Many of us have experienced ‘seagull management’. That’s when the boss flies in, squawks aggressively, craps on everything, and flies out. It’s not the best way to get top performance out of people.
But what is real leadership? Is it getting into a position of authority so you can order people about? Or is leadership about lifting up the people around you? I believe that good leadership is about bringing out the best in others. That takes a set of specific skills that can be learnt by anyone, even though some people have more natural talent for it. Just about everyone is a leader in some form, whether as Prime Minister, a business owner, a community volunteer, a family member or just someone trying to better themselves. Leadership is about stepping up to make positive change. More than anything, leadership is about taking responsibility.
There are people who find themselves in a formal position of leadership but who cannot lead, while great leadership can be witnessed in people without official titles. Sometimes in organisations we see a technical expert who has been elevated into a leadership role. Being a qualified expert doesn’t automatically make them a good leader. Some people thrive on the change, but others are unable to make the transition. The key difference is whether they can accept that they have something to learn. What serves us well in one context may not serve us in another.
US President Harry Truman had a sign on his desk that said “the buck stops here”. That should be every aspiring leader’s motto. It means taking responsibility for the difficult choices that have to be made, and accepting responsibility for the outcomes. It means being decisive, once all the relevant information has been gathered. Some people want to jump the gun before they have all the information. Others procrastinate, calling for more and more reports to delay having to decide. That is not leadership. And once a decision is made, it is important to see it through. Of course we must learn from new information and admit if we made a mistake, but vacillating and uncertainty can sometimes have worse consequences than a bad decision.
Taking responsibility means living with the consequences of the decisions you have made – taking it on the chin if need be, rather than looking for someone else to blame. That also goes for group decisions. No group agrees all the time, but if you lead a team and you consistently oppose everyone else, it is time to examine your leadership. If you feel isolated and unable to pursue your goals,examine your leadership. Are you working with the team, for the team purpose? Are you listening to other points of view? Are you communicating your ideas clearly, and do they stand up to scrutiny?
Good leadership is active, and thoughtful. Slogans don’t cut it. It is important to have high expectations, but the real work is in developing a strategy with others on how to collectively achieve them. People need real solutions, not just empty words. It’s easy to identify all the troubles with the world – there are plenty enough of them – but the question is what, specifically, we are doing to do about it.
Leadership is also about looking after your people. It’s about bringing out the best in everyone, supporting and mentoring others to reach their potential. It’s about giving other people the chance to shine rather than hogging the limelight or constantly trying to prove that you’re the smartest one in the room. Good leadership requires emotional maturity and personal development, so we are not taking out our own insecurities on others. We are there to serve the team and the kaupapa, not our own ego needs.
The top down, ‘my way or the highway’ approach just doesn’t work any more, if it ever really did. Good leaders know how to build effective teams, how to get the best out of all the players, and how to unify everyone around a common purpose. It is about their ability to bring everyone along. You cannot be a leader if no one else wants to come with.
Monkey Business 