Thanet provides home care services throughout the Isle of Thanet. Garry writes blogs on all matters to do with care and business. Garry can be contacted on 01843 235910 or email garry.costain@caremark.co.uk. You can also visit Caremark Thanet’s website at http://www.caremark.co.uk/thanet

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Leadership

Leadership – The Medium Is the Message

The titanic achievements of Ghengis Khan, Julius Caesar, F John Kennedy, Winston Churchill, Albert Einstein, Leonardo Da Vinci, Socrates, have left an indelible impression on our civilisation. They are remembered not only for their achievements, but for their ability to communicate their leadership to others. Leadership that inspired, and motivated, their followers to great achievements.

Some leaders rely on the power of their position, or fear. Others rely on their power of persuasion. Versatile leaders rely on both the power of their position, and persuasion, as the situation demands.

Leaders exist only by their ability to communicate. The medium is the message! Leadership is the message. A message determined by the medium in which a leader chooses to communicate that message e.g. aggressive, cooperative, facilitating, can’t miss, etc.

One-dimensional leadership that uses the power-of-position only, is destructive. One-dimensional leadership discourages the personal growth of other’s, denies them fulfilment, and responsibility, does nothing for their self-esteem. Power-of-position leadership negatively motivates by anxiety, implied threat, and fear for a person’s performance review, employment, and career should they not comply with their leader’s commands.

Persuasive, versatile, leadership encourages personal growth, fulfilment, responsibility and self-esteem. Versatile leadership motivates by example of the ‘right’ attitude. The ‘right’ leadership attitude, of feelings, emotions, beliefs, and values, that permits the leaders information to enter the mind of the other person, and influence, motivate and predict his, or her, behaviour.

You have probably met a person with the same attitude as yourself. You instinctively like that person. Your information, your reasoning, your leadership, is readily allowed to enter that person’s mind. You talk easily, freely, together. Words have the same meanings and implications, for both of you. Trust is almost spontaneous. Your message, your sales, your negotiation, your leadership, your friendship, is most effective in motivating that other person’s self-esteem, and confidence, to achieve your objective.

On the other hand when you meet a person with different attitudes to yourself, your information, your leadership, your persuasion, meets barriers, and is refused entry into that person’s mind, it is ignored and cannot motivate him, or her, in the way you want. You have nothing in common to discuss!

As a versatile leader your awareness recognises, and adopts, the other person’s attitude, to ensure your leadership is permitted to enter that person’s mind, inspire and self-motivate him, or her, to achieve your objective for his, or her, reasons, not yours.

What are the attitudes of a versatile leader? Watch a good leader. Look for his, or her, situational awareness as they deftly adopt different attitudes to motivate different people in changing situations. These situations include:

1. Organising Others: to achieve the objective uses attitudes of: accommodating – compromising – complimenting – conciliatory – moderate – prescribing – prescriptive – resistant

2. Engaging with Others: to achieve the objective uses attitudes of: collaborative – conferring – experimental – conciliatory – facilitative – prescribing – prescriptive – what ‘if’

3. Motivating Others: to achieve the objective uses attitudes of: authoritative – “can-do” – “can’t miss” – confronting – emphatic – persuasive – single – minded – visionary

How many Leadership attitudes do you use?

The greater the number of leadership attitudes you adopt (without self-stress), the more effective your leadership. Your leadership readily self-motivates a greater number of people, with its vision, drive, planning, and commitment to achieve your objective.

The fewer the number of leadership attitudes you adopt without stress, the less effective your leadership. Your leadership is less effective in motivating others to achieve your vision, drive, commitment, planning and objective.

Your culture of Leadership Attitudes significantly influences the situational quality of your leadership.

Versatile leaders Culture of Leadership attitudes (without self-stress), that spreads across all three culture groups, of organising, engaging, and motivating, have significant advantages when leading, and motivating people to change, and to succeed in our increasingly complex and fast changing world

On the other hand, leaders whose culture of attitudes is confined to one culture group are hobbled by self-stress, have difficulty in leading and dealing with change. Their self-stress can increase, spark, or spontaneously combust into ineffective, inappropriate, or even counter-productive leadership decisions and attitudes.

