Leadership

Leadership, good leadership, even great leadership, is an essential ingredient for a lean journey.  But like any skill, leadership needs to be practised on a regular basis in order to get good at it.  If you are a leader already, this doesn't mean continuing to go to work in your leadership role, doing the same and getting the same results.  It means you need to find out if you're being an effective leader through team feedback.  Effective or not is a question that can't be answered accurately on your own, it needs to come from your team.  Just remember that when you get the answer, like it or not, you have a choice; stay where you're at or be progress?

It is my belief that leaders don't wake up one day or are born a great leader.  Leadership is developed over time and can be sped up with the right choices, drive, experiences (successes and failures), passion and discipline.

By no means am I an expert in the field of leadership but I definitely believe that I've picked up a few gems as I grow along my career.  These learnings come from reading over 60 books (and counting) on leadership, personal development, change and lean.  Below are the things I believe that when practised with discipline, the path towards great leadership becomes clear.

Fail - I've had a few big fails in my life, personally and professionally.  When the failure happened I was faced with a choice, a choice to either be defeated or learn from my mistakes.  My choice has always been to use the failure as a stepping stone for improvement.  If you're going to lead, you're going to have to take risks and make decisions that may lead to failure.  If risks and decisions ever set you back - and at some point they will - all you need to do is reflect, refocus and start again.  Even the great ones fail, watch Michael Jordan on Failure if you don't believe me.  I once heard someone say, "don't think of failure as a setback or negative, instead think of it as just a result."  This has really helped me.

Whatever you want, give it away - Ian Percy says it best in his commandment number nine, and if you haven't listened to his Eleven Commandments for an Enthusiastic Team then I highly recommend you do.  If you want trust, then trust others.  If you want respect, then respect others.  If you want power then give away power...  It's that simple.  It's all about leading by example and being the person you want others to be.  If you want a great team, be a great leader.

Set clear expectations - People want to do meaningful work, and leaders need to create this environment for their team.  Performance standards and desired results need to be clarified for all levels and roles.  Why?  If people don't know what they're working towards then how do they know if they're doing well or not?  On a side note, if you want to create something for your team to really believe in, beyond expectations, then I would look into the Golden Circle...  WHY are we doing this, HOW are we going to do it and WHAT needs to be done?

Never, ever, ever blame - Blame is the worst thing a leader can do.  Nothing will destroy trust, reputation and integrity faster than blaming others.  When mistakes happen you have to look to the process not the individual for the fault.  People don't want or intend to make mistakes, they want to do a good job and as a leader you need to believe this.  Think of it this way...  You have definitely made a mistake at some point in your life, right?  Did you mean to?

Leadership development - Leadership skills don't improve through osmosis, leadership is developed through regular practice and discipline just like any other skill.  Soak up knowledge by reading books, going to seminars, watching Youtube.com videos, reading articles, take a course or whatever else is up your alley and learning style.  Just do something.

Eliminate "wait and see" - Great leaders drive change, and if they don't know how to do something they either find someone who can or figure it out themselves.  Change doesn't come from waiting to see what someone else is going to do, it comes from having a vision and making it happen.  Quite often the leader is the one everyone else is waiting for to do something.  If you're a leader at any level, it's up to you, your success is up to you.  What are you waiting for?

Choice and discipline - This is a philosophy I came up with a couple years ago but only started to be open about it recently.  It is a two-word summary of all the things I've read, watched and learned that will get anyone to success in any field/sport/profession they want.  If you want to be a great leader then you first need to make the choice to do all the things above (and more), then you need to have the discipline to stick with your choices no matter what gets in your way.  If you can do these two things, success is yours.

Why don't all leaders do these things?  The simple answer is that not all leaders strive to be great, they're happy with where they're at and that's fine.  Not all basketball players get to Michael Jordan's level, not all hockey players get to Wayne Gretzky's level and not all leaders will get to the top of their game, and there's nothing wrong with that.  You just need to ask yourself, as I ask myself regularly...  Where do I want to go and how am I going to get there?  Then just make the choices and have the discipline.

Be Continuous Improvement