Leadership Made Simple

Eight Characters in Search of a Plot – the Capabilities that Underpin Great Leadership

2010-09-21T15:01:00.003+01:00

Leadership. Setting challenging and worthwhile goals; inspiring others to follow and enabling them to realise your vision; making a long lasting and beneficial difference.
If you are reading this post the likelihood is that you are interested in those behaviours that underpin great leadership and are seeking to develop yourself and, perhaps, those around you. There is a wealth of material out there to help you and any number of training, coaching and advisory organisations who will come to your assistance (for a small consideration). But the commitment to develop leadership behaviours has to come from within the individual; yourself or those with whom you are working. So can you find a way to make sense of all of the available information and can you find a structured approach that will enable you to 'Keep It Simple Stupid' and focus on the elements that will work for you or your team? Yes you can. I did and it works for me – and may work for you. Welcome to the eight key leadership capabilities.
In a previous post I looked at what defines great leadership and settled on three criteria – setting challenging and worthwhile goals; inspiring others to attempt those goals; providing the capabilities need for those goals to be reached. After a bit of thought I have added a fourth – which is that the goal when reached must be sustained.
I have also argued that, while we cannot all become great leaders, we can all improve our leadership capabilities to the benefit of ourselves, our organisations and our communities. Great leadership is partly a function of who you are, part learned skills and knowledge and part context – being in the right place at the right time. Through effective coaching we can develop self awareness for ourselves and for members of our teams and use that self awareness to improve or mitigate the impact of those personal characteristics that make us who we are. We can train to learn new skills; we can acquire knowledge and, over time, experience. We can develop the habit of constantly challenging the status quo so that we may recognise the opportunities for change that others miss and be ready to take action; to live by the motto, 'Carpe Diem' – seize the day (two Latin phrases in one sentence – how erudite!)
This intent to develop our ability to act as great leaders and, by so doing, to make a difference is in itself a challenging and I hope worthy goal. So, in accordance with my own principles of great leadership, I have tried to articulate why it is worth making the effort (see my last post, 'Nature or Nurture') and also to consider how this task can be achieved. How can I help myself and others achieve this vision?
I started by thinking about my four definitions of great leadership and looking at what is needed to realise each of those aspects. As I did so I began to see a cast of characters evolving before my mind's eye. Each of these characters were to an extent one dimensional. Caricatures if you like of different aspects of the ideal leader but, like all good caricatures, I found them engaging and felt that they illustrated essential truths.
The first character to take shape cut a charismatic and inspiring figure. Keen eyed and highly intelligent, she saw things that others missed yet had the ability to draw others into her vision and make them want to help realise it on her behalf (in the interests of avoiding writing he/she a lot or trying to find increasingly complex, gender independent phrases to illustrate my points, the descriptions that follow have been equally and arbitrarily split across female and male protagonists – it has nothing whatsoever to do with any implied characteristics of the character). This was the Visionary/Motivator – the aspect of leadership that defines the challenge and inspires others to follow. Why had I joined these two characteristics together? Well, partly because it just happened that way. However, I have learned to listen to my inner voice and when it insisted that these two aspects were linked I decided to try and understand why. It seemed to me that vision and motivation are two sides of an inspirational coin. Without a compelling vision, no amount of charismatic presentation is going to compel people to follow. Without the ability to paint inspiring pictures, to capture imaginations and to tell stories that others want to be part of, the compelling vision will remain just that.
