A Blog about Leadership

Great Book

I’ve added another book to my collection that I am quite excited about. Anyone who knows me personally knows that I have great love for books. I picked up The Daily Drucker which is a compilation of the best of Peter F. Drucker that was put together with Joseph A. Maciariello.

The Daily Drucker is “366 DAYS of INSIGHT and MOTIVATION for GETTING the RIGHT THINGS DONE” (leap year included). I intend to go through this book as the writer intended – one day for one passage of the legendary Drucker. What prompted me to buy it was a paragraph in the preface written by Drucker, “But the most important part of this book is the blank spaces at the bottom of its pages. They are what the readers will contribute, their actions, decisions, and the results of these decisions. For this is an action book.

Action

Action is the key. All thoughts, plans, concepts, and ideas are empty without action. You can spend all your time reading and discussing the finer details of leadership, but it will be all for nothing without action. Leadership requires you to go and do. You can only be and become a leader through doing leadership.

There is a famous quote that is a bit controversial because it may be misappropriated to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (read about it here). Nonetheless I like this quote, so I am going to share it with you.

Quote about action from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe:
 “What you can do or think you can do, begin it—boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.”

Failure

Don’t let the fear of failure hold you back. Even if things don’t work out quite as you expect, you can still gain a great deal from experience and always remember the 3 Steps for How to Respond to Failure.

Be bold, be a leader, and take action.

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Lee Iacocca

Lee Iacocca, the man who revived the Chrysler brand after the tumultuous petroleum crisis of the late 1970s, was the former CEO of Chrysler and a leader with recognizable success.

Quote about what is most valuable in Business from Lee Iacocca:
“In the end, all business operations can be reduced to three words: people, product and profits. Unless you’ve got a good team, you can’t do much with the other two.”

People Matter Most

As the former President of Ford and Chrysler points out, the most important factor for businesses is the people; the same is true for any organization. It is people who make, market, and sell products. It is people who streamline services and operations. It is people who develop the competitive advantage for an organization. It is people who are the primary focus of leaders.

Where have all the Leaders Gone?

About Lee Iacocca and his new book “Where have all the Leaders Gone?”, David Siegfried wrote the following:

“Iacocca is outraged. Now 82, he has seen the U.S. overcome some of its worst crises, including the Great Depression and World War II, through great leadership. As the CEO of Chrysler Corporation, he brought the company back from the brink of bankruptcy and worked with the government to overcome the fallout from the 1970s oil crisis. Now, he says, our government has fallen under the grip of arrogant ideologues and spineless detractors. Our business leaders are more obsessed with stock options and trumping each other’s multimillion-dollar salaries than with finding creative solutions to pressing problems, such as the health-care crisis, our loss of competitive edge in the global marketplace, the massive trade deficit, and the slow death of the middle class. He describes his frustration as his successor at Chrysler sold out to Daimler-Benz, and the once proud, independent company lost its soul. Although Iacocca presents a brutal analysis of cronyism in Washington, D.C., the abysmal situation in Iraq, and failed policies at home, he is not a pessimist. With a reputation as a straight shooter, he hopes to inspire more young people to vote. This is a surprisingly outspoken take on the pressing need for real leadership in this country.”

Check out more about Lee Iacocca and his new book “Where have all the Leaders Gone?” here.

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Leaders know how to change.

1. Everything and everyone changes. We get older, we start a family, we have kids, and our kids have kids. It’s the same with an organization. The economy changes, technology changes, personnel change, and the organization changes.

2. Change can be beneficial, but change can also be detrimental. That’s why it is critical for a leader to know how to lead change. Leaders guide and direct the organization toward the correct economic and technological path.

3. But for a leader to know how to lead change, the leader must know how to change. Adrian Savage wrote a piece for LifeHack.org on 10 virtually instant ways to improve your life. I recommend you read it, because there are a lot of good points.  Until you learn how to change yourself, you not know how to change an entire organization.

4. In order to be successful at change, leaders learn how to deal with change.  I remember a book that I read many years ago, Who Moved My Cheese?. The title is a bit comical, but the topic is not. For many organizations and many individuals, change can cause you to feel lost. You have to learn new places, new procedures, and new habits. You can feel like the world is passing you by and along the way someone moved something you need. The very substance that you rely on for existence may no longer be available through the same means.  Who Moved My Cheese? is a book about how to deal with change (available here).

5. Change requires adaptation and acclimation. Both are learned over time and are best learned by doing. Sometimes you need to take small steps, but then there are times that require drastic and decisive changes. Experience is often the only guide. Leaders have experience with change – personal and professional.

Remember: Leaders know how to change.

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A course of a different color – the story of a white man immersed in a black man’s world in 1959:

John Howard Griffin authored a compelling, true story that grips the mind of everyone willing to hope and dream of a better world and a better America. Knowing full well the potential for evil found rooted in the biased discrimination that plagued the civil rights movement during the mid-twentieth century, Griffin embarked on a journey to learn the reality of racial discrimination from the perspective of the black man. Encountering the obvious obstacle of his white skin, Griffin darkened the pigment of his flesh with the medical guidance of a dermatologist and sufficient exposure to a sun lamp. The journey of a white man disguised as a black man is chronicled in the pages of Black Like Me, which is available here.

This book is a must read for anyone willing to confront the wrongs of this world, to believe in the potential good of the human spirit, and to believe in the “unalienable rights” of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” as colorblind. I believe this is a book that everyone should read at least once.  Leaders may want to read this book once a year.

 A leader understands the different perspectives of a situation.  Great leaders have the ability to grasp the other person’s point of view.  There were (and are) many misconceptions in race relations on all sides.  It took great leaders like Martin Luther King, Jr, and John Howard Griffin to break through the misconceptions by understanding the other’s point of view.

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I have often heard the terms used interchangeably, but there is a difference. Beside the definitions of the terms, there is a real, practical, and meaningful differentiation.

Management is planning and organizing projects and operations, allocating resources to minimize costs and maximize benefits, directing practices and procedures, establishing controls to measure the effectiveness and efficiencies, and motivating subordinates. Management is concerned with present activities and the immediate results of those activities.

Leadership is more abstract when considered separately from management. Leadership is guiding a person or group toward the best results. It is having sound understanding to determine and ability to articulate visions and goals. Leadership is in par with management, but takes on precedence for strategic management and long-term success.

Stephen Covey used a ladder to illustrate the difference between leadership and management in the book, 7 Habit of Highly Effective People. Management is concerned with getting up a ladder in the most effective and most efficient manner. Leadership is making certain the ladder is on the right wall.

I have also heard management is focused internally within an organization or group, while leadership is focused externally toward the industry and the market place. However, you chose to define the difference, when you understand the difference, you will be a better manager and better leader.

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