Four Laws of Effective Leadership

We are always looking for leaders in our business.  This post from Bill Zipp concisley explains four basic laws for effective leadership.  

There are laws that run the universe. Not civil laws, but physical laws like the law of gravity.

In the same way there are laws that run the universe of effective leadership. Not management laws, but principles that determine our influence with

people.

It doesn’t matter if you’re the CEO of a large multi-national corporation or a single mom of three, the laws of effective leadership impact you. This is true whether you believe in them or not, just like gravity.

Fortunately, these laws are few and accessible to everyone.

We’re not talking about turning you into the next President of the United States (God forbid!). We’re talking about making you a person of influence with your staff, your vendors, your community, your colleagues, your family and friends.

I’ve summarized these in the following four laws of effective leadership:

1. The Law of Credibility

Like oxygen for breathing, leaders cannot lead without credibility. You cannot influence people who do not trust you. End of discussion. You may be able to order them around or manipulate them to do things for you, but that’s not leading and will not bring out their very best.

“We trust–and follow–people who are real, who are consistent, whose behavior, values, and beliefs are aligned,” write Richard Boyatzis and Annie McKee in Resonant Leadership. “We trust people whom we do not constantly have to second-guess.”

So this is where effective leadership begins. Being real. Being consistent. Having our values define who we are, not just in our words but also in our actions. That’s the meaning of credibility. And credibility allows for trust and respect, the oxygen of leadership, to even exist.

2. The Law of Clarity

Based on credibility, you’re beginning to build effective leadership. Congratulations! Most leaders never get this far with their people.

Are you ready for the next law? Now you must know where you’re going. This is the law of clarity.

Clarity in leadership must exist on two levels for it to be effective: vision and execution. Or, as I like to refer to them, the forest and the trees. In other words, you must be able to see the forest, the big picture, to be able to lead.

But you must also be able to execute day to day, working in the trees, or you’ll never get anything done.

Vision (the forest) without execution (the trees) fails to deliver any of its promise. It paints a picture of glorious blue skies, but lacks the hard work of digging in the dirt.

Execution (the trees) without vision (the forest) is all hard work with little insight or inspiration. It doesn’t have a broader context with which to frame that work or a higher cause that work is serving.

You can motivate people through vision, but without execution even the most inspiring motivation will wane as people get the distinct feeling that the dream will never actually become reality.

You can organize people through execution, but without vision even the best organization fails to cross the finish line. This is because humans beings, who are creatures of emotion, need a sense that what they are doing actually makes a difference.

In other words, every plan needs a dream to empower it, and every dream needs a plan to complete it. You can’t choose between heads or tails on this one. You’ve got to have them both for effective leadership. That’s how the law of clarity works.

3. The Law of Collaboration

“Does not play well with others,” is a troubling epithet on any first-grader’s report card. We’re adults now, though. We’ve grown up. We know how to get along with people. Right?

Essential to effective leadership is “playing well with others.” What I mean by that is the ability to give and take, to speak and listen, to assemble a team that works together and not act like the Lone Ranger.

What I find happens with most leaders is that they swing between two extremes when it comes to working with people: confrontation and accommodation. In an attempt to get things done, many leaders assert themselves and become confrontative at every turn.

Then, awash with waves of guilt or just exhausted from the stress of confrontation, they back way off and let people do their own thing, accommodating every whim. That, of course, doesn’t work either, so they return to confronting, then accommodating, then confronting, then accommodating. This pendulum swing seriously undermines any sense of effective leadership.

Collaboration is different and delivers very different results. With collaboration a leader is fully engaged with the issues at hand, but also fully engage their people on those issues.

They speak up and assert their point of view, but let others speak up as well in open dialogue, discussion, and even debate. There is mutual respect and mutual give and take. This collaboration builds consensus, and consensus builds the camaraderie that any team needs to win in a competitive environment.

At the end of the day, better decisions are made and a better business is built because other people have a role in the process, not just one person. As the Bible puts it, “Iron sharpens iron.” That’s the collaboration that leads to more effective leadership.

