Leadership Habits (How to be a Good Leader)

The other day I had an interesting conversation with a colleague relating to his career goals in our state government.  The general conversation revolved around what he wanted from his public service career – basically a “what do you want to be when you grow up” sort of discussion. His response declared the same goal I’ve heard a few times in the past: “I want to be a manager”.

Me: “Why would anyone in their right mind want to manage people?”
His response: “Well I can organize our work better than my boss, but no one will listen to my ideas. If they let me manage then I can make a difference.”

I’ve heard the “I can do it better” response more than once, but that second statement struck a chord – He was waiting on someone to allow him to take control of the situation. I realized that my colleague has confused the middle-management job with leadership and because of this may never really succeed in his goal to be heard.

The root of my colleague’s problem is likely that he has never been exposed to the behavioral building blocks which could make him a good leader, and to make matters worse he is probably basing his assumptions of a leader on the many middle-mangers already toiling away unsuccessfully in the public sector. His true desire is not to manage people but to be respected by the organization and have his ideas used to foster change. In truth middle managers usually get neither. If you’ve spent anytime as a middle-manager you know that most individual ideas are not heard and in reality the manager is simply carrying the mission down from the person above to the people below. I’ve heard the point made that “everyone serves someone” and the idea that any employee from the bottom to the very top would ever achieve true power is a myth. I somewhat agree but the idea is not to be an all-powerful dictator but to participate in the organizational decision process and be heard. The fact of the matter is that a true leader is more likely to be considered a partner than an employee. So what should he do to become a leader (and be heard)?

Develop an understanding of what followers want and need

Let’s set the record straight. Leaders are identified by the existence of followers; if no one is following you then you are not a leader. Followers can not be assigned to you; they are your followers by their choice. You may be given temporary reign over the daily work plan for a group of people but they are not required to help you succeed. Unless you can carry the load alone the team will fail and you will be to blame. The primary goal of a “forced follower” is to keep his or her head above water and wait for you to be replaced. So what would make a person gladly follow you? What do followers want?

1. Someone to follow - many people want someone to advise them on what to do next. Some people may not accept being told what to do by an authority figure but everyone is looking for guidance in on form or another. Whether it’s Dr. Phil, the Pope, or Warren Buffet; people crave a mentor who can provide them with sound advice.
2. Someone they can trust - if a person does not trust their leader then they will not truly follow. People may move in the same direction with their leaders for a time but once they recognize a better path or a trustworthy leader they will leave the current leader behind. While people are following a leader they do not trust they are in limbo; they never really commit to the plan and must always check the direction of their leader against their personal goals and beliefs.
3. A personal gain - before any person will exert effort for a cause there must be a personal benefit. The personal benefit does not need to be tangible (money or property) and in many cases is simply the knowledge of making a positive change in the world around them.  People do not require a leader before they will exert effort to get something, but before someone will put forth an effort on another person’s behalf (the leader) they must know what is in it for them. Personal gain is not “getting to keep your job”. Never use this argument with a follower as threatening to take something away from a person causes them to take a defensive posture and will undermine the need for trust outlined in item two above.

What about the need for a common goal or a vision? To be honest, people don’t need a leader to achieve a specific goal or vision. Quite a few goals are achieved by ad-hoc groups of people who all have a common need (like obtaining food, water, safety, etc.); these groups do not always have a leader and may in fact make successful decisions based only on consensus of the group.

Learn Good Leadership Habits from Other People (the least likely option)

One path my colleague could take in becoming a leader is to mentor under an already successful leader. The problem with this method is finding a good leader. You can’t seem to just go to the top of the organizational food chain and shake hands with a good leader. There are many inadequate or outright poor leaders in the upper ranks of organizations and in some cases the top people are only successful because those below them have chosen not to let them fail, yet. The true heroes and leaders are usually mixed into the crowd and may only be noticeable in the midst of a crisis.

A more common problem is that if you do uncover a great leader he or she may not be able to vocalize their leadership methods and behaviors. Quite a few great leaders don’t even realize they are leaders at all. To these leaders the behaviors come naturally and it could take you many years of observation to identify the nuances of how they lead and make decisions.

Learn Good Leadership Habits from a Book

There are many great leadership books on the market by many great leaders. Unlike many other leadership articles I will not be listing my five, seven, or twelve leadership traits, habits, dysfunctions, or whatever. This would only server to regurgitate what I have learned from the leadership books I have read and to be honest I could have missed the author’s point entirely.  I encourage you to read the best-seller books yourself, but if you are short on time and patience I will offer my opinion that nearly all leadership books provide the same basic set of principles.

