1、Good leadership involves responsibility to the welfare of the group,whichmeans that some people will get angry at your actions and decisions.Itsinevitable,if youre honorable.Trying to get everyone to like you is a signof mediocrity:youll avoid the tough decisions,youll avoid confronting thepeople wh
2、o need to be confronted,and youll avoid offering differentialrewards based on differential performance because some people mightget upset.Ironically,by procrastinating on the difficult choices,by tryingnot to get anyone mad,and by treating everyone equally nicely regardlessof their contributions,you
3、ll simply ensure that the only people youll windup angering are the most creative and productive people in the organization.If this were a litmus test,the majority of CEOs would fail.One,they build somany barriers to upward communication that the very idea of someone lowerin the hierarchy looking up
4、 to the leader for help is ludicrous.Two,thecorporate culture they foster often defines asking for help as weakness orfailure,so people cover up their gaps,and the organization suffers accordingly.Real leaders make themselves accessible and available.They show concernfor the efforts and challenges f
5、aced by underlings,even as they demand highstandards.Accordingly,they are more likely to create an environment whereproblem analysis replaces blame.Small companies and start-ups dont have the time for analytically detachedexperts.They dont have the money to subsidize lofty elites,either.Thepresident
6、 answers the phone and drives the truck when necessary;everyoneon the payroll visibly produces and contributes to bottom-line results or theyrehistory.But as companies get bigger,they often forget who brought them tothe dance:things like all-hands involvement,egalitarianism,informality,market intima
7、cy,daring,risk,speed,agility.Policies that emanate fromivory towers often have an adverse impact on the people out in the fieldwho are fighting the wars or bringing in the revenues.Real leaders arevigilant,and combative,in the face of these trends.Learn from the pros,observe them,seek them out as me
8、ntors and partners.But remember that even the pros may have leveled out in terms of theirlearning and skills.Sometimes even the pros can become complacent andlazy.Leadership does not emerge from blind obedience to anyone.XeroxsBarry Rand was right on target when he warned his people that if you have
9、a yes-man working for you,one of you is redundant.Good leadershipencourages everyones evolution.Strategy equals execution.All the great ideas and visions in the world areworthless if they cant be implemented rapidly and efficiently.Good leadersdelegate and empower others liberally,but they pay atten
10、tion to details,everyday.(Think about supreme athletic coaches like Jimmy Johnson,Pat Rileyand Tony La Russa).Bad ones,even those who fancy themselves as progressive visionaries,think theyre somehow above operational details.Paradoxically,good leaders understand something else:an obsessive routinein
11、 carrying out the details begets conformity and complacency,which in turndulls everyones mind.That is why even as they pay attention to details,theycontinually encourage people to challenge the process.They implicitlyunderstand the sentiment of CEO leaders like Quad Graphics HarryQuadracchi,Oticons
12、Lars Kolind and the late Bill McGowan of MCI,who allindependently asserted that the Job of a leader is not to be the chief organizer,but the chief dis-organizer.You know the expression,its easier to get forgiveness than permission.Well,its true.Good leaders dont wait for official blessing to try thi
13、ngs out.Theyreprudent,not reckless.But they also realize a fact of life in most organizations:if you ask enough people for permission,youll inevitably come up againstsomeone who believes his job is to say no.So the moral is,dont ask.Lesseffective middle managers endorsed the sentiment,If I havent ex
14、plicitly beentold yes,I cant do it,whereas the good ones believed,If I havent explicitlybeen told no,I can.Theres a world of difference between these two pointsof view.If it aint broke,dont fix it is the slogan of the complacent,the arrogant or thescared.Its an excuse for inaction,a call to non-arms
15、.Its a mind-set thatassumes(or hopes)that todays realities will continue tomorrow in a tidy,linearand predictable fashion.Pure fantasy.In this sort of culture,you wont findpeople who pro-actively take steps to solve problems as they emerge.Heresa little tip:dont invest in these companies.In a brain-
16、based economy,your best assets are people.Weve heard this expression so often that its become trite.But how many leaders really walkthe talk with this stuff?Too often,people are assumed to be empty chesspieces to be moved around by grand viziers,which may explain why so manytop managers immerse thei
17、r calendar time in deal making,restructuring andthe latest management fad.How many immerse themselves in the goal ofcreating an environment where the best,the brightest,the most creative areattracted,retained and,most importantly,unleashed?Organization charts are frozen,anachronistic photos in a wor
18、k place that oughtto be as dynamic as the external environment around you.If people reallyfollowed organization charts,companies would collapse.In well-runorganizations,titles are also pretty meaningless.At best,they advertisesome authority,an official status conferring the ability to give orders an
