Great Leadership Requires Sacrifice

 

People who ascend to leadership positions with the goal of furthering their own ambitions and self interests are rarely effective.  Leaders have to be willing to, and frankly will have to, sacrifice their own self interests for the sake of the people they are leading.

John C. Maxwell calls this the Law of Sacrifice.  In his landmark book The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, Maxwell states:

“There is a common misperception among people who aren’t leaders that leadership is all about the position, perks, and power that come from rising in an organization. Many people today want to climb up the corporate ladder because they believe that freedom, power, and wealth are the prizes waiting at the top. The life of a leader can look glamorous to people on the outside. But the reality is that Leadership requires sacrifice. A leader must give up to go up. In recent years, we’ve observed more than our share of leaders who used and abused their organizations for their personal benefit—and the resulting corporate scandals that came because of their greed and selfishness. The heart of good Leadership is sacrifice.”

Effective leaders know this and are willing to make sacrifices for the people they lead.

The effective leader is more interested in the advancement of their people than they are in their own upward mobility and will willingly make sacrifices to see that their people are cared for and that the shared vision is made a reality.

Excerpt From: John C. Maxwell. “The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership.” Apple Books. https://books.apple.com/us/book/the-21-irrefutable-laws-of-leadership/id614683879

Effective Leaders Value the Best in Others

Effective leaders are secure enough to admit that they may not be the smartest or most talented person in the room.  That really should not matter.  What is important is bringing out the best in people even if their best in a particular area is better than your best.  The most effective leaders have learned to check their ego at the door!

In his classic work The Magic of Thinking Big, Dr. David J. Schwartz relates the following:

“One time Henry Ford was involved in a libel suit with the Chicago Tribune. The Tribune had called Ford an ignoramus, and Ford said, in effect, “Prove it.”

The Tribune asked him scores of simple questions such as “Who was Benedict Arnold?” “When was the Revolutionary War fought?” and others, most of which Ford, who had little formal education, could not answer.

Finally he became quite exasperated and said, “I don’t know the answers to those questions, but I could find a man in five minutes who does.”

Henry Ford was never interested in miscellaneous information. He knew what every major executive knows: that the ability to know how to get information is more important than using the mind as a garage for facts.”

Ford never had to be the smartest man in the room.  Ford was more interested in results and marshaled his resources to get them.

The most effective leader will take inventory of the human resources that are a part of the team, encourage their participation, and give away the credit when things go right and the goal is accomplished.

True leaders are more interested in results than credit!

Excerpt From: David J. Schwartz. “The Magic of Thinking Big.” Apple Books. https://books.apple.com/us/book/the-magic-of-thinking-big/id917780006

Leadersip is NOT About Titles

 

Far too often people who ascend to a position with a title automatically assume that that makes them the leader.  Frankly, not necessarily so!  While there are a great number of people who hold titles who are excellent leaders, there are also a large number of people with titles who just are not leaders.  Being a leader is about service, influence, caring for people, creating a vision, and being a role model.  Far too many titled people just don't get that.  Titles and Leadership are not synonyms.

Conversely, it does not take a title to be a leader.  Many times the leader is the influencer who does not have a title.  We all have known at least one person who not only did not have a title but did not aspire to a title.  And, yet, they were the recognized leader as EVERYONE listened to them and looked to them for guidance and direction.

Remember, leadership is about influence and service to others, not about titles!

Effective Leaders Create a Shared Vision

 

Most people would agree that it is critical for an effective leader to have a well defined vision for where he or she wants an organization and its people to go; however, having a vision without the ability to transform it into reality results in frustration and leads to declining influence.  In his biography on Steve Jobs, Walter Isaacson talks about what Job's inner circle called the 'Jobs Reality'.  Jobs would present a vision and then be told it was impossible.  Jobs did not accept 'can't be done' and insisted that, not only could it be done, it would be done.  And it was.  Regardless of one's opinion of Steve Jobs personally (he was know to be very difficult... which is NOT a great leadership trait), it has to be acknowledged that he had a gift for translating his vision into reality.  Apple today is a multi-trillion (with a T) dollar company largely due to the vision of Steve Jobs.  Effective leaders have a very vivid vision and have the ability to communicate that vision and translate it into reality!

People Buy Into the Leader First

 You can have the most incredible vision imaginable for where you want to take an organization, BUT, if the people do not buy into you, they will NOT buy into your vision and direction.  It is critical that you establish and maintain positive relationships with the people who you are trying to lead.  The bottom line is that if they trust you, they will follow you.  If they don't, they won't.  It really is that simple!