Everyone has attitude? Effective leaders lead with the ‘right’ attitude. The more attitudes in your quiver, the better your leadership.

Harry Wolfe. Grad. Dip. Org. Behav. FAICD.

[http://www.managementdynamics.info]

Management Dynamics International, Geier Profiles translate intangible motivatation into validated fact. They examine beliefs, values to describe, psychologically measure, benchmark & validate: attitudes, behaviour, leadership, ability to manage change, organisatuion culture, to predict a person’s job performance, future potential, and culture ‘fit’.

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Leadership

Authentic Leadership – A Personal Philosophy

“I am your servant. I do not come to you as a leader, as one above others.”

These words were uttered by Nelson Mandela several years ago, and serve as an important reminder of how one individual maintained his dignity and integrity while being incarcerated for 27 years as a political prisoner in South Africa. Mandela’s own leadership journey continues to serve as an inspiration to people around the world. His ability to rise above the inhumane treatment from his jailers and others in positions of power at the time reflect authentic leadership.

The purpose of this article is to share some of what I have learned over 15 years as a student of leadership, and to challenge the reader to take the time in the weeks ahead to reflect on their own personal leadership and to ask themselves the question: Am I an authentic leader?

I have studied the question of what do we mean by the word ‘leadership’ over a long period of time. Is it something that each of us can develop, or is it the domain of only a few. Many writers on the subject argue that leadership can be learned. I’m not quick, however, to reject the older school view that leadership is something with which people are born. For example, it was Aristotle who made the comment: “From the moment of their birth, some are marked for subjugation, and others for command.”

Many of the contemporary thinkers on leadership reject that leaders are born. But I believe that this is what I’ll call the pendulum effect, in which people jump onto a new theory after abandoning an older one. Now, it’s argued that everyone can be developed into a leader.

I’ve identified an approach to address the issue of who possesses leadership in an organization or a community. It consists of two types of leadership: Big L and Little L. My personal view is that only a few of us will ever have the dynamic leadership behaviors and skills to lead organizations, private, public or non-profit, large or small, or the populace of a country, state or province. Only a few of us have what it takes to be a Big L leader.

What propelled people like Winston Churchill, Mohandas Gandhi, Golda Meir, Margaret Thatcher, and Nelson Mandela to be world-class leaders? For those who are sports-minded, consider the great athletes like Bobby Orr, Billy Jean King, Wayne Gretsky, or Mohammed Ali. Or how about such vocalists as Aretha Franklin, Céline Dionne, or Beverly Sills?

These individuals possessed an innate talent and drive that propelled them to succeed. Why do some children at a very young age show an incredible skill in a certain discipline, yet other children work hard but only attain a certain level of proficiency?

To lead an organization, especially in today’s turbulent world, requires someone with unique abilities. Some of these can be learned. But there needs to be an inner drive and vision that causes that individual to want to lead others. This raises the issue of power and status, for which many people strive in their efforts to rise to the top.

Power can be an important component of effective leadership, provided it is used properly and for the right purposes. When top leaders abuse power by controlling and manipulating their subordinates, then these are not Big L leaders. They may be good managers, but when it comes to inspiring people and leading with integrity, they fall short of achieving this.

The late Peter Drucker believed that leadership must be founded upon a constitution. Otherwise, irresponsibility will result. He made the following powerful statement some years ago:
“I am amazed that today’s prominent writers on leadership do not seem to realize that the three most charismatic leaders in all recorded history were named Hitler, Stalin and Mao. I do not believe that there are three men who did more evil and more harm. Leadership has to be grounded in responsibility. It has to be grounded in a constitution. It has to be grounded in accountability. Otherwise, it will lead to tyranny.”