Most leadership books can be boiled down to:

• A discussion of core interpersonal values: Trust, Respect, Honesty, etc.
• A collection of leadership parables and observations (to sum up these in one book read: 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership)
• Discussions on various concepts of competition in business (sales, customer service, etc.)

I have found the leadership books I’ve read give accurate and enlightening coverage of the science of leadership; however none of them provide the reader with actionable guidance on becoming a leader. At the end of each book you are left to your own devices to discover what personal changes you should make in your actions and behaviors to move down the path of becoming a leader.

In my opinion there is one perfect plan which can build you into a person that others will follow: Dr. Stephen Covey’s “7 Habits of Highly Effective People“. I believe pairing the 7-habits with the Dr. Maxwell book “The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership” will net a well rounded education in the art (and science) of leadership.

The Seven Habits – building blocks to becoming a great leader

The Seven Habits of High Effective People is not a simple list of observations that once read will magically transform you into a better person or leader. The seven habits are personal behaviors you must practice and perfect over time to change the way you interact with the world around you. You may argue that the Seven Habits book is a self-help book rather than a leadership study but I would submit that unless you can help yourself you could not possibly help (or advise) another person. These life habits are not easy to execute nor to continually practice over time, but then again nothing worth doing is ever easy.

Habits 1 through 3 are concerned mainly with the personal behaviors of the leader, those behaviors which will center the leaders thinking and focus and help him or her create a valuable vision. If a leader cannot consolidate a collection of needs, wants, and goals into a common vision that leader will not be able to describe the vision to potential followers and will not likely gain committed followers.

1. Be Proactive – in business speak the term proactive has come to mean taking preventative action; however the original usage and the term by Covey is to describe a person who takes responsibility for his or her life, rather than looking for causes in outside circumstances or other people. This habit seems to be the most common stopping point for some as people can not readily accept personal failure as being the result of lack of personal action.
2. Begin With The End In Mind – this habit deals with the development of a vision and setting goals. This ability is a staple of good leadership as a true leader always has a goal and is always moving the group in a direction toward something.
3. Put First Things First – this habit deals with prioritization of the individual goals that make up the total vision and communicating these goals effectively to others when needed.  Without this core leadership skill your followers will not be able to move as a group or recognize steady progress toward the objective.

Habits 4 through 6 provide a methodology for interpersonal relationships and communication. The habits collectively help the leader build a team by gaining a commitment (buy-in) from followers as well as provide a tool for the leader to successfully negotiate on behalf of his/her followers when working with outside partners.

1. Think Win-Win – the concept is actually expressed by Dr. Covey as “Win-Win or No-Deal” and proposes that all agreements or solutions must be mutually beneficial and satisfying to all parties or there is no-deal at all. For effective leadership this behavior is absolutely critical in helping the leader meet every follower’s need for ”personal gain” and trust. In may leadership books this important behavior is not given adequate coverage and you could see why once you consider that in the competitive environment of business (particularly sales) the idea of walking away from obtaining a deal is difficult to reconcile as not being a personal failure.
2. Seek First to Understand, Then Be Understood – this habit reinforces a behavior of listening to others with the intent to understand rather than the common habit of listening with the intent to reply. Even though the habits are not practiced in specific order, I have always felt this habit should come before Win-Win (#4) as truly understanding the needs of the other party is critical to identifying a Win-Win solution.
3. Synergize - the word synergize (or synergy) has become a bit diluted by sales presentations over the years but the general concept is to apply your full intellect in concert with the other party to create a solution that is better than either of you could develop alone. It sounds like basic team collaboration (and to some degree it is) but the word Synergy implies something more. In a “synergized” collaboration the outcome would be more than the sum of the parts.
   A common example is given using the pairing of a presidential candidate and running mate. If a presidential candidate carried 1 million voters and a vice presidential candidate carried 1 million voters, you would expect the pair would carry 2 million voters. What if 1 million voters existed who did not particularly like either candidate alone but felt that as a team they would off-set each others weaknesses and became an unusually powerful team? This would result in a synergy between the two candidates that resulted in not only the expected 2 million voters but an addition of 1 million voters that would not be possible with any other pairing of candidates.

The last habit (#7 – Sharpen the Saw) is commonly overlooked but is an important habit for leadership growth.  This habit always reminds me of a line from the movie Blade Runner – “The light that burns twice as bright burns for half as long”. Sharpening the Saw encompasses all of the things you must do to make sure that you don’t burn out or let your skills become stale and dated. The “habit” of habit 7 is simply remembering to pay yourself back and take the time needed to both relax and re-learn.

The final bit of advice to my colleague is to pay close attention to the “circle of influence” topic within the Seven Habits. You don’t need permission to begin impacting and improving the areas with your circle. Make sure you collaborate well with the movers and shakers in your circle because they may be your future followers, or better yet partners.

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