Today it seems everybody knows something about leadership.
But when I taught strategic leadership courses to MBA students at the University of Houston, in the beginning, my first question to the students was “who wanted to be a leader and a great one at that?”
There was always this look of bewilderment on their faces not knowing how to answer.
Leadership can be puzzling and seems like a lofty aspiration as many times leaders are put on a pedestal.
Leadership does make a significant difference in the performance of an organization. Jim Collins demonstrated that in his well-researched book Good to Great.
Normally, when people begin to talk about leadership, they start rattling off a long list of characteristics.
Well, I am not going to tell you my top ten characteristics of being a great leader as many articles do.
But in my opinion, listing attributes is coming from the wrong starting place.
If you begin with characteristics and try to figure out who is great, you enter into a mindset of rating one leader against another based on the characteristics they possess.
The focus is all on the leader trying to find that special one. It’s grading on the curve. You are better than that guy, but this other bloke is better than you.
When the conversation begins with the leader and their characteristics, it leaves out the other half of the equation.
What is really fundamental about leadership is that there are followers. There is no leadership without followers. You can be a great solo performer, but that is not leadership. Leadership requires followers.
Think of the Other Person First
But why do people follow?
They follow you because their needs are being fulfilled in some meaningful way.
In effect, the leader must provide a value proposition that fulfills follower’s needs as discussed in my other leadership blogs.
This is the first key to becoming a great leader, you must start with the needs of the follower by developing a value proposition that motivates them to follow you.
That is what a company does with customers. It provides a value proposition that causes people to buy.
You must have a value proposition that potential followers can buy into.
What about the natural-born leader? Don’t people just want to follow them naturally regardless?
Sorry, it doesn’t work that way. You shouldn’t rely on whether you got that special leadership gene.
In fact, most serious leadership authors advocate that leadership can be learned and dismiss this great man theory from days of yore.
Develop the We Mindset
Unfortunately, we grow up being graded solely on ourselves. It begins in grade school right on through to high school, and then on to college. It is all about me.
When I worked for Shell, there was a lot of emphasis on the qualities the leader possessed. I always felt under the microscope to be this superhuman leader with all these wonderful characteristics.
I knew an awful lot about leadership theories, but it wasn’t until my later years in senior management that the second key came to light.
A lot of my conversation had too much I.
To be a great leader you must shift your mindset from me to “we”, which is the second key to becoming a great leader.
That requires going out talking to people finding out what really drives them. Thinking in a “we” mindset opens them up to describing their needs. People truly love to talk about themselves.
Leadership and Planning Go Together
Leadership is not a random hit or miss process. How do you figure out a value proposition that motivates people to follow you? This requires planning.
What big thing have you ever accomplished without a plan? Planning sets a direction.
Thus, the third key to leadership is planning and setting a motivating direction.
Execution is the Fourth Key
Planning by itself is not enough, even though it does set the stage. The plan must be executed achieving the desired results. People follow successful performance.
Therefore, the way to measure a great leader is to look at the absolute results.
If you want to be an effective leader, YOU must focus on results.
That is the mindset shift that makes all the difference. Look at the results, but what results are we talking about?
A leader has various stakeholders with different needs as set out in the first key. Targeting these needs means forming value propositions for each key stakeholder, and since every leader has multiple stakeholders, that means multiple value propositions.
Great results come from satisfying these different value propositions that cause your stakeholders to follow you.
Moreover, if you judge leadership on the basis of absolute results, it’s absolutely possible for everyone to become a great leader.
Leadership Maturity develops a Situational Style
People have different needs; situations require different leadership, and things change over time.
There is no cookie-cutter approach to being a great leader.
Thus, the fifth key is to recognize that leadership is situational depending on the world you and your followers face.
Look to Other’s Strengths
Next, you win by utilizing your and other’s strengths.
That is what companies do with their value propositions. They capitalize on their strengths.
Great leadership is all about building a winning team, where people step up with their greatest strengths. That is the sixth key.
You build a game plan that leverages and synergizes on these strengths.
Develop Specific Actions
Many plans fail for lack of execution as set out in the Fourth Key.
The plans must have executable components with specific actions and be constantly reviewed and revised as results dictate.
Leadership is not about how many initiatives you can create. It’s about how well did you deliver on your value propositions by taking well-defined actions.
Thus, the seventh key to leadership is delivering on your value propositions with specific targeted actions.
That creates authenticity. Doing what you say you are going to do.
Those are my seven keys to becoming a great leader.
Develop your Leadership Plan
This is a prelude to my book Develop a Leadership Plan Become a Great Leader that recognizes that your personal planning is the key catalyst for greatness.
Typically planning is done from the business perspective, at the corporate or business unit levels on what the company is going to do.
The leader needs to figure out how to integrate into these business plans with his or her leadership actions. Some of the leader’s value propositions to key stakeholders will be integral in the business plans.
Other elements require the leader to formulate more specifically a leadership plan to fulfill those people’s value propositions. In developing these leadership plans, the focus can then turn to what strengths the leader needs to develop and what fatal flaws to correct.
That requires the leader to fully assess his/her inner profile.
What is your leadership style? Which are your proficiencies, things you are really good at? What are your values, beliefs, and character? And fundamentally, what is your purpose in life? What legacy do you want to leave?
Weaving together the “outer” world of a leader’s work environment with their “inner” world of character, style, strength, and purpose brings a practical focus to leadership development efforts.
Inner Self
The leader can then reflect on those aspects of the inner self that more directly impact the outer world and pursue improvement in the areas that will make a significant performance difference, and much sooner.
In doing this, the chances of becoming a great leader go up significantly because there is a targeted focus on your actions and behaviors that will make a real difference in achieving great results.
That is the whole concept that led to my book Develop a Leadership Plan Become a Great Leader.
The quest for great results doesn’t end with one great achievement. It’s not one and done; it’s a marathon.
People will follow the leader who consistently produces great results. And when these great results occur, that is a great leader.
EDITOR’S NOTE: This article was contributed by Lane Sloan, former CFO at Shell Oil. Lane is semi-retired but teaches, coaches and provides business advisory services to small and mid-cap business.
