The Core of Leadership

By Carol Kinsey Goman, Ph.D.

Leadership is the art of engaging the hearts and minds of ordinary people to achieve extraordinary results.

For the new edition of my book, This Isn't the Company I Joined, (due January 2004) I've been interviewing gifted leaders from a wide range of industries. Each has his or her unique corporate responsibilities to carry out. Each has to deal with widely different competitive pressures, customer demands, marketing strategies, stockholder expectations, and work force requirements.

Each represents an organization that is affected in specific ways by the new global economy, the IT revolution, the disappearance of stable currency values worldwide, and the collapse of the old Industrial business paradigm as an organizing model for their companies. But all share one thing in common: an apparently innate set of emotional and intellectual qualities that make up what I call the Core of Leadership.

The components of that core are:

1. vision
2. integrity
3. trust
4. values
5. vulnerability
6. motivation

Together they produce what we all instantly recognize as leaders.

How they do it is easier to note in practice than it is to define in principle. Because we aren't just talking about special skills or strategies these people exercise, we're talking about individual character. Like the force of gravity or the lump of uranium in a nuclear generator, the leadership core works invisibly. And like any living system, it sometimes works intuitively and mysteriously. But its positive effects upon others can be readily observed, and those observations, in turn, can be put to immediate use by anyone charged with leading fellow employees at any level of an organization.

Leadership as Vision

In contrast to control-minded authority of the past, today's leaders must exercise power through a shared purpose and vision. An organizational vision is not the same as long-range or even strategic planning. Planning is a linear process; progression toward a goal. Vision is more holistic -- a sense of direction that combines a good business strategy with a comprehensive organizational purpose that declares its own importance. A vision describes a business as it could become over the long term and outlines a feasible way of achieving this goal. To transform an organization, leaders must adopt and communicate a vision of the future that impels people beyond the boundaries and limits of the past.

Leaders who articulate such visions aren't mystics, but broad-based thinkers who are willing to take risks. Visionary leaders don't have to be brilliant, highly innovative, or incredibly charismatic. But they do have to be intently focused on what it is they are trying to achieve. Fred Smith, ounder and Chief Executive Officer of Federal Express, put it in these very practical terms: "If there is any indication that the leader is not totally committed to achieving the vision, then all the sweet talk in the world will not get people to support it."

Leadership as Integrity

According to the executives in my sample, a leader must be seen to stand for something, must act from deep-seated principles, and must rely on strong personal beliefs. Leading with integrity implies a willingness to embody the attitudes and behaviors you want to see in employees.

Steve Wikstrom is the Co-Chief Executive Officer of Reell Precision Manufacturing Corporation, a $35 million company that produces wrap spring clutches and constant torque hinges for foreign and domestic customers.

"In our company we try to create relationships that allows us to 'call' one another on behavior that doesn't represent our values. A recent example occurred during the development of our latest strategic plan. Every year we get the top dozen leaders together once a week, for six to eight weeks. At the end of each of the weekly sessions, we have 'homework' assignments to prepare for the next meeting. At the beginning of one session, a participant told us that at the last meeting he had offered to send us information that we had agreed to review and return with our comments. He went on to say that of the twelve messages he sent out, only three responses had been received. He then asked all of us what we were going to do about this issue of 'irresponsibility.' The meeting stopped and we discussed how to better honor our commitments. Right at the top of the organization's leadership, we are aware of the need to mirror whatever behavior we expect to receive in kind."

Leadership as Trust

Until recently, managers' primary function has been supervision -- telling employees what to do and measuring how well they did it. But the new breed of knowledge workers increasingly don't want or need to be micro-managed. They need to be set free in the sphere of their own authority. They need to be trusted.

Trust is an attitude of confidence in another person, a positive set of expectations about that person's competencies and character. The powerful influence of one person's expectation on another's behavior is known as the "Pygmalion Effect." Eliza Doolittle explains it in George Bernard Shaw's play Pygmalion: "You see, really and truly, apart from the things anyone can pick up, the difference between a lady and a flower girl is not how she behaves but how she's treated. I shall always be a flower girl to Professor Higgins because he always treats me as a flower girl and always will; but I know I can be a lady to you because you always treat me as a lady and always will." The difference between leaders who complain about the lack of responsibility in today's employees and those who speak with pride of the creative contribution and dedication of their staff may lie in the realm of management's expectation.

Leadership as Vulnerability

Recognition of the potential of the work force for contributing solutions to organizational problems has increased while the infallibility of leaders and the certainty of management tasks have declined. The unquestioned authority of leaders in the corporation of the past has been replaced by the need to acknowledge the expertise of those below, and to enlist employees as true partners. Moving from a model in which leadership made all the decisions and knew all the answers to an organizational environment of openness, candor, and empowerment takes a willingness by leaders to become and remain highly vulnerable.

There has never been a time in which our organizations have experienced more uncertainty and chaos. It may sound ironic, but the corporate leader who can say to his or her employees, "Sure, I'm scared too," will have done more for company morale with that single admission than a dozen phony pep talks ever could. Why? Because, as Sue Swenson, president of Leap Wireless, observes: "When leaders are perceived as human and vulnerable, employees identify with those attributes and begin to see the potential for success and leadership in themselves."

Leadership as Values

Webster defines value as "a principle, standard or quality considered inherently worthwhile or desirable." The root is the Latin valor, which means strength. Values are a source of strength for an enterprise or an individual. As leadership strategy moves from coercion to cooperation, the key to bonding people to the goals of the organization automatically becomes the intangibles -- relationships, commitments and shared values. According to Horst Schulze, founding President and Chief Operating Officer of Ritz-Carlton Hotels, "Values are the heart and soul of our organization. It is not enough for people just to fill functions. They have to know what we are all about."

Leaders must stay focused on values and keep them energized -- which is the hardest part. For that, you need to find processes that renew and revitalize values. One process that Ritz-Carlton uses is called the "Line Up." Fifteen minutes before shift begins every day, the leader of the line up goes through the basics of that day. Employees of R-C all over the world are reminded of the same "value of the day," as prepared by the corporate office. Added to that is a "teaching" -- an issue brought to our awareness, based on customer-service input, and then some comments about the daily value that are customized to the individual hotel.

Leadership as Motivation

The secret to being a great motivator is realizing that motivation isn't something that can be forced or ordered. Motivation is an intrinsic capacity of human beings that can be tapped, nurtured, and developed -- but never coerced. In essence, all motivation is self-motivation. It manifests when leaders hold a compelling vision of the future, have a strong personal desire to realize the vision, and possess the ability to engage people's individual motivation in the common cause of that vision so that a true interconnection emerges.

Motivational leaders inspire exceptional levels of commitment and performance. Prior to forming his own public relations firm, Bob Dilenschneider served as president and CEO of Hill and Knowlton. He talked with me about his most memorable boss: "Barney Clarke, the CEO of Columbia Gas Systems, was brilliant -- a genius who thought way outside the box. Although I suspect he had the answers all the time, he spent hours talking with us, involving us and making us feel as if we were an integral part of a huge change -- as if we were making history. And he got so much out of all of us. We'd work 'round the clock. Working with Barney was exciting, exhausting, incredibly intense, and absolutely thrilling!"

Carol Kinsey Goman, Ph.D. is an international speaker, consultant, and author of nine books, including "This Isn't the Company I Joined" (New edition due January 2004.) She presents keynote speeches and seminars at business meetings and conferences. To book Carol for your next event, or for permission to reprint this article, contact her by email, phone: 510-526-1727, or through her web site.

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