We have been conducting original global research for over 30 years. When we ask leaders to tell us about their best leadership experiences, experiences they believe are their individual standards of excellence, there are thousands of success stories. We found them in for-profit and non-profit businesses, agriculture and mining, manufacturing and utilities, banking and healthcare, government and education, and the arts. and community service.
These leaders are employees and volunteers, young and old, women and men. Leadership knows no racial or religious boundaries, no ethnic or cultural boundaries. Leaders reside in every city and country, in every function and organization. We find exemplary leadership everywhere we look.
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We have also found that in great organizations, everyone, regardless of title or position, is encouraged to act like a leader. In these places, people don't just believe that everyone can make a difference, they act in ways that nurture and develop people's talents, including their leadership. They don't subscribe to the many myths that keep people from developing leadership abilities and organizations from creating leadership cultures.
One of the biggest myths about leadership is that some people have it and others don't. A corollary myth is that if you don't have it, you can't learn it. Neither could be further from the empirical truth. After reflecting on their best personal leadership experiences, people come to the same conclusion as Tanvi Lotwala, revenue accountant at Bloom Energy:“We are all born leaders. We all have ingrained leadership qualities. All we need is to polish them and bring them to the fore. It is an ongoing process to develop ourselves as a leader, but unless we meet the leadership challenges presented to us daily, we cannot become better. »
One of the biggest myths about leadership is that some people have it and some don't.
We first asked people in the early 80s to tell us what they did when they were at their “personal best” to lead others, and we continue to ask people around the world this question. After analyzing thousands of these leadership experiences, we have discovered – and continue to discover – that, regardless of time or context, the individuals who lead others on pioneering journeys follow strikingly similar paths. Although each experience was unique in its individual expression, there were clearly identifiable behaviors and actions that made a difference. When extraordinary things happen in organizations, leaders engage in what we call the Five Exemplary Leadership Practices®.
These practices are not the private purview of the people we have studied. Nor do they belong to a few bright stars. Leadership is not about personality; it is a matter of behavior. The five practices are available to anyone who accepts the challenge of leadership – the challenge of taking people and organizations to places they have never been before. It is the challenge of moving from the ordinary to the extraordinary.
The framework of the five practices is not the product of a special moment in history. It has stood the test of time. Although the context of leadership has changed dramatically over the years, its content has not changed much. The fundamental behaviors and actions of leaders have remained essentially the same, and they are as relevant today as they were when we began our study of exemplary leadership. The truth of every personal leadership experience, multiplied thousands of times and empirically supported by millions of respondents and hundreds of scholars, establishes the Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership as an operating system for leaders everywhere. .
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1. Model the path.
Titles are granted, but your behavior deserves respect. Exemplary leaders know that if they want to gain commitment and achieve the highest standards, they must model the behavior they expect of others. To model the behavior they expect from others, leaders must first be clear about the guiding principles. They should clarify the values. Leaders must find their own voice, and then they must clearly and distinctly articulate their values. As the most personal stories illustrate, leaders are expected to stand up for their beliefs, so they better have certain beliefs to stand up for.
But it's not just the leader's values that are important. Leaders don't just represent themselves. They speak and act on behalf of a larger organization. When Terry Callahan asks, "How can I help you?" he thinks so. When Miller Valentine Group, a real estate solutions provider, had to organize a major community groundbreaking event in record time, it required an “all on deck” effort. What surprised the team the most was when Callahan took off his jacket, rolled up his sleeves and literally got down and dirty as he started mulching the landscape.
“Terry gave me learned that leadership is not about titles and ranks,” says one of his direct reports, “but about personal responsibility and setting a positive example.” Terry leads by example through daily actions that demonstrate that he is deeply committed to their beliefs.
2. Inspire shared vision.
People describe their best personal leadership experiences as times when they imagined an exciting and highly attractive future for their organizations. They had visions and dreams of what might be. They had absolute and total personal faith in their dreams and they were confident in their abilities to achieve these extraordinary things. Every organization, every social movement starts with a vision. It is the force that creates the future.
