I’ve heard many definitions of leadership.
Leadership is getting a team to produce a positive result that would not have happened had you not been there.
But here is my favorite one –
Leadership is accomplishing the goals of the organization by BRINGING OUT THE BEST in other people and IMPROVING THE CHANCES of DOING EVEN BETTER tomorrow.
Let’s look at it a little closer.
Accomplishing the goals of the organization. First, you have to know what they are. Clarity. Then you have to get the team to accomplish them using the available resources.
“By bringing out the best in other people”. To me, exploiting your employees is not an option. If a leader makes his people do things that make them miserable, and keeps them doing those things by threat, “force”, or coercion, they will not be happy campers. And that is a failure of leadership. Of course, people may be unhappy for other reasons. They may be spoiled, soft, entitled, or something else – but that is a failure of long-term leadership. A good leader brings out the best in spirit, attitude, and effort from the people on their team as a result of how they are treated and communicated to.
“And improve the chances of doing even better tomorrow”. This means that the leader didn’t burn employees, customers, reputation, or key resources to win, and hurt the chances of winning tomorrow. If I keep my people who are now more experienced and work well together, we are set up to do well tomorrow. If I am not in unreasonable debt, it will be easier tomorrow.
Good leadership, in most cases, requires long-term thinking.
That’s a great post, Larry. I copied it and made a reoccurring reminder in my phone to review. Also, I am very appreciative for Bob Vanasdale, who transformed our accounting department (with the help of Lisa Buccino and Wendy Weiss).
I like this definition, too. The daily whirlwind makes it easy for leaders to fall into the trap of short-term thinking, but they must play the long game.
I like to draw the analogy of a good leader to a good sports coach. The great college football coaches are able to consistently win time after time. And this while having to utilize people who are not fully focused on the task at hand. They play sports but they also have schooling and life in general to deal with. The coach gets a maximum of four years per person to turn them into a winner and make a winning team. In business four years is nothing if it’s your life’s work. If coaches can become consistent winners in four years or less then we should be able to do it in business by taking a few pointers from them. Like you mentioned the first step is knowing the goal or goals. We must be absolutely clear what winning looks like and make sure our people know too. Then we identify the strengths of each person and where the fit into the grand scheme. We then coach each person in their particular strength so that they build that strength to be even greater. We provide them with all necessary support, tools and equipment so that they will be successful. We write out action plans and then we execute them, analyze them and revise as needed to improve results. Those are just a few of the things good coaches do and there are many more. There is a lot we can learn from the greats!
Leadership takes more responsibility than authority and that is what many people miss and they fall in the category of “manager” as opposed to leader. There is a great saying in sports, “Players win and coaches lose” and I think that sums up a leader in one great humble quote.