Drucker was an advocate for shared leadership. He believed in employee responsibility and the need for a “self-governing community,” where individuals and teams share in many managerial activities. This brings me to the concept of Little L leadership.

This is the leadership we see displayed throughout organizations and community. It is the day-to-day acts and behaviors that people at all levels engage in. However, there are those who just are not interested in showing leadership behaviors, or at least for the time being. That’s okay. Some of them will gradually come on board, while others will continue to want to be led by their peers and managers. This brings to mind a quotation from physicist David Bohm: “The ability to perceive or think differently is more important than the knowledge gained.”

This is a key point to remember when reflecting on our personal leadership styles and potentials.
It comes down to each of us being authentic in how we conduct ourselves. We need to strip off the facades we wear and own up to our weaknesses, limitations and warts. When we’re honest and open with ourselves and others, we gain greater confidence and self-respect, plus respect from others. Be true to yourself and others will be true to you.

I’ll share a personal example. When I was in my early 30s I was promoted to manager of a team of economists. While I had the technical skills and knew the work, I had zero management training. Because of my own insecurities and wanting to do a good job, I became a bit of a micro manager. That was until a couple of the young economists straightened me out. It took a while but I learned to eventually let go and share the leadership within my branch. I was still the managerial leader, but the people with whom I worked certainly took a lot of initiative and consistently demonstrated leadership in their own ways. There’s no magic formula or cookie cutter approach to this. Each of us has to find our own way. In my case, I had to fall on my nose a number of times.

Here are three questions you may wish to reflect on when it comes to developing your leadership skills:

1. What are my strengths and weaknesses? (Be honest with yourself)
2. What do I need to do to be more adventurous and risk-taking?
3. How can I inspire others to want to work towards a common purpose?

I’ll share one piece of advice, something I’ve learned: If you want to inspire others (an essential part of leadership), you need to be passionate about your cause.

I recall watching a PBS program a few years ago that looked at the head surgeon of an emergency room in a large US city. As you can imagine, an ER can be an extremely hectic and stressful place in which to work. People have to know their duties and understand the interdependency of their efforts.

What struck me most about watching the surgeon (a middle age Black man) was his calmness in dealing with highly stressful situations in the midst of chaos – multiple victims of car accidents and victims with gunshot wounds. As he stated to the journalist: “My staff look at me to keep it together. If I lose it, they lose it.” When his shift finished, where did he go? Home? No, he went to do volunteer work with inner city Black children. For me, this man showed exemplary leadership. But this prompts the question: was this Black man born as a natural leader, or did he develop his leadership skills over time?

Each of us needs to see our personal quest for leadership as one that first starts with the discovery of who each of us really is. We need:

To know ourselves,
To hear ourselves,
To tell the truth to ourselves,
To be honest with ourselves.

Once we address these questions and reexamine our values and beliefs, we’ll be ready to move forward in our leadership journey. Yes, leadership skills can be learned. But the first step is a process in which we look inside ourselves.

This journey is a very personal and private one. We may or may not to wish to share with others along the way. However, one thing needs to be clear and that is every leader must go though it.

Authors Kouzes and Posner express this beautifully when they state:
“You can’t elevate others to higher purposes until you’ve first elevated yourself….You can’t lead others until you’ve first led yourself through a struggle with opposing values….A leader with integrity has one self, at home and at work, with family and with colleagues. Such a leader has a unifying set of values that guide choices of action regardless of the situation.”

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Leadership

The Leadership Strategy: An Unmined Comstock Lode of Results

During the Second World War, Winston Churchill had a framed inscription on his desk that said, “It’s not enough to say we are doing our best. We must succeed in doing what is necessary.”

The world demands results. Good intentions and promises are no use to it. And one of the best ways for any leader to get results is to employ a strategy, which is a plan, method or series of actions for obtaining a goal or specific outcome. It doesn’t matter what job you have or how many people you are leading, if you don’t come to grips with the challenges of developing and executing strategies, you’re limiting your abilities to get results.