Close behind, shuffling onto the stage that had now formed in my imagination, came three further characters. Clearly together, they nevertheless formed an unusual group at first glance. Two seemed personable and outgoing and genuinely interested to see me as they looked out from the stage. The third figure continuously looked about him with an air of concern and seemed to be appraising the situation, furiously scribbling notes and muttering under his breath. This was the team charged with providing others with the capabilities needed to achieve the challenging goal set by the Visionary/Motivator. The first was the Team Builder. He understood that for success to be achieved the collective talents of those who had been inspired to participate would have to be welded together for the common good – the capability of the group would need to be more than the sum of the parts and his enthusiasm for the team, and for supporting those who form the team, knew no bounds.
The second of the three seemed equally enthusiastic and interested in those around him but focused more on individuals, wandering around the stage asking open questions of anyone who came near. "Who are you?" I approached and asked him. "That's an interesting question," he replied. "Who do you think I might be?" I waited during the ensuing silence then finally decided I'd better try and figure it out for myself. "I guess you'd be the Coach." I said, finally. And he was. His role, I now understood was to help the individual members of the team to give of their best.
Someone who seemed to be in need of a bit of coaching was the third member of the trio. It turned out though that all he needed was a bit of recognition and support. He was charged with helping to develop and maintain a supportive environment for the team. Not so much a worrier, just paying attention to detail and, it has to be said, feeling a little undervalued. "We all know that a supportive environment makes all the difference," he said, "but how often do we try to manage that environment?" As he spoke he removed his coat to reveal a sweatshirt on which was written the slogan, 'Creating an environment where success is inevitable'. So now I knew what the Context Manager was about.
At this point I felt someone tapping on my shoulder. Turning, I saw three women waiting to talk to me. They had an air of focus and an energy that positively crackled around them. "We have too much to do to waste time letting you figure out who we are," one said, "so we decided to introduce ourselves. This, is the Task Manager," she pointed to the clipboard wielding girl on her left. "She gets the job organised, ensures we have a plan and that we follow it. This," she turned to her right, "is the Risk Manager. She stops things getting in our way, or if they do, she makes sure that it doesn't matter." "I see," I responded, "and you are?" She turned on her heel, "I'm the Relationship Manager. It's my job to keep you and anyone else who matters on board. Lot's to do, must fly. I'll be back to see you, ...." , she consulted her diary, "... next week."
At that point I figured I had met the entire cast – the motivators, enablers and the doers. Then I noticed a man sitting quietly in the wings, watching the others with an air of amusement and with a wry smile on his face. As I approached he spoke in a voice that, though quiet was confident and authoritative. "Great bunch aren't they? Now they are on the case, they will deliver that vision – no doubt about it. What do you think will happen next?" I thought for a while. "Another vision, maybe?" He smiled. "Maybe. Although, unless someone worries about embedding and sustaining this vision it may look a lot like where we've just come from. That's where I come in." So this was the Change Manager. The person who understands that change is hard and cannot just be built, engineered or delivered. It has to be embedded and that is a process that takes time and effort and must be planned.
So now the cast was complete. We have:

