LEADERSHIP: BE SPECIFIC AND PRACTICAL

Twenty years ago, which was also twenty years into our marriage, my wife and I nearly separated.  But with professional help, we reviewed what we each wanted and how this could be achieved.  We set goals and negotiated actions.  What saved us was specifics, not general principles.  In most areas of life, the principles are pretty obvious.  However, the specifics are what's tough and personally challenging.  And, that's particularly true of leadership, which is perhaps a strange sort of legalised polygamy.  A relationship between a leader and his or her followers.  So, like many marriages, it may need some help - and here are some thoughts.

I was recently sent an HBR article (March 2007) written by Laurie Bassi and Daniel McMurrer: Maximising Your Return on People*.  It's got one great merit: seeking to value the return on corporate investment in "human capital management".  But, that phrase is typically abstract.  And, here are five things I believe could make the article more useful.

• Focus on leaders not leadership.  Offering advice or conclusions based on results across a company or companies is like saying it's safe for a non-swimmer to ford a river of one metre average depth.  Leadership is not a game of averages.  It's not a synchronised activity in which every leader seeks to look and act alike.  Quite the opposite, each leader has to do what's right for their people in their situation.
• Emphasise the leader's investment in their followers.  In order to achieve business goals, leaders have to find out what their teams need.  The things holding them back.  And then respond.  This isn't theory but the reality of individuals and teams.
• Highlight leadership actions.  As we all know, children watch what their parents do much more closely than they listen to what they say.  In similar vein, leaders have to focus most on finding actions that address their followers' concerns - and thereby win their confidence, support and emulation.
• Be pragmatic.  The authors were willing to accept as "idiosyncratic" some "counter-intuitive" results from their study.  I'd have thought they questioned its whole framework.  From my experience, a key part of successful leadership is about making intuitive sense to your colleagues and thereby getting them to follow you.

• Make and print a Leadership Action Plan - a one-pager of the actions you've selected.  Do you do this?  You wouldn't consider launching a product or running a project without proper planning.  So, why not a leadership plan - particularly in tough times?

The World Trade Organisation establishes guidelines and principles but only suppliers and customers trade.  Societies set social norms but only people marry.  And what works in one might not in another.  Leadership is similarly personal and situational.

So, think specifics: identify your followers' needs and concerns, and the actions you must take.  And, above all, be pragmatic - and make a plan!  Good leadership, like a good marriage, requires sensitive thinking, careful reflection, ongoing commitment and, above all, lots of effort.  And, the only thing that counts is what works in practice.

Categories for this Potshot:

HBR articles, Leadership myths, Develop staff and succession, ,

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