Definition of success and what it means to you?

It is common wisdom that unless you can define what success is, you cannot set the right priorities for your life/career and become an integrated and successful leader. Having a clear picture of success is a necessary condition for effective leadership. For those of us who want to become leaders by choice we have a myriad of stuff to do on our list and could quickly lose perspective. Tasks tend to overwhelm us producing almost passive responses to daily events…

I am curious to know from you what your definition of success is and how do you manage to keep your focus on maintaining that perspective? Here are some questions that I have asked myself occasionally…..

• What is it that I want? Spiritual, Financial, Family, Mental, Social or Work/Career?
• What will I do when I have it?
• What aspects of my life do I have to change in order to obtain it?
• What must I do to have it?

The Role of competence

I understand competence, or knowing what to do is vital to leadership. But I am inclined to distinguish competence into two categories – professional competence and competence of character. I am reminded of Prof. Phil Powell’s commentary prefacing Prof. Bob Grimm’s class. It laid emphasis on the latter – competence of character. As the world grows “flat” and tapered integration cycles continue to shorten in the technology world, I am led to believe that one’s competence of character has a LOT to do with sustaining the growth of good leaders. As someone rightly mentioned about EQ on their blog, competence of character is something that encompasses not only EQ but other values such as virtue ethics, self-awareness, self-discipline, etc. At the onset of my career as a professional management consultant for 13 years (this is prior to my current job), I was naive to believe that with authority came leadership and my discretionary efforts were in full force. But in the world of consulting, you are taught to lead and “sell” yourself. You are forced to network, form relationships of trust, be sensitive of different cultures and backgrounds and be competent! Of course there is a plethora of opportunities to make the “devil’s bargain” but you soon learn that competence of character is what prevails. While technical or professional competence is dynamic susceptible to market forces, competence of character could be static – once you reach that Level 5 (or whatever level you choose since leadership is by choice!), there is seldom change.

Authenticity is accomplished through this competence of character – being true to oneself and staying on “track” with your moral compass combined with passion and self-discipline, you become an Authentic Leader. I still have a long way to go before I achieve my level of leadership but I’d like to think that I have been sensitive to others’ feedback and am making efforts to becoming a better leader.

The ROI on ethics

Reading the Ford Pinto case sparked the following thoughts in me:

- I agree, as a society, we do have to allow some degrees of risk. We cannot possibly have all cars build like tanks or all of our crosswalks elevated, etc. But the key issue here is this risk to return or benefits on investment needs to be decided by the society and not Ford! The costs and benefits in this case will not be perceived by society in the same way as Ford. and since these costs really are borne by society, it is only fair that they get to decide.

- I know it sounds rather offensive to view a human life in dollar terms but in Ford’s defense. we do that all the time in society….the government does it too! But the part where Ford faltered was they could not quantify the cost of the consequences (law suits, product/company image, etc.) and they did not execute corporate social responsibilities in informing their consumers of the deficiency.

- If I were the recall coordinator, everything in me would tell me to “blow the whistle”. Profit at any cost is definitely a thing of the past and the ROI on good ethics sustains returns much longer (provided it is does not take away a huge chunk of consumer surplus) as this following research experiment proves:

http://www.economist.com/specialreports/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10491144&CFID=7431698&CFTOKEN=fa038f0c24b685fb-F06952D5-B27C-BB00-012B46CF7AE57B1E 

Core values – a major Leadership advantage

In the context of competitive advantage, the link between an organization’s core values and the initiative to make leadership an integral part of its organizational strategy is imperative. Starting at the micro level, an individual’s core values is what defines his leadership. It is not something that is random but very specific and deliberate. How an individual sustains these core values is analogous to how a successful (or to use Mr. Collins words, “great”) companies sustain their competitive advantage.

The impending Leadership vacuum prevalent in today’s businesses is a serious concern. Combine this with the poor ethical decisions of these leaders and you have a direct conflict with the core values that an organization is founded on and whose people believe in.

