Click here to return to Blog Post Intro
What Everyone Wants to Know About Leadership
The workforce has changed from what previous generations knew, becoming increasingly diverse, multicultural, dispersed, horizontal, and distributed—and, consequently, requiring more collaboration than competition.
Renowned leadership educator Ken Blanchard helped respond to a question, “I don’t know what you call something that’s been the same twenty-five years, but…,” when he interrupted, exclaiming, “I’d call it the truth.”
In 2008 and 2009, Kouzes and Posner analyzed over one million responses to their Leadership Practices Inventory from over seventy countries. From the data, they explore ten fundamental truths about leadership and becoming an effective leader. Consider these truths:
- You Make a Difference is the most fundamental truth of all.
- Credibility Is the Foundation of Leadership: You have to believe in you, but others have to believe in you, too.
- Values Drive Commitment: People want to know what you stand for and believe in.
- Focusing on the Future Sets Leaders Apart: The capacity to imagine and articulate exciting future possibilities is a defining competence of leaders.
- You Can’t Do It Alone: No leader ever got anything extraordinary done without the talent and support of others. Leadership is a team sport.
- Trust Rules: Trust is the social glue that holds individuals and groups together.
- Challenge Is the Crucible for Greatness: Exemplary leaders—the kind of leaders people want to follow—are always associated with changing the status quo.
- You Either Lead by Example or You Don’t Lead at All: Leaders have to keep their promises and become role models for the values and actions they espouse.
- The Best Leaders Are The Best Learners: Leaders are constant improvement fanatics, and learning is the master skill of leadership.
- Leadership Is an Affair the Heart: Leaders are in love with their constituents, their customers and clients, and the mission they are serving. Love is the motivation that energizes leaders to give so much for others.
Truth #1: You Make a Difference
Everything you will ever do as a leader is based on one audacious assumption. It’s the assumption that you matter.
It has become crystal clear that leadership is not a birthright. It’s not about position or title. It’s not about power or authority. And it’s most assuredly not about some charismatic gift.
Leadership is not about who you are or where you come from. It’s about what you do.
Data on Leader Role Models
| Role Model Category | Respondent Age Category | |
| 18-30 | Over 30 | |
| Family Member | 40% | 46% |
| Teacher or Coach | 26% | 14% |
| Community or Religious | 11% | 8% |
| Business Leader | 7% | 23% |
| Political Leader | 4% | 4% |
| Professional Athlete | 3% | 0% |
| Entertainer | 2% | 0% |
You should notice that leadership role models are the people you know well and who know you well. They’re the leaders you’re closest to and who are closest to you.
The leader who has the most influence over our desire to stay or leave, your commitment to the organization’s vision and values, your ethical decisions and actions, your treatment of customers, your ability to your job well, and the direction of your career, to name but a few outcomes, is your most immediate manager.
The Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership is the model of best practices leadership that emerged from the research conducted by Kouzes and Posner in the 1980’s. These five practices (not “laws” or “principles”) are:
- Model the Way
- Inspire a Shared Vision
- Challenge the Process
- Enable Others to Act
- Encourage the Heart
Truth #2: Credibility is the Foundation of Leadership
This is the inescapable conclusion after thirty years of asking people around the world what they look for and admire in a leader, it is someone whose direction they would willingly follow.
Leadership is a relationship between those who aspire to lead and those who choose to follow. You can’t have one without the other.
Only four qualities have continuously received an average of over 60 percent of the votes. Before anyone is going to willingly follow you—or any other leader—he or she wants to know that you are honest, forward-looking, inspiring, and competent.
- Being honest means telling the truth and having ethical principles and clear standards by which you live.
- Being forward-looking is not just your vision that others care to know. They also expect that you’ll be able to connect your image of the future to their hopes, dreams, and aspirations. People won’t willingly follow you until they see how they share in the future you envision.
- Being inspiring means sharing genuine enthusiasm, excitement, and energy you have about the exciting possibilities ahead. People expect you to be positive, upbeat and optimistic. Your energy signals your personal commitment, and your optimism signals your hope.
- Being competent refers to your track record and your ability to get things done.
Credibility ties it all together.
Here is the Kouzes-Posner First Law of Leadership: If you don’t believe in the messenger, you won’t believe the message.
