A Blog about Leadership

Formula for Successful Leadership

I want to share an idea that I have been dwelling on. It’s a simple formula or model for effective and successful leadership.

Successful Leadership = (Effective Communication + Articulate Vision + Influence + Action) (Ethics)

Effective Communication

3 Dynamics of Leadership

Articulate Vision

The Leaders Vision

Influence

Dr. Myles Monroe on Leadership and Influence

Action

Leadership and Action
Influence and Action

Ethics

Ethics is the multiplier for a very critical reason – anything multiplied by zero equals zero. Without ethics, nothing else amounts to much of anything.

The Relationship of Ethics and Leadership

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Building Trust 

Building trust is a make-or-break point for some leaders, but there are merely two steps to successfully build trust.

The first step is the obvious.

1) Have a trustworthy character.

This is so obvious that you are probably wondering why I am writing this. Well, frankly, it is important to continually reiterate that honesty and responsibility still matter – especially in business. There seems to be a misnomer in most college business curriculums with a course like “business ethics.” This is not an oxymoron, but an inappropriate use of an adjective. There are not a set of ethics for business that are different than the ethics for church, family, friends, politics, or any-and-every other facet of life. There are just ethics. Either you are ethical or you are making poor, short-sided, non-leader decisions.

Of course, nobody is perfect. We make mistakes and sometimes it requires another to notice and call us on our mistakes. When this happens, the leader’s response is to admit the wrong, correct it, and move on.

The second step gets a little more into the message of this post.

2) Build value.

Peter Drucker quote:
“It’s much easier to sell the Brooklyn Bridge than to give it away. Nobody trusts you if you offer something for free.”

Build value through:

• Actively participating – listening and communicating are elementary skills for leaders. Leaders need to listen to those around them and communicate ideas, objections, suggestions, and decisions.

• Demonstrating knowledge – you have to demonstrate your knowledge as it applies in an organization. If you don’t have the knowledge necessary to lead, then you will never garner the trust to lead.

• Portraying confidence – if there is one attribute that is contagious, it is confidence. Every effect leader portrays confidence in themselves as leaders, in the organization, and in the environment that is where the organization is operating and to where leadership is driving.

See the correlation of ethics and leadership for more.

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The US Army uses the “leadership” acronym to teach the Army’s Core Values to new recruits. The acronym helps recruits to remember each of the core values as well as associate those values with attributes of leadership.

The Army’s Core Values:

• L – Loyalty
• D – Duty
• R – Respect
• S – Selfless service
• H – Honor
• I – Integrity
• P – Personal Courage

In a previous entry, I addressed the relationship between leadership and ethics. The Army’s use of the “leadership” acronym to present the Core Values is simply brilliant. It instills the concept of the association of having values with being a leader as elementary to understanding leadership and values.

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Albert Einstein is often noted as a genius, but I think Einstein was quite a leader as well. He had a clear understanding of the correlation between leadership and ethics, but furthermore he left a significant and lasting impression on our world of which only leaders are capable of doing. He wrote in his own words many of the critical obstacles of the 20th century and demonstrate a “genius” understanding of the events that shaped his time (The World As I See It).

The leadership quote from Albert Einstein:
“Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with the important matters.”

A good quote can often ingrain a thought or concept more effectively than a thorough exposé. There are many important leadership concepts and a leader lives those concepts day-to-day, because the concepts are ingrained into his or her thought processes. If you want to become a leader or want to improve your leadership capacity, memorize some leadership quotes. If you memorize the quote, you can quickly recall it and use it in appropriate conversations. Furthermore, you will recall the quote and the underlying concept when you encounter conversations or circumstance where the quote applies. Thereby, you will improve your leadership responses when you need to be a leader.

Leadership is a prevalent topic for me.  I will continue to write about and learn about leadership. I am going to share a leadership quote from time-to-time.

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Paul Wolfowitz is leaving the World Bank effective June 30. Read about his resignation here. Also, check out my blog entry about the correlation between leadership and ethics. When will leaders learn?

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I have a phrase that I live by: to be and to become. The essence of my quote is that I am not just who I am with my knowledge, skills, and experience, but also in who I have the ability to become. Longfellow articulated the idea as, “We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while others judge us by what we have already done.” It’s a state of mind and a direction of focus.

Paul Wolfowitz is encountering a tough reality; read about it here. He slipped up or, more accurately, he was caught slipping up. His leadership and management abilities are now questioned and he is appealing for a second chance. Wolfowitz is facing the correlation between leadership and ethics as I’ve written about in a previous article.

I honestly believe that a person in the position of power and authority should not be given a free pass. He screwed up, but this is not a mistake of youth or inexperience as then he would not be qualified for his position. He violated the trust and confidence of those who appointed him to the position. He violated the ethical conduct of which he was bound. While everyone should have the opportunity to start over and if need be start a new, we need to hold leaders accountable for violations of leadership/ethics. Paul Wolfowitz should resign from his position. If he does not resign, he should be relieved of his position by the Board of Directors for the World Bank.

To be and to become. Paul Wolfowitz may judge himself by what he may be able to do, but his promises to change to “management style” are in line with judging his management ability by what he may be able to do and not by what he has done. The reality he must accept is that the rest of the world judges him by what he has done. What he did was a clear violation of ethics and a violation of the trust and confidence attributed to his position.

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In this article, I am not going to write about Deontological, Teleological, and Utilitarian ethics, because I want to concentrate on the correlation between ethics and leadership. I want to address the importance of knowing what you believe to be right, knowing what is legally right, and following your beliefs as a necessary trait of leadership.

If you do not do your job right, you have no right to do your job. This is critical for those in leadership positions and, especially, for government leaders and corporate officers. You lose all credibility when your ethics are questioned, when you are even suspected of breaking the law, and, finally, when you are actually found guilty of missteps of judgment. You lose any ability to enforce your authority…and you should.

Here are three recent news stories to resonate the accuracy of my statement:
1) The Attorney General Alberto Gonzales’s loss of credibility after the firing of US Attorneys.
2) The mounting pressure for the resignation of Paul Wolfowitz at the World Bank.
3) Even the legacy of British Prime Minister Tony Blair is subject to the questions of his judgment in sending British troops to Iraq.

In the end, it often does not even matter what the truth is and that can be the toughest problem for leaders. What people perceive is what people believe. If there is even the perception of a dent or tear in the ethics of a political leader, that leader is run through the mud and publicly stoned by accusations and calls for resignation.

Is it right to deny a leader the benefit of doubt? A position of the significance that the above three leaders hold, is a position that needs to be occupied by an individual of integrity and reason. A high political position is a position of power and influence. If there is corruption, then the power and influence can be used in support of corruption and to cover up the corruption. Action against corruption must be quick and decisive, so the action against leaders who are perceived to be corrupt is right.

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