In a sense, strategies are promissory notes, payment due upon demand. One reason for their becoming less than worthy tender is they are not backed by a Leadership Strategy.

Leadership Strategy — have you heard of it? I bet you haven’t. For one thing, it isn’t taught at business schools. And for another, even in the unlikely case that you have heard of it and know what it is, you probably don’t know how to make it happen.

In this article, I’ll show you what a Leadership Strategy is and ways to institute it. It can be far more important than your standard business strategy.

Whereas a business strategy seeks to marshal an organization’s functions around central, organizing concepts, a leadership strategy, on the other hand, seeks to obtain, organize, and direct the heartfelt commitment of the people who must carry out the business strategy.

The business strategy is the sail, the Leadership Strategy the ballast. Without a Leadership Strategy, most business strategies capsize.

To understand what a Leadership Strategy is, let’s look at your past leadership activities.

Divide a single sheet of paper into two columns labeled A & B. At the top of column A write “business (or organizational) strategies”. On top of column B write, “Leadership Strategies” — in other words, what strategies were used to obtain people’s heartfelt commitments to carry out the business strategies?

Think of the strategies your organization has developed during the past few years. They might be product strategies, service strategies, growth strategies, sales strategies, marketing strategies. You do not have to explain it in detail, just give each strategy a tag and write down the tag.

Did the listings in column A match the listings in column B? Were there any listings at all in column B? That gap between what was in column A and what was in column B is a killer gap. It means that the business strategies haven’t been augmented by Leadership Strategies. And when that happens, results suffer.

I don’t care if you lead three people, three hundred or three thousand and more. I don’t care if you’re in sales, you’re a plant supervisor, a marketing manager or a COO, CFO or CEO. You’re going to need a Leadership Strategy.

And if you don’t think you need any kind of strategy, think again. Whatever job you’re doing takes strategic thinking. In fact, getting in the habit of looking at whatever you do in strategic terms gives you a great advantage in your career advancement.

The roots of the word “strategy” come from two German words, the first meaning an encamped or spread out army and then second word meaning “to drive.” In other words, a strategy gives direction, organization and force to an otherwise scattered organization.

Most business leaders are good a developing business strategies. They’re taught how at business schools. But I’ll bet that 9,999 out of 10,000 leaders don’t know what a Leadership Strategy is, let alone how it fits in with a business strategy.

Leadership Strategies are not taught at business schools because such Strategies find their meaning not in abstract formulations or case studies but in what can’t be taught but must be experienced, process and relationship.

And if you haven’t thought of a Leadership Strategy before, start thinking about it now, because it can boost your career in many ways.
Most leaders develop their strategies in bunkers, without taking into consideration those outside the bunker who have to implement it. Unwittingly, they buy into the “fallacy of automatic reciprocity” — the conviction that their devotion to the cause is automatically reciprocated by the people they lead. It’s a fallacy because reciprocity is not automatic. It can’t be ordered. It must be cultivated and earned.

Here, then, are five steps to developing a Leadership Strategy.

(1) Understand your business strategy. There are many books and courses on developing business strategies. I don’t want to re-invent this wheel. Suffice to say you should clearly develop that strategy.

(2) Identify the dream(s) of your cause leaders.

Why do I say “dreams”? Far from being fluff, dreams are the stuff that hard, measured results are made of.

Look at it this way: Leadership is motivational or it’s stumbling in the dark. The best leaders don’t order people to do a job, the best leaders motivate people to want to do the job.

The trouble is the vast majority of leaders don’t delve into the deep aspects of human motivation and so are unable to motivate people effectively.

Drill down through goals and aims and aspirations and ambitions and you hit the bedrock of motivation, the dream. Many leaders fail to take it into account.

Dreams are not goals and aims. Goals are the results toward which efforts are directed. The realization of a dream might contain goals, which can be stepping stones on the way to the attaining dreams. But the attainment of a goal does not necessarily result in the attainment of a dream.