4. The Law of Encouragement

For those of you who don’t like headings that all begin with the same letter, you’ll like like the fact that this fourth law starts with an E. But look again, encouragement simply means “to fill another person with courage” (And yes, courage starts with a C).

In other words, effective leadership attends to the inspiration, motivation, and emotional well-being of the people being lead. In short, effective leadership gives people courage.

A survey of millions of American workers conducted by the Gallup Corporation discovered that 65% of them received no praise or recognition for the work they did in the past year. That’s right, for two-thirds of the workforce a whopping 52 weeks went by without any affirmation. It’s like we’re saying to our employees, “I told you I loved you when I married (hired) you. If it changes I’ll let you know.”

Is this what it’s like working for you? No praise given for work well done? No thanks offered for extra effort? No recognition awarded for accomplishment? No wonder your leadership effectiveness is waning with your people.

Here’s the crazy thing: praise is free! Bootstrapping entrepreneurs working on a limited budget have just as much access to this resource as the largest corporation.

It costs you nothing to thank someone and merely a stamp to send them a hand-written note. Giving a team member a standing ovation at a weekly staff meeting for going the extra mile doesn’t waste a single dollar. Yet all of these things are very, very powerful means of encouraging your people, and the lack of them undermines effective leadership.

“Because of its power, ridiculously low cost and rarity,” Gallup researchers Rodd Wagner an James Harter write in 12: The Elements of Great Managing, “praise and recognition is one of the greatest lost opportunities in the business world today.”

Credibility. Clarity. Collaboration. Encouragement. Get the laws of effective leadership working for you.

An interesting article from HBR.org explaining why sales experience is helpful for women to reach top levels of management.  View the original article here.

Women Who Sell Get Promoted

by Jill Flynn, Kathryn Heath, and Mary Davis Holt  |   7:00 AM September 13, 2012

 

It's no great revelation that women have exceptional selling instincts. In fact, Tom Peters has said that women make better salespeople than men. What we've found in coaching senior-level women, however, is a dichotomy of sorts: Women working in sales jobs are the best-in-class at what they do — and they love it. Yet, women in non-sales roles tell us they would prefer a trip to the dentist over selling.

Unfortunately, sales is just one of those things — like haggling and public speaking — that we avoid at our own peril. When we hear a woman say that sales is outside of her job description, we always beg to differ. Selling needs to be a part of every woman's career tool kit. After all, sales experience feeds the types of line jobs — where individuals have P&L accountability — that are a pipeline to the C-suite. And that is where women are at a disadvantage.

According to McKinsey & Company, research of the largest US corporations shows that 62% of women are in staff jobs — positions that provide service and assistance but don't directly generate revenue. These roles very rarely lead to major jobs in senior management. In contrast, 65% of men on executive committees hold line jobs. This helps explain why the number of women CEOs in Fortune 500 companies appears stuck around 3%.

What this really calls for is a mind shift. We've seen some of the best salespeople in action — and they are women. Just ask IBM's Ginni Rometty. As IBM's global sales leader before landing the Chief Executive role, Rometty lived and breathed sales. She was a leader of several important diversity initiatives at IBM as well — but it was likely Rometty's sales experience that opened the door to the C-suite.

And closing deals is eminently possible even if you, like Rometty, are not much of a golfer. One of our clients is always on the lookout for other types of social venues to host clients. After a night of dancing at a concert she said: "I knew these clients would be with me for life when we were jumping up and down together to Jimmy Buffett."

Selling is about making connections, using one's passion and gaining trust. As the consensus builders, the nurturers of relationships, and the well-networked passionate persuaders, women have all of the essential skills to bring in clients, money and monster deals. If you manage key relationships or even lead a team of customer-facing contributors, you can use the skills you are already comfortable with to become visible within your company by bringing revenue and customers into the organization. We've heard this called "Dancing close to the revenue line."

Another women we know told us very recently about a major deal she closed. She won a new account and went on to grow the revenue significantly in year one. She said, "My company is paying a lot of attention to me now." No big surprise. Rainmakers get noticed — and promoted.