From an intra personal perspective, ethics is one of my core values. Although there is no tangible benefit that comes from just being “ethical” it is almost an assumed value in today’s business and the intangible benefits are proven to be high. Other core values such as respect, moral integrity, hard work and discipline are what I intend to practice and exhibit. It is what I want to define me and what I am measured against.

If you want to set an example for your ‘followers’ as a leader, you have to enforce these values upon yourself first, gain total confidence in self-management and impart those values in a convincing way. Leadership can be defined at various levels and certainly warrants different styles for different circumstances, but I don’t believe the core values should change. They are the foundation of what defines you as a leader and at a personal level, an individual.

We all know the saying “One bad apple can spoil an entire basket of good apples”. But as a Level 5 leader, all of the evidence in the readings we have read so far proves that a single good apple could change a bunch of bad apples! And what makes it happen is core values and the effective implementation and exhibition of it.

A Leader….with no followers?

I don’t believe anyone can be a leader without followers….
One can lead a project, a company or even an entire industry, but to effectively accomplish those goals, one must first successfully lead people. It takes a comprehensive list of talents to reach leadership levels, and co-workers will respect and perhaps even admire that expertise, but converting them to believers — followers — takes more than some fancy strategic game plan. Some of the most common themes that resonated from the articles – especially the one from Kotter was the ability to communicate, credibility, trust and motivation — often referred to as “the soft skills” in the real world. The human element of doing business and leading one can never be dispensed of and many of the bright ideas fall short of execution due to the lack of attention this critical component deserves.

Although people tend to describe these types of skills as ’soft,’ the most successful leaders (as evidenced in “Good to Great”) understand that to motivate, persuade and advance the business’s interests, such skills are essential, indispensable and equally important to the ‘hard’ skills’. A direct connection needs to be made between a leader and a follower (as witnessed in the video we watched last class) with a clear message that has some human element of emotion. It also has to communicate clearly the “WIIFM” (what’s in it for me?) factor as this helps a follower to understand what the expectations are and how it will benefit them.

As a manager and team lead I have personally refined the following skills that have benefited me:

- Avoid dry, technical, jargon-heavy language. This makes individuals feel “talked down to” more often than not. People hate being made to feel ignorant and would be reluctant to ask questions since they don’t want to depict themselves as unknowledgeable.

- Lead by example. There is no better way to have people follow you than to model the behavior you expect yourself. Although it might sound cliche, Actions DO speak louder than words.

- Political Neutrality – I was quite amazed to find the word “politics” or “office politics” not mentioned in any of my readings thus far in this course. Anyhow, the amount of self-discipline it requires to not get involved in office politics (especially the ones involving your boss!) is remarkable. There is no good outcome of this in my opinion and as a matter of fact co-workers will eventually appreciate you for it. This could be categorized as “tough empathy” depending on which side of the equation you are – a leader or a follower.

The concept of leadership

“Twelve O’Clock High” was a good introduction to the concept of leadership. Its illustration of the basic ideas that constitute the practice of leadership was exemplary. Complementing the movie were the reading articles – especially the one by John P. Kotter.

In addition to some of the key takeaways from the movie that have been identified in class, I’d like to throw some light on my personal philosophy on leadership:

It all begins with a vision and the desire to become a leader. It is a practice that is intentional and inherently values-based. My philosophy of leadership strongly subscribes to this viewpoint. The abilities or characteristics required of a leader are well emphasized in the movie and the articles. Of course, each one of us have their own “story of leadership” and will vary in different contexts. However, the most important dimension of leadership in my opinion is change. Thinking change, driving change and allowing change to sustain, completes a leader. Change in the context of ethics is merely what makes or defines a ‘good’ leadership. I would also extend the realm of leadership beyond the business world to our personal lives – we ‘lead’ ourselves constantly. We ‘follow’ our virtues, our thoughts and well-articulated plans. This in itself exhibits tremendous passion and diligence that others will find easy to follow – one of the traits of a ‘good’ leader.

What we learn in this class and more importantly from each other is what I believe this course is all about. I hope to learn a lot from all of you!!