What Is Leadership?
To run a business effectively, you need to master the art of leadership.
You may be a good manager, that is, you may be able to create good systems and procedures for your team members. You may be able to draw up effective operational guidelines that will help team members get through the day-to-day detail of their jobs. But these are management activities.
Leadership is more about creating and communicating a vision, and motivating people to work towards it.
When you lead, you focus primarily on human nature, rather than on operational details. And you do it with the aim of getting people aligned
and moving in one direction–the direction that will make your business really fly.
Leading vs. Dictating
Leadership is about developing highly motivated, goal directed people, and creating a workplace climate in which they can perform to their best.
Typically, you can’t do this through being negative or aggressive.
You can’t lead effectively through fear, for example. Fear may motivate people to follow you, but they’ll do so reluctantly, looking for a way out rather than a way forward. If employees are intimidated, anxious, or insecure, they won’t feel confident enough to use their initiative or take creative risks. Negative emotions will filter through a team promoting conflict, backbiting and second-guessing.
Negativity eventually exhausts people.
The Cost Of Negativity
So before we get into what leadership is about, let’s just consider the consequences of poor leadership on your business. The consequence of negativity among your team impact directly on the bottom line through:
- High turnover rate
- Poor work quality
- Increasing number of errors in work
- Lack of enthusiasm about work
- Interpersonal conflict among team members
- Increasing customer complaints about service
Now, it is possible that even if you do see some of this behaviour it may not necessarily be due to the quality of leadership of the business. For instance in the case of errors in work and poor work quality, there may be training issues to address.
If work quality is poor, don’t make the immediate assumption that the employee hates their job. It’s important to recognise that if an employee has not been adequately trained for the work he or she is expected to perform, morale can suffer.
Leadership style would certainly be one area to consider when assessing this sort of situation to try and determine what is going on.
The Bases Of Leadership
Leadership is based on two things:
- Understanding the motivation of the people who work for you, and
- Being able to get them to work towards your vision of where the business is going.
Let’s look at what motivates people to give their best in the workplace.
Without an understanding of this you may set up the wrong structures and simply be adding challenges to getting your team headed in the right direction.
Motivation In The Workplace
In recent times there has been a move away from the ‘command and control’ style of leadership, where a leader basically imposes his or her will from the top down.
These days, effective leadership generally involves giving teams and individuals a degree of autonomy and letting them find ways to work in the most efficient way possible.
According to current thinking, you guide and motivate people by giving them frequent and informal rewards and encouragement. Rather than focusing on ways to impose discipline, leaders now focus on trying to ‘catch somebody doing something right’ so that they can reward them and reinforce a particular kind of behaviour.
This change has come about partly as the results from studies about what people really want out of a job.
These studies typically approach this by getting employees to rank a number of items they think motivate their team, and then getting the team to rank them.
Leadership Requires A Vision
So if the ‘leader’ is not out there looking for people who are doing things ‘wrong’ and directing them to do it ‘right’ what are they doing?
Well, what they ought to be doing, what a leader’s primary purpose is, is to provide an overall sense of vision about where the company is going, and ensure that this vision informs all decisions on strategic and management issues.
It’s not always easy to formulate a vision statement for your business.
You need to think about exactly why you are in business, how you want your business to be distinctive, and how you want your clients and customers to think of you.
Your vision cannot be simply ‘to make as much money as possible.’ Apart from anything else, that vision is too vague to set up specific strategies for furthering it. And your team members will generally not unite around just the theme of making you rich.
Developing Or Modifying A Vision Statement
I’m not going to go into the how’s and why’s of developing a vision statement here. The main thing is to understand that having a well thought out vision is actually central to being an effective leader – without a road map you don’t know where you are going, or what you need to plan to get there.
You’ll appreciate the amount of focus and direction a good vision statement can introduce if you consider what is involved in developing one:
- Focusing on how effective your current operations are,
- Listing measurable objectives for the future, and
- Developing a unique core differentiator to provide the basis for competitive advantage in your field of business.
In developing a vision, don’t go on just our own input. You can look to your team for added insights and this will improve their understanding of what the main purpose of the business is to be, and get their buy in from the start.
The Vision Sets The Strategy
The content of your vision statement will depend on the nature of your business.