The Visionary/Motivator – Setting the challenging goals and inspiring others to follow;
The Team Builder, The Coach and the Context Manager – building the capability to achieve the goal;
The Task, Risk and Relationship Managers – getting things done, knocking down barriers and delivering the goal;
The Change Leader – ensuring that the goal is embraced and sustained.

As I said, one dimensional, caricatures, yes – but the essential cast necessary to realise the drama that will be played out by us as we develop our leadership behaviours.
In my next post I will explain how this cast comes together to realise Great Leadership and we will take a closer look at the first among equals – the Visionary/Motivator.

Nature or Nurture – The Case for Leadership Development

2010-09-07T16:34:00.003+01:00

In my last full post I put forward my thoughts on what constitutes great leadership and was encouraged by the quantity and quality of the responses. Those responses have caused me to modify slightly my three criteria for great leadership although the essence of each remains:

Great leaders set challenging and worthy goals.
Great leaders inspire others to attempt those goals.
Great leaders provide the capability for others to realise those goals.

Now, I am interested in helping others to develop their leadership capabilities. Actually, I am interested developing myself and would like to make 'helping others to develop' what I do. Either way, I have a vested interest in leadership development. Yet it seems to me that there are two obvious questions that need to be addressed before we go further down the 'leadership development' path.

Can leadership capabilities be developed?
Should leadership capabilities be developed?

Let us start with the first question. Is great leadership an inherent capability or can it be learnt? This question has been around for a long time and is the subject of much academic research. Having waded through much of this research, and remembering my advice from my first post to 'keep it simple stupid', the answer seems to be – 'Yes'. Does this seem confusing? Well it is not really.
Simply put, if you read the literature on the nature of leadership and its various traits, styles and behaviours you will note that there are as many views as there are experts. As in most areas of knowledge, theories come and theories go and then those same theories come back again with new names. What those theories seem to me to have in common is that great leadership derives from a mixture of personal attributes, learned skills and knowledge and the context within which that leadership was applied. The various theories attach different emphases to these factors and apply them in different ways but it all boils down to leadership being part who you are, part what you know and part being in the right place at the right time.
Now, while you cannot change who you are, there is a vast and growing coaching industry out there based on the premise that by improving your self-awareness you can learn to make the most of what you have got. For example, you may be the dullest, least inspiring person on earth (no, of course I don't mean you – this is just an example) but if you have the insight to recognise this and the self confidence to accept this you can then learn techniques to improve your ability to communicate or find someone with inbuilt charisma to sell the message for you.
So, while it is certainly true that some aspects of great leadership are inherent I do not believe that should prevent anyone from seeking to improve their leadership capabilities.
That then leaves the second, and from an investment point of view, more important question. Should we look to develop our own leadership capabilities and those of others? In essence, what is the business case for the time, cost and effort that will inevitably be involved?
Let us look at my three criteria for great leadership. First, what is the value of increasing the capability of ourselves and others to set challenging and worthy goals? Let me make it clear from the outset that I am not advocating anarchy here. Taken to the extreme, if everyone is a leader then no-one is a follower and chaos rules. No business could operate if everyone behaved as if they were head of Strategy – although I have experienced situations where that appeared to be the case. Nevertheless, it is recognised that for businesses to flourish they must innovate and improve. Encouraging a culture where everyone understands that they have permission – no, that they have the obligation – to seek to improve requires us to develop the ability to envisage challenging and worthy goals for ourselves and for our teams.
Second, what is the value of developing the capability to inspire in ourselves and others? Well, in business it is rarely the case that individuals can make things happen. It is great teams and effective teamwork that deliver change. One characteristic of great teams is that they share a common sense of purpose and developing the capability for our team leaders to inspire that common sense of purpose is an essential pre-requisite to getting things done. No inspiration, no change, no improvement.
Then from a personal perspective, it took a long period of plodding along doing the same old stuff before I was lucky enough to meet two great coaches who helped me to understand that the only thing holding me back was myself, and who inspired me to attempt things that I had always convinced myself were beyond me. My fumbling attempts at 'Four Seasons In One Day' on the guitar and this blog are two of the outcomes from that process and I thank them both for giving me the self belief to make things happen. My life is the richer for it.
Finally, if we accept that as businesses and as individuals there is value in moving forward, then there is value in learning the skills to enable ourselves and others to achieve the goals we set.
So, to answer my two questions. Great leadership is part nature and part nurture. While we can only dance with the person we brought to the dance floor, we can certainly help them to dance better. We can make the most of what we have through an intelligent and structured approach to leadership development. And it is worth the investment. Developing self leadership capabilities can help us to enrich our lives. Developing leadership capabilities in others can improve our collective ability to innovate and improve to the good of ourselves, our communities and our organisations.
In the next post I will look at the way I structure my approach to leadership development, particularly in the field of project management which is my background, and the eight key capabilities that help deliver success.

To Blair or Not to Blair – that is the question.

2010-09-03T10:25:00.001+01:00

Apparently a former UK Prime Minister has published some kind of book this week. Now, this is not the sort of reading matter that I would normally rush out to buy being firmly of the persuasion that those who actively seek power are constitutionally unfit to wield it. A sweeping statement and probably a gross injustice to many fine politicians who work hard on our behalf to make this world a better place but I'd rather start from a position of distrust and pull back from it where there is compelling evidence to do so.

