Читать книгу The Leadership Challenge - Posner Barry Z. - Страница 9

The inescapable conclusion from analyzing thousands of Personal-Best Leadership Experiences is that everyone has a story to tell. Moreover, these experiences are much more similar in terms of actions, behaviors, and processes than they are different, regardless of context. The data clearly challenges the myths that leadership is something that you find only at the highest levels of organizations and society and that it's something reserved for only a handful of charismatic men and women. The notion that there are only a few great people who can lead others to greatness is just plain wrong. Likewise, it is wrong to suggest that leaders come only from large, or small, or already great, or new organizations, or from established economies, or from certain industries, functions, or disciplines. The truth is leadership is an identifiable set of skills and abilities that are available to anyone. It is because there are so many – not so few – leaders that extraordinary things happen on a regular basis in organizations, especially in times of great uncertainty.

Another crucial truth that weaves itself throughout every situation and every leadership action is that Personal-Best Leadership Experiences are never stories about solo performances. Leaders never make extraordinary things happen all by themselves. Leaders mobilize others to want to struggle for shared aspirations, and this means that, fundamentally, leadership is a relationship. Leadership is a relationship between those who aspire to lead and those who choose to follow. You can't have one without the other. To lead effectively you have to appreciate fully the fundamental dynamics of the leader-constituent relationship. A leader- constituent relationship characterized by fear and distrust will never produce anything of lasting value. A relationship characterized by mutual respect and confidence will overcome the greatest adversities and leave a legacy of significance.

That is precisely what Yamin Durrani told us about his relationship with Bobby Matinpour, marketing manager at National Semiconductor, now part of Texas Instruments, who came aboard just after the company had gone through a massive reorganization followed by a huge layoff. “Company-wide there was a general lack of motivation, sense of mistrust, insecurity, and everyone was looking after their own interest,” Yamin said. “Our group in particular was suffering from low motivation, as we didn't trust each other. I dreaded going to the office and there was too much internal competition leading to breakdowns in communication.”

Bobby realized that he was going to have to get people to trust one another. His very first initiative was to sit with individual team members to understand their desires, needs, and plans. For the first month, he spent most of the time learning and trying to understand what each person aspired to and enjoyed doing. He held weekly one-on-one meetings with individual team members, asked questions, and listened attentively to what they had to say. “His friendly style and honest, straightforward approach,” said Yamin, “led team members to open up and feel secure. He never acted as if he knew everything and was open to learning new things from the team. Bobby understood that he couldn't gain the respect of the team without respecting them and allowing them the freedom to take ownership of their projects. Bobby opened up lines of communication within the team, especially by encouraging greater face-to-face interactions.”

In management meetings when a question was asked, even though he could have provided the answer himself, Bobby typically referred it to one of his team members, stating, for example, “Yamin is an expert on this topic. I will let him answer this question.” During the annual sales conference, attended by hundreds of company employees, he let the most junior team member make the group presentation, while the whole team stood behind the presenter to answer questions. Yamin observed that:

Being new to the group, Bobby could have easily fallen into the trap of trying to prove himself by individually contributing in projects, or acting as a gatekeeper for information flow; however, he opted to trust his team members on projects and took advice from them as for the approach to take on a particular project. He never forced his ideas. In other words, “my way or the highway” was not his style. He encouraged team members to take initiative and acted as an advisor on projects, and let the ownership remain with the individual team member.

The results of Bobby's leadership were significant. The unit's revenue increased by 25 percent, and the product pipeline overflowed with product ideas. Team spirit soared, people felt engaged, and a general sense of collaboration and teamwork developed. “I personally had not felt more empowered and trusted ever before,” Yamin told us. “From this experience I've realized that great leaders grow their followers into leaders themselves.”

As Bobby so well demonstrated in the way he focused on others and not on himself, success in leadership, success in work, and success in life are a function of how well people work and play together. Because leadership is a reciprocal process between leaders and their constituents, any discussion of leadership has to appreciate the dynamics of this relationship. Strategies, tactics, skills, and practices are empty without an understanding of the fundamental human aspirations that connect leaders and their constituents.

Model the Way, Inspire a Shared Vision, Challenge the Process, Enable Others to Act, and Encourage the Heart are the leadership practices that emerge from thousands of personal-best leadership cases. However, they paint only a partial portrait of what's going on because leaders don't make extraordinary things happen all by themselves. The full picture requires an understanding and appreciation of what constituents expect from their leaders. You earn leadership from the people you aspire to lead. People choose, on a daily basis, whether they are going to follow and commit completely their talents, time, and energy. In the end, leaders don't decide who leads, followers do.

Leadership is something you experience in an interaction with another human being. That experience varies from leader to leader, from constituent to constituent, and from day to day. No two leaders are exactly alike, no two constituent groups are exactly alike, and no two days in the life of leaders and constituents are exactly alike. Great leadership potential is discovered, and unlocked, when you seek to understand the desires and expectations of your constituents, and when you act on them in ways that are congruent with their norms and image of what an exemplary leader is and does. What leaders say they do is one thing; what constituents say they want and how well leaders meet these expectations is another. Knowing what people want from their leaders is the only way to complete the picture of how leaders can build and sustain the kind of relationships that will make extraordinary things happen.

What People Look for and Admire in Their Leaders

To understand leadership as a relationship, we have investigated the expectations that constituents have of leaders.11 Over the years, we have asked people to tell us the personal traits, characteristics, and attributes they look for and admire in a person whom they would be willing to follow. The responses both affirm and enrich the picture that emerged from studies of personal leadership bests.

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For a more in-depth discussion about leadership being a relationship, what people look for in their leaders, and the actions leaders need to take to strengthen that relationship, see J. M. Kouzes and B. Z. Posner, Credibility: How Leaders Gain and Lose It, Why People Demand It (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2011).