If leaders live up to exemplary standards, the organization experiences a constant elevation of strong leadership as senior leaders pull their constituents upward toward similar standards.
But what is credibility behaviorally? The universally common refrain is “They do what they say they will do.”
Arthur Taute, a registered professional engineer and most recently CEO of Vela VKE (South Africa), said, “Leadership means being absolutely honest and helping others to do as I do, not simply to do what I say.”
The Kouzes-Posner Second Law of Leadership: DWYSYWD, or Do What You Say You Will Do.
Wesley Lord learned from his own personal best leadership experience as the coxswain for the local rowing club. “I would never ask them to do something I wouldn’t be willing to do myself.”
Truth #3: Values Drive Commitment
There is far more to a leader than his resume—the work history, titles he’s had, and positions he’s held.
You can’t fully commit to something that doesn’t fit with who you are and how you see yourself.
Arlene Blum, the leader of the first all-women’s team to ascend Annapurna, says, “As long as you believe what you’re doing is meaningful, you can cut through the fear and exhaustion and take the next step.”
To act with integrity, you must first see clearly. The more light you shine on what you stand for, what you believe in, and what you care about, the more clearly you’ll see those road signs pointing in the direction you want to go.
Carlo Argiolas with Medtronic in Italy explained, “The first step is to make clear your own personal values and the second step is to listen to others and to observe others in order to understand their values and aspirations. The last step is to communicate and paint a vision that everyone in the proper context can recognize as his or her own vision.”
There seems to be this myth about leadership that what you are supposed to do is ascend the mountain, gain enlightenment, descend with the tablets, and then proclaim the truth to your followers. Nothing could be more damaging to the work of a leader. Leadership is more often about listening than telling.
Truth #4: Focusing on the Future Sets Leaders Apart
Leaders are custodians of the future. They are concerned about tomorrow’s world and those who will inherit it. They ask, “What’s new? What’s next?”
Being forward-looking is second only to being honest as their most admired leader quality. On average, 70% of respondents select it. In Asia, Europe, and Australia, the preference for forward-looking is several percentage points higher than it is in the United States.
Being forward-looking is nowhere near the top of the list for colleagues. It was selected by only 27% of respondents, whereas 70% of those same respondents want it in a leader—a difference of 43%!
Front-line leaders are expected to anticipate events only about three months down the road. Middle-level managers often need to look three to five years into the future. Those in the executive suite must focus on a horizon that’s ten or more years away.
Crossing the chasm from individual contributor to leader requires fully embracing the need to develop the capacity to envision the future. And how does a new leader develop the capacity to be forward-looking? The answer is deceptively simple: spending more time in the future. You have to carve out more time each week to peering into the distance and imagining what might be out there.
Here’s a dose of reality: Researchers tell us that most top executives only spend about 3% of their time thinking about, and getting others on board with, the critical issues that will shape their businesses ten or more years down the road.
One leader said, “I’m my organization’s futures department.” All leaders should view themselves this way.
In tough economic times, things get very tactical and focused on survival and how decisions become very pragmatic. It is your job as a leader to lift people’s sights and lift people’s spirits.
University of Southern California professor and leadership guru Warren Bennis suggests that “for leaders in today’s and tomorrow’s business climate” the appropriate motto is: “only the optimists survive.”
Being optimistic doesn’t mean failing to face up to reality, hardship, and the struggles associated with getting extraordinary things accomplished.
Your outlook on the future, and on life in general, strongly influences you and your group’s success. In order to reach the top of that distant summit, you need to be optimistic, zestful, and energetic.
Truth #5: You Can’t Do It Alone
In 2009 in Hong Kong, Eric Pan, regional head of Chartered Institute of Management Accountants in South China, said, “No matter how capable a leader is, he or she alone won’t be able to deliver a large project or program without the joint efforts and synergies that come from the team.”
No leader single-handedly ever gets anything extraordinary done.
While there are several hundred definitions of leadership in the academic literature, the simplest way to know is just to look to see whether that person has followers.
The Center for Creative Leadership found that the critical success factor for the top three jobs in organizations is “relationships with subordinates.”
In Primal Leadership, Daniel Goleman, Richard Boyatzis, and Annie McKee wrote, “The leader acts as the group’s emotional guide.” They go on to say that the primordial task of leadership is “driving the collective emotions in a positive direction and clearing the emotional smog created by toxic emotions.”