For example, suppose you were a small furniture retailer in the Midlands. And suppose you were worried about increasing competition from big multi-outlet retailers. Perhaps you decided that the only way you could compete effectively was to run a boutique operation, where you manufactured and sold your own product.
You might come up with a statement that included something like, ‘We sell a line of furniture that is created along environmentally friendly principles and which features designs that are inspired by natural forms, colours and textures. We are a highly creative operation and our products enable customers to furnish their interiors in a way that mingles beauty, comfort and environmental responsibility’.
Once you’ve got a clear statement like that, you can move decisively forward on a strategic level.
You’ve clearly ruled out a whole range of options. You’re obviously not going to be importing and retailing do-it-yourself kits furniture kits, for example.
Communicating The Vision
Let’s consider now the most important function of a leader – communicating the vision to the team and managing employees towards achieving it.
There are a lot of companies with a vision statement but that’s not the same as a company with a clear sense of vision.
The company with a clear sense of vision will have employees who have very strong commitment to furthering the goals of the business. This strong sense of vision can only be achieved by clearly articulating and communicating the vision. And that’s the role of a leader.
Effectively communicating vision is more than placing a vision statement on the wall in meal room.
Leadership involves communicating the vision to everyone in your organisation. If it’s not known, employees are missing a key piece of information about why they are doing what they are doing – and the opportunity to suggest changes that could improve policies and processes to achieve the vision.
Acting Like A Leader
Leadership involves not only the ability to set a strategy for the business and to communicate it.
There are a lot of personal qualities that go into being a leader – ‘walking the talk’ if you like. Let’s look at some of these.
Values And Ethical Standards
Your values will be noticed by the team and they will make a judgment on how you practice what you preach. So you need to determine what values are important to you in your business dealings and then practice them yourself.
You can make a start on this by writing down important values and ethical standards. You could include these values in your induction manuals or post them prominently in the workplace.
Of course, simply proclaiming values will not ensure that they are adhered to. Arthur Andersen made all the right noises about corporate integrity but that didn’t stop them getting caught up in the Enron scandal.
To get these known and acted upon by the team you could run workshops on organisational values. For example, you could workshop team members on areas such as customer service standards or the way conflicts are to be resolved in the workplace. The workshops could include a few different scenarios on problem situations and the way you would expect them to be resolved.
Leading By Example
Still, no amount of workshopping on ethical practices will be effective if you don’t lead by example.
One way to ensure that you are not backed into any ethical corners is to always under-promise and over-deliver. This will ensure that you’re never in the position of needing to break your word.
For example, if you were to promise productivity bonuses to team members, you’d obviously only make the offer once you were sure you had adequate returns to pay the bonuses. Basically, if you want to ensure that your business has a reputation for integrity and reliability, you need to ensure that nobody in your company has any reason to doubt it.
Show Loyalty
Leaders should expect loyalty and show loyalty.
This doesn’t mean abandoning an even-handed approach. It means giving people the benefit of the doubt when times are tough.
For example, one of your team members makes a sexual harassment claim against another, you may need to show loyalty to both of them. You’ll need to give the alleged victim support. At the same time, you can’t immediately throw the alleged malefactor to the wolves, assuming automatically that they are guilty. Nobody in your team will feel safe if you behave in that sort of way.
Vision Into Action: Leadership Skills
Another aspect of leadership is developing the strategies and processes to achieve the vision.
Let’s briefly consider some of the main ones in each category.
Use Meetings Effectively
In his book ‘Leadership’ (Little, Brown, 2002), former New York mayor, Rudolph Giuliani, tells how he began every day with a meeting of the top people from all his departments.
This was not a meeting for the sake of a meeting. It was a key part of making decisions and setting agendas. It was a way of keeping everyone accountable to him and to each other.
There would be vigorous debate on policy issues. There would be updates on progress in all areas – any problems would be brought out in the open. If crime prevention targets were not being met in one precinct, for example, the local commander would need to explain why. It was difficult to make excuses or shift blame in these meetings, as Giuliani would make sure that all relevant people were present, even subordinates.
How Leaders Run Meetings
When running a meeting, you’re in some ways acting like a parent—being even-handed, not showing favourites, having clear rules for everyone.
