When I was 12 years old, my sisters were 16 and 17. They were just concerned about parties and boys, which is expected at that age. On the contrary, I was interested in everything. My curiosity was incisive and I always had an extra question for them -- which frankly annoyed them very much.
More than 20 years later, I was able to turn my inclination to ask questions into a profession: interviewer. Therefore, for over 10 years I have travelled around the world asking thousands of questions about leadership and management to great personalities.
I am passionate not only about learning, but also about sharing my discoveries, so here's my invitation: We'll ask ourselves questions and we'll search for answers.
The first thing I wish to share with you about leadership is that you cannot learn about it in an "intellectual" way. Unlike professional roles such as engineering, accounting, or even strategy or marketing, where concepts and methodology can be incorporated, leadership concepts are of no use if they are not experienced, if they are not incorporated to daily life. To learn how to be better leaders is very much like learning to play a sport. For instance, can you imagine how one could learn golf from Tiger Woods by taking daily lessons seated in classroom taking notes? We could listen to Tiger Woods for ages and we could "learn" a lot about golf technique, but we would have not improved our own game one bit. Leadership -- like sports -- is best learnt in the field... in a company, with our team, with ourselves.
Therefore, if you wish to improve your leadership skills you need to develop your own plan: where are you today, which aspects you need to work on and where you want to get. Without thorough work, no significant improvement will be achieved. So here is my first recommendation: take a notebook right now and write down your ideas.
What does it mean to be a leader? What kind of leader do I want to be? What do I want to lead? Where do I want to get? What do I need to become a better leader? If you don't have a clear idea about this, the following paragraphs will just be merely "interesting." So that you are transformed, question everything. And in order to be able to question everything, you need to build your own framework.
A useful definition of leadership is the following: Leadership is the desire and capacity to modify the reality around us with a specific purpose, for the people around us and with the people around us.
In order to exercise leadership, which are the essential roles of a leader? To me, these are fundamentally five:
- To create and light up a Vision for your company,
- To recruit and manage the Talent you have and get the best out of it,
- To design the whole Decision-Making process.
- To Communicate, to define how the whole organization communicates.
- To build a Culture for your organization,
Tony Blair expressed the first three concepts in a marvelous way when I interviewed him:
"When you are in a position of leadership what you owe people that you are leading, what you owe them in the ultimate analysis is truth as you see it and the right decision as you perceive it." (World Business Forum New York, 2008)
And John Chambers adds:
"I am supposed to do four things reasonably well. The first is to determine the Vision and Strategy of my company based on input from my customers and leadership team. The second is to develop and to recruit the leaders to implement that vision and differentiated strategy. The third is to develop a culture -and it is such an important part for your success or not as an organization. The fourth is to communicate all of the above. As simple as it sounds it is the scorecard I would ask my board of Directors to use." (World Business Forum New York, 2008)
There are many variables and possible approaches in order to tackle and learn about leadership.
There are tasks to be performed in each of these roles. For example:
- Define the vision: defining strategies, business, identity, etc.
- Manage people and teams: selection and evaluation of teams, motivation, inspiration and communication, among others.
- Take critical decisions: delegating, defining processes, organization of structure, etc.
- Develop a Culture: incentives, people profiles, management practices, desired behaviors
- Communication: Definition of key messages and values, company goals, formal and informal practices.
I'm convinced that our growth as leaders is not achieved by imposing tasks upon us, but by making a deep, personal transformation. Growing our own "self" so that it can then be translated into actions makes the path to great leadership. Just go for it!