You have to know your constituents, and you have to speak to them in language they will find engaging. It’s got to be something that they care about as much as, or even more than, you do.
Truly inspirational leadership is not about selling a vision; it’s about showing people how the vision can directly benefit them and how their specific needs can be satisfied.
What people really want to hear is not the leader’s vision. They want to hear about how their own aspirations will be met. They want to hear how their dreams will come true and their hopes will be realized. The very best leaders understand that it’s about inspiring a shared vision.
The best leaders take actions that make people strong and capable. They make people feel that they can do more than they thought they could.
Rather than thinking you have all the answers, you need to be able to ask great questions. Great questions send people on pioneering journeys in their minds. (See my summary of John Maxwell’s Good Leaders Ask Great Questions or Edgar Schein’s Humble Inquiry.)
Leaders alone don’t make anything great. Leadership is a shared responsibility. You need others, and they need you.
Truth #6: Trust Rules
In a 2009 international study, the majority of people said that they trust a stranger more than they trust their boss.
High-trust organizations have been shown to outperform low-trust organizations by 286% in total return to shareholders. High trust led to greater acceptance of group member interdependence, more cooperation, and enhanced information flow among all group members.
There’s a positive relationship between risk and trust. The more people trust, the more they’ll risk.
Research has shown that a few key behaviors contribute to whether or not others perceive you as trustworthy. Here are four actions to keep in mind:
- Behave predictably and consistently. When you are reliable and others know they can count on you, then your words and actions will have greater power to influence them.
- Communicate clearly. When you make statements about your intentions, you need to be aware that to others these same statements are viewed as promises.
- Treat promises seriously. The more seriously you treat your own commitments, the more seriously others will treat them.
- Be forthright and candid. When you are forthright and don’t deceive others, they will have less reason to be angry or deceive you in return.
Trust is the best antidote to cynicism and the most potent anti-Dilbert vaccine around.
In their book Building the High-Trust Organization, Pam Shockley-Zalabak, Sherry Morreale, and Michael Hackman describe the need to replace the traditional “need to know” mentality with a “need to share” approach. They explain, “A ‘need to share’ approach signals trust by providing access and response to information whether receivers have an immediate ‘need’ for the information or not. The ‘need to share’ approach provides information employees need in a timely and useful manner. A ‘need to share’ approach stimulates employees at all organizational levels to communicate information critical for problem solving, change, and innovation.”
When there is an information vacuum, people will make up their own answers. And these answers are more likely to be negative and cynical than to be the truth.
CHA, a U.K.-based consultancy, found that 90% of employees who are kept fully informed are motivated to deliver added value by staying with a company longer and working harder, while 80% of those who are kept in the dark are not.
Organizations with effective communication are 4.5 times more likely to report high levels of employee engagement than their counterparts.
Openness is one of the major drivers of trust, and sharing information is one of the major ways that you express your openness with others and signal your trust in them.
Truth #7: Challenge is the Crucible for Greatness
The personal best leadership cases are about triumphs over adversity, departures from the past, about doing things that had never been done before, about going places not yet discovered. They are all about challenge and change.
As the late John Gardner, advisor to four U.S. presidents and founder of Common Cause, was fond of saying, “What we have before us are some breathtaking opportunities disguised as insoluble problems.”
Leadership and challenge are simple inseparable.
Leaders see open doors while others see brick walls. Leaders seize the opportunities that hide inside adversities. They take the initiative to move things forward.
What decisions and actions do you and others control? What factors are in your control, and how can you all stay focused on them?
In reflecting back on the challenging experiences that people wrote about in their personal bests—and the challenging experiences that characterized the admired historical leaders—it is very clear that grit played a role. Leaders and constituents alike felt passionately committed to a cause, and they were willing to suffer through the tough times that came along with doing something difficult and demanding.
Mark Linsky, former Hewlett-Packard manager, now on the national board of AYSO (American Youth Soccer Organization), explained one of the central lessons of his career, “Leaders improve because they make mistakes. They view feedback as a gift that helps them to learn how to get even better the next time around. For leaders, learning needs to be a continual process.”
To deal with setbacks and to bounce back from mistakes, you need grit. You also need to find ways to learn from failure, knowing that it’s one of the best teachers you can have.