You’re also in some senses a referee, making sure that issues are discussed objectively, that participants treat each other fairly and that there is no bullying; you’re also a bit like a team coach, helping to set strategies for everyone to move forward.
And it’s your role to ensure that everyone in the room is working single-mindedly towards the goal you have outlined to be dealt with.
Mission Control
If you need to visualise how a leader gets a team to make better decisions, think of the situation in the mission control room in the movie Apollo 13.
There’s just been an explosion on the spacecraft. Almost nothing seems to be functional. The atmosphere in mission control is edgy and disorganised. Everyone is alarmed by the details that are emerging at their own particular workstation. The team is dealing with the issue in a fragmented and disorganised way.
Then the mission controller speaks up and restores focus and cohesion, setting a goal and getting everyone to think strategically.
‘Let’s work the problem! Let’s not make things worse by guessing,’ he insists.
Measure Progress
One reason Giuliani could have a daily meeting was because, while having a big-picture vision for New York, he also loved detail.
He had hundreds of statistical indicators devised, tracked and fed into computer databases, so that weekly or even daily trends could be picked up and addressed.
Detail indicators not only gave him early warning of problems, they served as a morale booster when times were going well, as early trends would establish when programmes or initiatives were working.
They’d build team confidence that goals were achievable. Clearly, sales or production figures, or a host of other indicators, could serve a similar purpose in a business and it is a major responsibility of managers to set up the key performance indicators that provide the information on whether or not the vision, or rather the goals from the vision, are being achieved.
Focus On Challenges Not People
Accountability to objective measurement also helped Giuliani set a tone for his meetings. He wanted to keep the focus on solving problems, not on personal performance or assigning blame.
He demanded openness:
‘One of the best lessons a leader can communicate to his or her staff is that encountering problems is to be expected,’ he wrote. ‘But failing to mention problems—or, worse, covering them up-should not be tolerated.’
This maxim applies to the leader as much as to everyone else on the team. If you are quick to identify and address your own mistakes, you keep a focus on results and reinforce everyone’s perception of your honesty and integrity.
Consider All The Options
If you can create a business culture where your team is focused on business results, where people feel confident to debate vigorously, speak out, and take risks, you’ve created a more flexible business environment.
If you are clear about your overall vision, you can tolerate greater uncertainty about methods and details – and uncertainty can be productive in certain areas.
‘Regardless of how much time exists before a decision must be made, I never make up my mind until I have to,’ Giuliani writes.
He continues, ‘Faced with any important decision, I always envision how each alternative will play out before I make it. During this process I’m not afraid to change my mind a few times.’
This is not about being indecisive, or failing to react in a genuine emergency. Giuliani certainly showed he was capable of reacting decisively after September 11. Rather, it’s about being thorough, about giving yourself and your team enough time to come to the best possible decision.
It means not letting yourself or your team get too caught up in who’s going to be ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ – you focus on working through all options.
Manage Your Time
Of course, you only have time to deliberate, debate and consult if you see things coming, if you plan ahead. If you’re always reacting to issues as they pop up, deep thinking is not possible.
Operating under high stress, you’re reaction is likely to be of the knee jerk variety.
Being able to give yourself time to adequately deal with problems is a key part of good time management. A good leader will also ensure that his team masters time management; that will maximise the team’s efficiency.
Time management consists of setting aside a suitable amount of quality time for strategic planning. As a leader, you ought to be spending about 60 percent of your time on big picture issues, 25 percent on ongoing and routine projects and only 15 percent on reactive activities or ‘administrivia’.
Prioritise And Delegate
To preserve that 60% you need to learn two great leadership skills – prioritising and delegating. This will leave you free to focus on what is really important – strategies that will improve profitability.
Leverage The Strengths Of Others
Another aspect of good leadership is knowing your own weaknesses.
You may have a technical background, for example, and not be a natural marketer. Or the reverse may be true. In either case, leadership means making sure that other people on your team have the skills to cover your weaker areas. That way the team is greater than the sum of its parts, better as a unit than any single member, including yourself.
If you need certain skills only occasionally, say in the area of software, then obviously you will be looking at contracting rather than hiring someone.