In the case of this book, however, I am prepared to make an exception. Not because the compelling evidence is there to suggest that here for once is a politician to trust but because, given the debate spawned through this site and via LinkedIn to my posts on 'doing the right thing' and on what makes a leader great, this seems to be a hot topic.

Judging by the press coverage – another area where I tend to start from a position of distrust – of the launch, with hints of great insight and real humour set against accusations of self justification and personal retribution, there is unlikely to be a better case study of what makes a particular style of leader tick, and of the process of public leadership, flawed or otherwise. Although I suspect it will take a lot of reading between the lines to learn anything of real value. Watch this space.

Shine On You Crazy Diamonds.

2010-08-26T20:13:00.003+01:00

"Come on you raver, you seer of visions, come on you painter, you piper, you prisoner, and shine!" - "Shine on you crazy diamond" by Pink Floyd

"That Margaret Thatcher, eh? What's she all about?"

Fear not - this is not going to be a politically inspired post. The above statement is usually a trigger for those who know me to drink up and head for the nearest exit, indicating as it does that I am about to launch into what I fondly consider to be my brilliant impression of a stand up comedian. This is accompanied by me rolling up the sleeves of my jacket (if wearing one) and leaning on an imaginary mic stand. The impression generally comes in somewhere during the third pint and was inspired, as the more astute amongst you may have worked out by now, sometime in the mid 80's by the likes of Ben Elton and co. It has remained unchanged, frozen in time, and unaffected by the fine works of the Izzard's, Bailey's, Mitchell's and Webb's of this world ever since.

I mention this here, not because I am currently midway through my third pint, or because I am feeling particularly humorous but because it is a typically long winded way of mine to introduce the subject of this post which could be stated as:
"That [insert name of leader of your choice here], what's he/she all about?"

Or, to put it another way: "What do we mean by 'Leadership'?"

From time to time I help out a friend and colleague by presenting a session on 'The Role of the Project Manager' on a public training course that he runs. One aspect of this session is a discussion about the differences between the role of the Project Manager as 'leader' and that as 'manager' during which I ask the attendees to give me their examples of great leaders. This usually results in a list that includes everyone from Gandhi to Margaret Thatcher, Jesus to Hitler and Beckham to Branson and all shades in between. When we then try to determine what we can learn from these examples and there follows a debate which revolves around just how can you, or even should you, assess the leadership qualities of individuals as diverse as, for example, Jesus and Hitler.
As I am a great believer that the development of excellent Leadership Behaviours in work, or in any endeavour, are an essential component of success, it's quite important to me that we understand what we mean by great leadership and what are the essential behaviours that contribute to that greatness. In order to get to grips with this I decided to ask a different (and I hope easier) question. Rather than, "What do we mean by [great] leadership?" I decided to ask myself, "What are the outcomes associated with great Leadership?"
This proved easier to deal with and led me to identify the following three outcomes:

Great leadership causes a group of people to attempt something – usually challenging – that they would not otherwise have attempted. If you like, causes people to boldly go where ... etc.
Great leadership also enables them to go there – it provides the desire, skills, know-how and energy to make the journey and to reach the desired goal.
Great leadership ensures that when they all get there, it is a worthy and desirable place to be – it is a goal that contributes to the greater good.