Truth #8: You Either Lead By Example or You Don’t Lead At All
Jazz virtuoso Dizzy Gillespie once said, “That trumpet is lying in the case every day, waiting for me.” In the same sense, leadership is waiting for you every day.
In the final analysis, leadership is about playing that instrument called “you.”
Do What You Say You Will Do (DWYSYWD) means walk the talk, practice what you preach, put your money where your mouth is, and follow through on your promises. Your actions had better be consistent with your words. In the final analysis, people believe what you do over what you say.
Alan Deutschman writes in his book Walk the Talk, “Leaders have only two tools at their disposal: what they say and how they act. What they say might be interesting, but how they act is always crucial.”
“Actions speak louder than words” is wise counsel to live by.
Cornell professor Tony Simons has investigated the “behavioral integrity”—his term for doing what you say you will do—of managers and has found that organizations “where employees strongly believe [that] their managers followed through on promises and demonstrated the values they preached were substantially more profitable than those whose managers score average or lower” on being role models.
A willingness on your part to admit mistakes sets a positive example for others. By showing others that you’re willing to acknowledge that you’ve screwed up, you make it easier and permissible for others to do the same.
On the Leadership Practices Inventory—the 360-degree leadership assessment tool—the statement on which leaders consistently score the lowest is “asks for feedback on how my actions affect other people’s performance.”
It’s your job as a leader to keep asking others, “How am I doing?” If you don’t ask, they’re not likely to tell you. You need to go first in setting the example for others.
Your word is only as good as your actions.
When you make a mistake, admit it. Admitting your mistakes and shortcomings goes a long way toward building up people’s confidence in your integrity. It gives them one more important reason to put their trust in you.
Truth #9: The Best Leaders Are The Best Learners
Melissa Poe Hood said, “Everything you need to be a successful leader you already have: your intelligence to see an issue and a way to fix it, your heart to stay motivated, and your courage not to give up.”
Are leaders born or made? Leadership is not preordained. It is not a gene, and it is not a trait. Leadership can be learned. It is an observable pattern of practices and behaviors, and a definable set of skills and abilities.
People who participate in leadership development programs observe that they improve over time. They learn to be better leaders as long as they engage in activities that help them learn how.
You have to be willing to devote yourself to continuous learning and deliberate practice. No matter how good you are, you can always get better.
Which comes first, learning or leading? Learning comes first. When people are predisposed to be curious and want to learn something new, they are much more likely to get better at it than those who don’t become fully engaged. More is more when it comes to learning.
Researchers Bob Eichinger, Mike Lombardo, and Dave Ulrich report that in their studies the single best predictor of future success in new and different managerial jobs is learning agility. As they define it, “Learning agility is the ability to reflect on experience and then engage in new behaviors based on those reflections. Learning agility requires self-confidence to honestly examine oneself, self-awareness to seek feedback and suggestions, and self-discipline to engage in new behaviors.”
In study after study, researchers have found that, when working on simulated business problems, those individuals with fixed mindsets gave up more quickly and performed more poorly than those with growth mindsets. The same is true for kids in school, athletes on the playing field, teachers in the classroom, and partners in relationships. Mindsets and not skill sets make the critical difference in taking on challenging situations.
Florida State University professor and noted authority on expertise K. Anders Ericsson makes this point, “Until most individuals recognize that sustained training and effort is a prerequisite for reaching expert levels of performance, they will continue to misattribute lesser achievement to the lack of natural gifts, and will thus fail to reach their own potential.”
What truly differentiates the expert performers from the good performers is hours of practice. If you want a rough metric of what it takes to achieve the highest levels of expertise, the estimate is about 10,000 hours of practice over a period of ten years. That’s about 2.7 hours a day, every day, for ten years!
You won’t find a fast track to excellence. There’s no such thing as instant expertise.
Researchers are clear that not all practice makes perfect. You need a particular kind of practice—“deliberate practice”—to develop expertise. Deliberate practice has five elements:
- It is designed specifically to improve performance, which means there is a methodology and there is a very clear goal.
- It has to be repeated a lot. It must be done over and over and over again until it’s automatic.
- Feedback on results must be continuously available. Openness to feedback, especially negative feedback, is characteristic of the best learners, and it’s something all leaders, especially aspiring ones, need to cultivate.