Keep Learning
However, that doesn’t mean not picking up new information and skills critical to the business. For example, Giuliani knew he needed to rely on experts from time to time.
When DNA first emerged as a possible tool for police work, he knew little about it. So he had to take advice. At the same time he put in hours of careful study, getting up to speed as quickly as possible on the technical issues. This meant he was better able to understand and assess expert advice.
As a leader you need to be confident and command respect by being well informed about the key areas of your business. That may mean a continuing process of self-education—reading, going to seminars and staying abreast of current trends through networking in professional associations.
Remain Part Of The Team
Of course, many small business people are likely to encounter the reverse problem—they know much more about their business then any of their team members do. They may have started the company from scratch and done every job from writing the vision statement to taking out the garbage.
‘If you can do what the people working for you do as well as the best of them, your ability to lead is enhanced tremendously,’ writes Giuliani.
While you want to delegate as much routine work as you can, it won’t hurt to join in occasionally, say when conditions are particularly frantic, and work with, rather than over, your team members.
This can be a way of physically demonstrating that you don’t think you are better than anyone else in the company. It’s a way of showing that everyone should be willing to sacrifice their ego to meet group goals, and that you are willing to do this yourself.
Mentor Your Team
Finally, a key aspect of leadership is mentoring.
Mentoring means you work with your team, encouraging them to take responsibility for improving their own performance but giving them guidance on how to achieve this. It means setting aside time for feedback sessions or training.
Mentoring rests on encouragement, helping people to grow at their own pace. It involves rewarding success frequently and in an informal way.
One of the most useful things you can mentor is your own strongpoint – leadership skills. A strong company is one that has leaders spread all across the company, not just at the top.
Business needs both good leaders and good managers but, because of the rapid change occurring in industry today, a company with people who are trained in leadership skills is likely to be more productive and flexible in meeting changing business circumstances.
And in developing the leadership abilities of others, you diminish the burden on yourself.
Don’t Micromanage
Micromanagement can undo your morale-building work as a leader.
Micromanagement means standing behind someone as they work, saying ‘No, don’t do this, do that. Don’t do it this way, do it that way.’
It’s an approach that basically focuses on getting people to mimic or parrot a particular form of process or behaviour. It minimises initiative or creativity; it basically demoralises people because they feel they’re back in primary school and are not trusted to make any decisions.
Micromanagement saps confidence, undermines morale and builds resentment.
Dealing With Frustration
At the end of the day even the best leaders are human – in fact I hope we understand that it’s a prerequisite! And as humans the pressures in the workplace can lead to frustration and anger. But a leader doesn’t vent this in the way it might be acceptable for others to do.
Venting your feelings in an inappropriate way may result in a significant loss of credibility and respect from key employees and contacts.
So, what are some effective ways to manage emotions in the work place environment? Here are some alternatives that will maintain both your credibility and self respect.
- Look after your health – bad health lowers our emotional strength to deal with frustrations
- Learn to recognise the signs of oncoming anger and divert it
- Escape – take a short break
- Let off the steam in private or with someone you trust to understand
- Think about all the bad consequences of letting go
Finally, and the most positive thing you can do,
- Give yourself time to think about what set it off and see if there is some way to deal with the real issue
And just by the way, on the issue of communications – be quick to deal with any team members who are poisoning the attitudes and performance of others by the way they talk also.
Conclusion
We’ve only just scratched the surface of leadership issues in this article. But there are a few clear steps you can take to maintain or improve your leadership qualities.
First, you can reassess your overall vision and make sure that other activities are all in line with it. The vision statement should provide a strategic focus that will flow through your whole operation, right down to the fine details. It’s no use having a motivated, hard working team, if the results of their work don’t contribute to the goals of the organisation. Then the organisation is no better off than if the employees were sitting on their hands — maybe worse off.
So, if you haven’t done so already, start you journey to being an effective leader by doing a strategic planning exercise to work out your vision, the goals you need to achieve to make it a reality, and the strategies you’ll use to achieve the goals.
Then, reassess your own leadership skills such as time management, running meetings, demonstrating ethical and consistent behaviour and so on.
The more effective you are at all of these the more you will be able to start motivating the team towards achieving the goals needed for your businesses continuing success.
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