Great Leaders are Developed

 

There is a long standing myth that great leaders are born and not made.  Even in academia and leadership research, The Great Man Theory of leadership argues that great leaders are just born and that is just the way it is (I acknowledge that this is an over simplification).  Over time this view has been debunked by academics, yet there is still that perception.  It just isn't the case the vast majority of the time.  While I will admit that there are those who just seem to be born to lead, it is the rare exception.  Most leaders grow and develop over time.  Jim Collins has made that observation, John C. Maxwell has made that observation, Chris Brady and Orrin Woodward have made that observation.  A person can learn to be a leader and can grow into it.  It takes time, discipline, determination, and hard work, BUT, it can be done.  I would argue that great leaders are made, not born!

Leadership is a Privilege

Far too often people who end up in some kind of leadership position view it as a right or a perk or some kind of just reward that they are due for paying their dues to an organization.  All of these miss the mark.  Leadership is a privilege that is earned, not through longevity or paying one's dues, but rather through establishing credibility and trust through sincerely caring about the people that are in a position to follow.  It is a tremendous responsibility as leaders really can affect the course of people's personal and professional lives.  Effective leaders recognize the enormous duty that they have to the individuals who are affected by the their words and actions.

There is a great scene in the television series The West Wing (you can watch it here) where President Bartlett and his youngest daughter are having a heated discussion regarding his decision to increase her Secret Service protection.  She pushes back and the President loses it and goes into a tirade regarding her potentially getting kidnapped.  He calms down and apologizes and shares "...but don't ever forget that this is a privilege and it is an experience that must be cherished beyond measure...".  This is how truly effective leaders view their responsibility and their role as a leader: a cherished privilege!

You Lead People

 Admiral Grace Hopper (USN, RET) had tremendous insight and was legions ahead of her time.  The leadership literature more and more is making the distinction between management and leadership.  In essence, management is all about preserving the status quo whereas leadership is about facilitating visionary change.  Sadly, most 'leaders' end up being managers, and, far too often, not particularly good ones.  There is a difference, and true leaders understand this.  They understand that leadership is about serving their people!

Leaders are Learners

 

Once a leader determines that they have learned all there is to learn, they are finished as a leader.  True leaders are always learning.  They are always seeking new knowledge, new perspectives, new options, new ways of doing things, and new ways of thinking.  Leadership, like learning, is a process and not an event.  The most effective leaders are the best students and are always striving to increase their knowledge base.  This is critical to being a successful leader.

Failure is Part of Success

 Leadership really is all about attitude and perspective.  Ken Lear nailed it with this observation.  Any successful leader knows that failure is just a part of the process toward success.  The most important lessons that we learn more times than not come from our 'failures'.  The critical thing about failure is how we choose to handle them: we can either let them defeat us or we can let them teach us!  The choice is ours!

It's Not About You

 In his all time best selling book The Purpose Driven Life, Rick Warren opens simply with "It's not about you."  I believe that this is one of the most fundamental leadership principles that there is and, sadly, often the most missed.  Too many 'leaders' are in it for themselves and have the attitude of 'what's in it for me'.  Leadership is all about serving others and putting them before yourself.  Successful leaders get that.  Those who don't eventually have it catch up with them and they fail.  You can't have real leadership without service!

Effective Leaders are People Centered

 Today we read the news that former US Secretary of State General Colin Powell passed away from complications of COVID-19.

Not only was General Powell the consummate leader, he understood the intricacies of leadership.  When discussing and analyzing leaders and leadership, it really does all come back to people.  Those who lose sight of that have lost their ability to truly lead.  It is about the people!

RIP General Powell.  You were a true American hero!

Everything Rises and Falls on Leadership

 If you think about it, this is almost intuitive.  While many people do not think of their actions and tasks as having to do with leadership, leadership is at the foundation of everything we do.  Leadership is not just the great general winning the crucial battle or the great business leader turning around a failing company or a great politician bringing a country back from brink of ruin: it is everyday tasks that shape and mold our lives.  As Maxwell has so astutely observed, "EVERYTHING rises and falls on leadership."

Leadership Defined

 

 

 There are as many definitions of leadership as there are stars in the sky (well, alright, maybe not that many, but there are a lot!).  In their #1 best selling book Launching a Leadership Revolution, Brady and Woodward explore a variety of definitions of leadership and posit this one.  It encompasses the essentials of leadership: influence, vision, and character.