- It is highly demanding mentally. Developing expertise requires intense concentration and focus.
- It isn’t all that much fun. While you should absolutely love what you do, deliberate practice is not designed to be fun. It’s like they say in sports, “no pain, no gain.” Save the fun for after the practice session.
Studies of top performers strongly suggest that you have to have a supportive environment in order to develop expertise. A supportive family is very common in the stories of world-class performers. Supportive colleagues at work are critical.
You need to surround yourself with people who are going to offer you encouraging words when you try something new, understanding and patience when you fail, and helpful suggestions as you try to learn from mistakes.
If you want to be the best leader you can be, you will have to attend to your weaknesses. You can’t delegate or assign others those skills you aren’t good at. If you do, you’ll only become as good as your weakest skill.
Truth #10: Leadership Is An Affair Of The Heart
There’s a prevailing myth that managers are supposed to divorce their emotions from a situation and approach things purely rationally. Every time you hear the phrase, “It’s not personal, it’s just business,” you already know that the person has detached him- or herself from whatever he or she might be feeling.
Research indicates that the highest performing managers and leaders are the most open and caring.
Love is the soul of leadership. Love is what sustains people along the arduous journey to the summit of any mountain. Love is the source of the leader’s courage. Leaders are in love: in love with leading, in love with their organizations’ products and services, and in love with people.
Exemplary leaders do not place themselves at the center; they place others there.
They do not focus on satisfying their own aims and desires; they look for ways to respond to the needs and interests of their constituents. “Servant leadership” is what many have called this relationship, wherein the task of leaders is to serve others.
Nearly 50% of administrative professionals say that having a “bad boss” would be the most important factor in a decision to leave their jobs. Compare that with only 4% who indicate that they would leave their jobs because of poor pay or the 2% who would leave because of poor benefits.
Making other people the center of your attention tells them that you feel they’re important, it tells them that you regard their input as useful, and it tells them that you value their ideas.
Formal and informal recognitions are another visible way to show you care.
One of the most significant ways in which you can show others that you care and appreciate others’ efforts is to be out there with them. Walk the halls, meander around the corridors, eat in the cafeteria, listen to complaints, go to parties, attend organizational events (even when you are not on the program), and be able to tell stories about their successes. This type of visibility and availability makes you more real, more genuine, more approachable, and more human. It helps you stay in touch with what’s really going on.
People who enjoy more positivity are better able to cope with adversities and are more resilient during times of high stress.
In related studies of other interpersonal relationships, investigators have found evidence that when people experience a ratio of at least three positive emotions to one negative, they are more likely to be lasting and healthy.
Relationships—whether work, personal, or family—flourish when people experience more positive than negative emotions. Thos who experience little or no positive emotion languish and often die.
You can tell people they’re doomed and offer little to no support as they struggle to survive. Or you can give them hope. You can tell people if they apply themselves—and if they’re willing to struggle and suffer—they still overcome one day. You can tell them you have confidence in their abilities, help them to broaden their perspectives, build on their ideas, support them as they look for solutions, and recognize their contributions.
Positive energy is especially important in volatile times.
Call it the physics of leadership: positives attract, negatives repel.
Epilogue: Leaders Say Yes
Everything you do as a leader begins with one word: yes. Until you say yes, nothing great can happen.
Are you familiar with the riddle of the twelve frogs? It goes like this: Twelve frogs are sitting on a log. Twelve frogs decide to jump into the pond. How many frogs remain on the log? The answer? Twelve. Twelve frogs remain on the log because there is a clear difference between deciding to jump and jumping. If you are going to lead, you not only have to decide, but you also have to make the leap.
In May 2009, University of Connecticut President Michael Hogan addressed graduating seniors at the university’s commencement, by summarizing Stephen Colbert who said, “Say ‘yes’ as often as you can. Of course, saying ‘yes’ can lead to mistakes. So don’t be afraid to make a mistake, because, as he says, you can’t be young and wise at the same time. Saying ‘yes’ begins things. Saying ‘yes’ is how things grow. ‘Yes’ is for young people.” Colbert concludes, “And I agree. An attitude of ‘yes’ is how you will be able to go forward in uncertain times.”
Are you ready to say yes to leadership?