Leaders envision the future by imagining exciting and ennobling possibilities. You need to have an appreciation of the past and a clear picture of what the results should look like before you even begin a project, much like an architect draws a plan or an engineer builds a model. As Ajay Aggrawal, IT Project Manager for Oracle says, “You need to connect with what is meaningful to others and create the belief that people can achieve something great. Otherwise, people may not see how meaningful their work is and how their contributions fit into the big picture. ”
Leaders must engage others in a common vision. To mobilize people in a vision, leaders must know their constituents and speak their language. People need to believe that leaders understand their needs and have their best interests at heart. Leadership is a dialogue, not a monologue. To gain support, leaders must have a deep understanding of people's dreams, hopes, aspirations, visions and values.
3. Challenge the process.
Challenge is the crucible of greatness. Each instance of personal leadership resulted in a change from the status quo. No one has reached their personal best by keeping the same things. Whatever the specifics, they all involved overcoming adversity and seizing opportunities for growth, innovation and improvement.
Leaders venture out. None of the individuals in our study sat lazily waiting for fate to smile upon them. Leaders are pioneers. They are ready to step into the unknown. They seek opportunities to innovate, grow and improve. But leaders are not the only originators or creators of new products, services or processes. Leaders know that innovation and change involve experimenting and taking risks. Despite the inevitability of mistakes and failures, leaders carry on anyway.
One way to manage the risks and potential failures of experimentation is to approach change through incremental steps and small gains. A successful business is not just about buying enough lottery tickets. Life is the leader's laboratory, and exemplary leaders use it to conduct as many experiments as possible. Try, fail, learn. Try, fail, learn. Try, fail, learn. This is the mantra of the leader.
4. Allow others to act.
Big dreams do not become meaningful realities through the actions of one person. Achieving greatness takes a team effort. It requires strong trust and lasting relationships. It requires group collaboration and individual empowerment, which begins, as Sushma Bhope, co-founder of Stealth Technology Startup, employed “by empowering those around you.” She concluded, as many others have when reviewing their personal best experiences, that “no one could do this alone. It was essential to be open to all ideas and to give everyone a voice in the decision-making process. The one guiding principle of the project was that the team was bigger than any one person on the team. »
Leaders nurture collaboration and build trust. Leaders enable others to do good work. They know that those who are expected to deliver the results must feel a sense of personal power and ownership. Exemplary leaders strive to make people feel strong, capable and engaged. Leaders enable others to act not by hoarding the power they have, but by giving it away. Exemplary leaders empower everyone to keep the promises they make.
5. Encourage the heart.
The climb to the top is difficult and steep, and people become exhausted, frustrated and disenchanted. They are often tempted to give up. True acts of kindness draw people forward, which is an important lesson that Denise Straka, vice president of business insurance for Calpine, took away from her personal leadership experience:“People want to know that their managers believe in them and in their abilities to do a job. They want to feel valued by their employers, and recognizing an accomplishment is a great way to demonstrate their value. »
Acknowledge contributions can be individual or with many people. It can come from dramatic gestures or simple actions.
It is part of a leader's job to show appreciation for people's contributions and create a culture of celebrating values and victories. In the cases we have collected, we have seen thousands of examples of individual recognition and group celebration. Encouragement is, oddly enough, serious business. This is how leaders visibly and behaviorally link rewards to performance. When striving to improve quality, recover from a disaster, start a new service, or make dramatic changes of any kind, leaders make sure people see the benefits of a behavior consistent with cherished values.
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Excerpted with permission from the publisher, Wiley, of The Leadership Challenge:How to Achieve Extraordinary Things in Organizations, 6th Edition by James M. Kouzes and Barry Z. Posner. Copyright (c) 2017 by James M. Kouzes and Barry Z. Posner. All rights reserved. This book is available wherever books and e-books are sold.