From which I conclude that there are three essential qualities of great leadership: it is Inspirational, it is Effective and it is Ethical (and yes I admit that I struggled a bit with that last quality but I think that the concept of ethical leadership comes closest to that sense of the greater good that I wanted to capture – any contributions to the debate are welcome).
I like this definition because it is simple to understand, focuses on outcomes (what leaders do) rather than inputs (what makes a leader) and it also helps me make sense of the diversity of great leaders that I am usually faced with during the 'Role of the Project Manager' course. And it does it in this way.
First, every leader that appears on the list is there because they fulfilled the first criteria, Inspiration - they caused (a great many) people to do something or go to a place that they otherwise would not have done. This seems to be the minimum needed to have lodged in the general consciousness as a 'great leader'. (Obvious really, you can't be a leader if you don't have followers!)
It is when we consider the second criteria, Effectiveness, that we start to see differentiation. Typically this is a question of timing and timescales. At some point all leaders on the list were considered effective - they achieved or were on a path to achieve their goals. However, for some, that achievement was transient - suggesting that their place in the pantheon of leaders should be some way off the first rank - an obvious example here being Hitler who initially achieved much but ultimately lost everything. The corollary to this of course being that for some great leaders ultimate success was preceded by apparent failure - and it is interesting to consider whether there is a link between adversity overcome and the sustainability of ultimate success – the greater the trial the more embedded the ultimate success becomes.
When you look at the final criteria, Ethicality, it becomes interesting - because a judgement on the worthiness of the goal is subjective and requires agreement on the value (and values) of the outcome - and that depends on who you are and where you sit.
This criteria deals with the example of Hitler once and for all – he was Inspirational – yes, effective – yes, initially but then lost the plot somewhat, but Ethical? I think we can agree that against this criterion he gets a resounding no.
For other potentially great leaders the jury is still out - we will not go into 'Thatcherism - A Good Thing?' here but I suggest that the debate will be long and heated and is nowhere near resolved yet. And so, presumably greatness is not yet conferred.
And that leaves us with the obviously worthy - although even here it is by no means clear cut. For example, Gandhi - does the end justify some of the means? Kennedy - does a successful moon landing justify sweeping some frankly debatable choices of influential supporters under the carpet? Perhaps leadership can be defined but true greatness is harder to deal with.
However, we at least now have an approach that enables us to structure our debates and to filter out the obviously second tier from the (potentially) truly great leaders.
In my next post we will start to look at what are the capabilities that have enabled these great leaders to:

Set the right goals;
Inspire others to attempt the task; and to
Equip them with the necessary capabilities to succeed;

... and how these capabilities can be developed for you and I.
In the meantime perhaps we should all be asking ourselves how well we match up against the criteria of Inspiration, Effectiveness and Ethicality so that we too may aspire to shine on.

Do the right thing. Do it right.

2010-08-20T14:09:00.004+01:00

"I kept on looking for a way to take me through the night. I couldn't get it right. I couldn't get it right." - Climax Blues Band

I've already got a stack of ideas lined up for the weekly in depth posts, so picking the right subject for this first post could have been a tricky problem. But when I sat back and thought about what was the one message I really wanted to get across that would sum up my approach to leadership and would get you coming back for more – (or have you heading for the hills never to return) – it became obvious what I should write about.
Over the next few weeks I intend to share my views on the nature of leadership; what I mean by leadership behaviours and whether they are intrinsic or can be developed; the importance of self awareness; the difficulties of delivering sustained change and what to do when you know change is needed but you are too busy to make it happen. But first I want to focus on the two underlying principles that kept me going (and kept me sane) through any number of complex and troublesome projects.
As leaders, or as team members who wish to make excellent leadership behaviours part of our approach to what we do, we are often faced with the need to make decisions, with choices. These choices can be simple, but more often they are complex and making a decision becomes harder, particularly as the consequences of those decisions on ourselves and others increase. When I was involved in such decisions I learned over time to remind myself and others of the old maxim, "KISS – Keep It Simple Stupid". And to me the KISS approach to making complex decisions boiled down to two simple statements: "Do the right thing", then "Do it right".
Looking first at "Do it right." Once you have decided what to do, it is my experience that "doing it right" becomes relatively straightforward. It is a matter of the application of systems and processes, of managing tasks and risks, of executing and controlling - all things which, particularly when you come from an engineering or information systems background as I do, fall fairly and squarely in our comfort zones. However, when it comes to the right thing to do it is a different matter.
There are always options and opinions. First, there will by definition be more than one way in which the particular circumstance can be addressed and the process of selecting the appropriate option is a two stage one:

Identify all the things you might do.
Select the one thing you will do.