19、dinduce obedience.But titles mean little in terms of real power,which is thecapacity to influence and inspire.Have you ever noticed that people willpersonally commit to certain individuals who on paper(or on the organizationchart)possess little authority,but instead possess pizzazz,drive,expertise,a
20、nd genuine caring for teammates and products?On the flip side,non-leadersin management may be formally anointed with all the perks and frillsassociated with high positions,but they have little influence on others,apartfrom their ability to extract minimal compliance to minimal standards.Too often,ch
21、ange is stifled by people who cling to familiar turfs and jobdescriptions.One reason that even large organizations wither is thatmanagers wont challenge old,comfortable ways of doing things.But real leaders understand that,nowadays,every one of our jobs is becomingobsolete.The proper response is to
22、obsolete our activities before someoneelse does.Effective leaders create a climate where peoples worth is determined by their willingness to learn new skills and grab newresponsibilities,thus perpetually reinventing their jobs.The mostimportant question in performance evaluation becomes not,How well
23、did you perform your job since the last time we met?but,How muchdid you change it?Flitting from fad to fad creates team confusion,reduces the leaders credibility,and drains organizational coffers.Blindly following a particular fad generatesrigidity in thought and action.Sometimes speed to market is
24、more importantthan total quality.Sometimes an unapologetic directive is more appropriatethan participatory discussion.Some situations require the leader to hoverclosely;others require long,loose leashes.Leaders honor their core values,but they are flexible in how they execute them.They understand th
25、atmanagement techniques are not magic mantras but simply tools to bereached for at the right times.The ripple effect of a leaders enthusiasm and optimism is awesome.So is theimpact of cynicism and pessimism.Leaders who whine and blame engender those same behaviors among their colleagues.I am not tal
26、king about stoicallyaccepting organizational stupidity and performance incompetence with a what,me worry?smile.I am talking about a gung-ho attitude that says we canchange things here,we can achieve awesome goals,we can be the best.Spare me the grim litany of the realist,give me the unrealistic aspi
27、rationsof the optimist any day.How often do our recruitment and hiring processes tap into these attributes?More often than not,we ignore them in favor of length of resume,degrees andprior titles.A string of job descriptions a recruit held yesterday seem to bemore important than who one is today,what
28、 they can contribute tomorrow,orhow well their values mesh with those of the organization.You can train abright,willing novice in the fundamentals of your business fairly readily,butits a lot harder to train someone to have integrity,judgment,energy,balance,and the drive to get things done.Good lead
29、ers stack the deck in their favorright in the recruitment phase.Effective leaders understand the KISS principle,Keep It Simple,Stupid.Theyarticulate vivid,over-arching goals and values,which they use to drive dailybehaviors and choices among competing alternatives.Their visions andpriorities are lea
30、n and compelling,not cluttered and buzzword-laden.Theirdecisions are crisp and clear,not tentative and ambiguous.They convey anunwavering firmness and consistency in their actions,aligned with the pictureof the future they paint.The result:clarity of purpose,credibility of leadership,and integrity i
31、n organization.Dont take action if you have only enough information to give you less than a40 percent chance of being right,but dont wait until you have enough facts tobe 100 percent sure,because by then it is almost always too late.Today,excessive delays in the name of information-gathering breeds
32、analysisparalysis.Procrastination in the name of reducing risk actually increases risk.Too often,the reverse defines corporate culture.This is one of the mainreasons why leaders like Ken Iverson of Nucor Steel,Percy Barnevik of AseaBrown Boveri,and Richard Branson of Virgin have kept their corporate
33、 staffsto a bare-bones minimum-how about fewer than 100 central corporatestaffers for global$30 billion-plus ABB?Or around 25 and 3 for multi-billionNucor and Virgin,respectively?Shift the power and the financial accountabilityto the folks who are bringing in the beans,not the ones who are countingo
34、r analyzing them.Herb Kelleher of Southwest Air and Anita Roddick of The Body Shop wouldagree:seek people who have some balance in their lives,who are fun to hangout with,who like to laugh(at themselves,too)and who have some non-jobpriorities which they approach with the same passion that they do th
35、eir work.Spare me the grim workaholic or the pompous pretentious professional;”Ill help them find jobs with my competitor.Harry Truman was right.Whether youre a CEO or the temporary head of aproject team,the buck stops here.You can encourage participativemanagement and bottom-up employee involvement
36、,but ultimately theessence of leadership is the willingness to make the tough,unambiguouschoices that will have an impact on the fate of the organization.Ive seentoo many non-leaders flinch from this responsibility.Even as you createan informal,open,collaborative corporate culture,prepare to be lonely.
