Question:
“The race for president, 2016 version, is upon us. Candidates are announcing and the race is heating up. I know you don’t write about politics, but I wonder what you think about the role that leadership plays in the race for president. What is the relationship between leadership and the U.S. president? What are the essential qualities that you feel someone running for president should possess?”
Answer:
The reader is quite correct in noting that I do not write about politics. I have not done so in the 20 years I have been a featured columnist for BizTimes Milwaukee and I am certainly not going to start now! I do not wish to alienate readers from either side of the aisle who have appreciated my columns over the years. At the same time, I am happy to weigh in on the reader’s central inquiry: What are the essential qualities of leadership?
From my vantage point, leadership in any setting is defined in terms of followership. If someone is leading and no one is following, then the supposed leader is not really leading. Leaders in all settings and contexts engage followers to support a specified quest, fully recognizing that followers have choices about what they want to do. Leaders, through their words and actions, get people to follow them. Leaders are follower-centered catalysts.
How do leaders catalyze the efforts of others? According to leadership researchers Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner, authors of such best-selling books as “The Leadership Challenge” and “Credibility: How Leaders Gain and Lose It – Why People Demand It,” leaders catalyze others by operating as exemplary role models of the path to be pursued. Specifically, these researchers/authors identify six disciplines that are the undergirding of effective leadership:
- Self-knowledge – The best leaders know themselves. They are comfortable with who they are and who they are not. They operate with interpersonal authenticity.
- Appreciating constituents – The best leaders operate with the needs of their constituents as focal points. They are constituent-centered and constituent-focused.
- Affirming shared values – What is our reason for being? What do we aspire to become? Effective leaders clarify these (and other) central questions.
- Developing capacity – Effective leaders marshal resources and individual and collective efforts in support of a clear and targeted outcome.
- Serving a purpose – Effective leaders define the “why” of the quest. Why are we doing what we are doing? And they do so in ways that are holistic and systemic (i.e., we aspire to truly make a difference by our efforts!).
- Sustaining hope – The best leaders are attentive to how the followers are feeling and what they are thinking, especially during the tough times of ambiguity, uncertainty and difficulty. Through their words and actions they help inspire confidence that “the best is yet to come.”
Ultimately, from my vantage point, effective leaders are values-oriented. Extensive research documents the powerful role values play in driving individual and collective performance. At the individual level, values define character. At the aggregate level, values define organizational culture. Leaders who lead in a positive and constructive values-oriented fashion set a powerful “tone at the top.”
At the risk of being political (bear with me!), let me reference President Ronald Reagan for just a moment. Upon his death in 2004, the outpouring of comments from people from around the world was tremendous. Consistently, people related that Reagan lived his life according to a set of core values that transcended politics. Even those who disagreed with him politically commented about their respect for his values, often citing his virtues of kindness, courage and personal decency.
Other examples also exist in the lives of people who followed their values, although not virtuous in nature, to the detriment of themselves and often their families, organizations and society. Consider the scandals with Enron, Arthur Anderson, etc., and more recently, the influence-peddling fiasco involving FIFA.
Values drive behavior! Values drive not only the behavior of the person who holds the value, but also of those whom they influence. In the context of a workplace, it is important to note that employees do what leaders model. Values-driven leaders set a powerful “tone at the top!”
What are the core values that drive you as a leader and as an organization? Creating an ethical, virtuous, values-driven organization can be a powerful advantage. The ethical tone of the organization translates to ethical behavior that permeates all work relationships, building trust and confidence among employees and constituents.
Ultimately, I urge you to be mindful of the tone you are setting as a leader. Specifically, I urge you to be careful:
- Be careful of your thoughts, for your thoughts become your words.
- Be careful of your words, for your words become your actions.
- Be careful of your actions, for your actions become your habits.
- Be careful of your habits, for your habits become your character.
- Be careful of your character, for your character becomes your destiny!
– Daniel A. Schroeder, Ph.D. is president of Brookfield-based Organization Development Consultants, Inc. (www.OD-Consultants.com). He can be reached at (262) 827-1901 or Dan.Schroeder@OD-Consultants.com.