For both stages there will be technical, systemic, financial, environmental, political, etc., etc., factors to be considered and you can guarantee that two things will happen. First, if there are 'n' interested stakeholders, there will be at least 'n+1' opinions on which is the preferred option and why. Second, the more important the decision and the more significant the consequences, the more the political factors will start to dominate the proceedings.
So what can you do as a leader – whether through being in a position of authority or as a personal choice regarding how you intend to make a contribution to the process? It is your role to help others focus on the key issues that should influence the decision and to ignore other information no matter how apparently relevant that information may be. It is your role to help facilitate a decision making process that focuses on facts and evidence and not emotions. It is your role to help others deal with the emotional consequences of the decision to ensure ongoing commitment to the agreed path. And it is your role to ensure that all decisions and commitments are made with clarity and with integrity. If you can achieve all this, you will have done much to ensure that the decision results in "Doing the right thing".
To do this you must:

Focus – ask yourself, of all the issues that are being raised, which are the two or three that really make a difference?
Focus – ask yourself, for these issues, what are the relevant factors that I need to understand to be able to form my opinion and to be able to influence others?
Focus – ask yourself, for those factors, what is the best source of information available to me?
Do The Right Thing – ignoring all distractions, form your opinion, test it with your trusted colleagues then do what you must to gain agreement and commitment.
Integrity – having done that, ask yourself, "does this still feel right?" if it does go with it. If it doesn't, have the courage to say so and to deal with the consequences.
Then "Do It Right".

What do I want you to take away from this? Two things.

There are two simple keys to success: "Do the right thing," and "Do it right." And of these, "Do the right thing," is the greater.
The path to finding the right thing requires you to: 'Focus' yourself and others on the two or three issues that are key and the relevant information needed to assess those issues; to remain 'Focussed' in order to help others to reach, accept and commit to an agreed outcome; to act with integrity and listen to your inner voice to ensure that you remain committed to "Doing the right thing".

Hindsight is a wonderful aid to decision making. Looking back over the many complex decisions with which I have been involved, there were plenty that we got right, but many where, knowing what I now know, we didn't do the right thing. For some of these it was the result of changes of circumstance or the manifestation of factors which we could not have foreseen at the time of making the decisions. Some were the result of not focussing on the key issues – these instances were part of the learning process by which I came to understand the importance of focus and keeping it simple. And there were some, if I am honest with myself, where we did the wrong thing in circumstances where I ignored that voice inside me that was telling me that this didn't feel right and where, either through a lack of courage or conviction or simply a feeling that I lacked the capability to influence as needed, I chose not to act.
It is part of my ongoing leadership development to choose not to make those mistakes in the future.

Welcome my friends to the blog that never ends ...

2010-08-20T10:27:00.001+01:00

Welcome to my blog. I'm looking forward to sharing what's in my head with you over the coming weeks. You may find that a daunting prospect - and you would probably be right to do so - but, what the hell, let's all just jump on and enjoy the ride.

I intend posting regular entries on leadership and in particular how we can all develop our leadership capabilities. Not everyone can be a leader but I am a firm believer that we can all learn to behave as leaders to the benefit of ourselves and those around us.

You can look forward to frequent sound bite posts prompted by stuff that is going on in the wide world, regular in depth posts on aspects of leadership and occasional reviews of reference sources that I have enjoyed and found useful. You can also expect to see influences creeping in from my wide (some say weird) taste in music, film and books. There may be prizes if you spot the references.

I can look forward to the challenge of organising my thoughts into something worth reading and, hopefully, to generating some interesting responses from you the reader (you know who you are!)

Welcome on board.