For instance, Martin Luther King did not say, “I have a goal.” Or “I have an aim.” The power of that speech was in the “I have a dream”.

Dreams are not aspirations and ambitions. Aspirations and ambitions are strong desires to achieve something. King didn’t say he had an aspiration or ambition that ” ….one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.'” He said he had a dream.

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Leadership

Get Out Of The Stone Age: Give Leadership Talks

160 years ago, the newly invented electric telegraph carried
the first news message. The message zipped 40 miles in a flash over wires from Baltimore to Washington, D.C.

The public was dazzled — except Henry David Thoreau. He wrote: “We are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas; but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to communicate.”

Today, we live in a Golden Age of communication. We have the Internet. We have faxes. We have e-mails. We have streaming video. We have on-line audio. We have RSS feeds. We have logs and blogs.

Yet today Thoreau is as right as rain. When it comes to really getting our messages across, we’re stuck in the Stone Age.

Here’s why. The vast majority of business leaders I’ve encountered are repeatedly making a huge mistake in communication, a mistake that’s screwing up their jobs and careers. They’re stuck giving presentations and speeches. They’re NOT giving Leadership Talks!

What’s a Leadership Talk? Look at it this way: There’s a hierarchy of verbal persuasion when it comes to business leadership. The lowest levels are speeches and presentations. They communicate information. The highest, most effective way of communicating is the Leadership Talk. The Leadership Talk does more than simply send information. It has the leader establish a deep, human, emotional connection with the audience. That’s where leaders communicate for the best results.

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 all leaders everywhere no matter what their function or rank. 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.

That’s where business leaders communicate for the best results. You can order people to go from point A to point B. But the best way to get great results is to have people want to go from A to B. Instilling “want to” in others, motivating them … isn’t that what great leadership is all about?

Don’t get me wrong. The Leadership Talk is not some kind of “feel-good” way of relating. It took me 20 years to figure out how to give Leadership Talks and write two books about it. There are specific processes one must manifest in order to give Leadership Talks. Usually it takes me two full days to teach people how to do it. Once they learn it, they can use it throughout the rest of their careers. The Leadership Talk is relatively easy to learn and it takes years to master. The point is that through it, you can take specific, concrete steps to motivate people to take action that gets great results.

For instance, before leaders can develop and deliver a Leadership Talk, they must first answer “yes” to three simple questions: “Do you know what the audience needs? Can you transfer your deep believe to others so they believe as strongly as you do about the challenges you face? And can you have that audience take ardent action that gets results?” If leaders “no” to any one of those questions, he/she can’t give a Leadership Talk.

160 years ago the dots and dashes that chattered down the wires from Baltimore to Washington spelled out that the Whigs had nominated Henry Clay to run for the presidency.

Back then, Thoreau might have said nothing important was communicated; but today if you want to lead for great results, take Thoreau to heart. Communicate what truly IS important. Don’t give presentations and speeches. Give Leadership Talks. Forge those deep, human, emotional connections with your audiences. Get them motivated to take ardent action for great results.

2005 © The Filson Leadership Group, Inc. All rights reserved.

PERMISSION TO REPUBLISH: This article may be republished in newsletters and on web sites provided attribution is provided to the author, and it appears with the included copyright, resource box and live web site link. Email notice of intent to publish is appreciated but not required: mail to: brent@actionleadership.com

The author of 23 books, Brent Filson’s recent books are, THE LEADERSHIP TALK: THE GREATEST LEADERSHIP TOOL and 101 WAYS TO GIVE GREAT LEADERSHIP TALKS. He is founder and president of The Filson Leadership Group, Inc. – and for more than 20 years has been helping leaders of top companies worldwide get audacious results. Sign up for his free leadership e-zine at http://www.actionleadership.com and get a free white paper: “49 Ways To Turn Action Into Results.” For more about The Leadership Talk: [http://theleadershiptalk.com]

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