LEADERSHIP

RSHIP

This is an abridged version of a speech I gave to the Executive Leadership Team of Pacific Access (now Sensis) division of Telstra, on Thursday, 4 October, 2001.

Leaders are a rare commodity. They are rare in politics, rare in commerce, rare in industry.

Few people have the personal attributes to be leaders. Not many are prepared to exercise the personal disciplines and sacrifices, to engage the physical and emotional controls that a leader needs to employ constantly and unconsciously if he or she is to be a successful leader of people.

To start with, a warning. Only accept a leadership position if you receive a comprehensive job specification which clearly defines your authority, your reporting line, your responsibilities and your accountability.

Your job as a leader is to
- set realistic goals
- plan the method and timing of the goals
- pick the team
- lead the team to achieve the goals

Your personal attitude has a bearing on how successful you will be as a leader. You need to discipline yourself to work hard, to make sacrifices, but make time for family, relaxation and pleasures. This means that you must have an efficient time-management system.

The importance of leaving time for pleasure and relationships is borne out by a short poem of William Wordsworth that I learn at school. I cannot remember the name of it but it went something like this
What use is life if full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare,
No time to stand beneath the boughs,
And stare as long as sheep and cows,
No time to watch when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.

Grubby minded little boys that we were, we all burst out laughing when we came to recite ' where squirrels hide their nuts in grass' . But, apart from that, what the poem says is important: work hard, but leave time to stand and stare.

To lead from the front you have to know your job intimately. You must also know the jobs of the people you are leading. You need not know the detail - that is impossible because your people will have a wide range of technical, electronic, educational, financial, engineering and other skills that you do not possess. But you must be capable of judging the quality of their work.

However many or few are in the group for which you are responsible, most will have a problem. It may be a marital problem, a drink problem,a problem with a family member - any one of the problems that beset each of us from time to time, As the leader you have to recognise the symptoms and help your people overcome, or at least alleviate, the problem/s. If you think it will help you should obtain professional assistance for them.

To be a leader you must want to be a leader.

To be a leader you must take pleasure in dealing with people. You do not have to be gregarious - in fact one of the penalties of being a leader is that you must keep yourself aloof from members of the team. But you must want to work with and like dealing with people, training them, delegating to them, checking them.

The first rule of leadership is to train, delegate and check - then check again.

Many leaders stop after making the first check, In my opinion that is not enough - you have got to keep on checking until the task is complete. This will be a pain in the arse for your subordinates but it is the only way to ensure projects are brought to a successful conclusion.

Being a leader is a role in which you can never relax.

To be an efficient leader you have got to be leading all the time, every minute of every working day and you have to keep thinking after the day's work is done.

It is all very well to talk about leadership but what is leadership? Before I define my idea of leadership, let me suggest to you that leadership is
- not building a personality cult
- not being indispensable
- not about blaming others

Conversely, leadership is
- vision
- motivation
- organisation, and
- action

You must endeavor to make sure your team is proud of
- the job they do
- the company that employs them
- the unit of the company that employs them

A good leader gives people a sense of purpose. He or she gives them hope. Above all, a good leader makes things happen. A good leader creates the future for people, provides guidance, direction, inspiration and empowers people to realise their own leadership potential.

It is the is the responsibility of the leader to choose the people they lead, to help them, to foster them, to reward them and, if they prove to be reliable and dependable, to keep them working with the leader. Note 'working with the leader'. The 'with' is most important because to get the best out of a team you have got to work with them as closely and as harmoniously as you expect them to work with you. Your team should not believe they are working for you any more than you should think you are working for them. Your team is working with you and you are working with your team. You and your team should have the same objective - to work together to get the job done successfully.

As a leader you must encourage the skills of people and so provide opportunities for members of the team to move into leadership positions themselves.

Nothing can be accomplished unless the morale of the team is first- class. Morale is a state of mind - an intangible force that moves people to give their best to achieve an objective.

What are the forces needed to achieve an objective?

First the objective must be right in principle
- its achievement must be important
- the method of achievement must be aggressive
- the work of those involved must be directly concerned with attaining the objective

Before commencing any project, make sure that
- the objective is attainable
- the organisation to achieve the objective is efficient
- the equipment you need is the best obtainable
- the working conditions of the team are as good as possible
- and determine that you, as the leader of the organisation will give a fair deal to each member of the team.

And finally, you have got to let your team know what you aim to do, why you are doing it, how you have planned the operation and what is expected of each person.

Without prior communication, constant communication, no objective, either long-term or short-term is likely to be successful. Your communication can range from walking around the team once or twice a day, of telephoning them if they are in a different location. Remember the written word is far more personal than an e-mail - write a note advising progress, a line or two of congratulations at the performance of a specific task. These are all part of obtaining and improving morale and ensuring that each person has a sense of involvement and is appreciated.

Avoid delegating decision-making to a committee. Certainly ask members of a management or executive committee for their opinion, for their views on the pros and cons of a project but at the end of the discussion do not take a vote. As the leader it is your job to make the decision after listening and understanding what members of the team think about the project.

When you ask a group to form a committee make sure they understand it means that they have an obligation and an opportunity to comment and provide ideas. A committee is not a democracy - membership does not bestow on each member a right to a vote. Certainly each member can have a say, certainly they have the right, in fact have an obligation to give their opinion and their ideas, but they should not expect you, as the leader, to ask them to vote on whether or not a project should go ahead or how it should be run. That is your job. You are the leader

You must find and nurture a successor, someone who can take over when you are away and in the end succeed you when you have moved on.

You need to understand the diversity of talents people have. People can bring many gifts to a company. You must help people enjoy their work and give them additional roles in the organisation.

As a leader you must set the values of the organisation, express them, continually audit them and from the audit make improvements. Leaders must provide forward momentum. They must provide
- vision
- direction
- plans
- accountability
- people
giving each person the opportunity to reach their personal and institutional potential and of making a meaningful difference to their lives. Never, never forget to say thank you, to show in some tangible way that you respect the job that members of your team do. From time to time, give rewards.

You have to be a creator - that is, an entrepreneur and an implementer.

You have to emphasise the importance of courtesy and service.

You must build-up a shared commitment with your team and be hospitable to unusual people with unusual ideas. They can make a significant contribution to your operation.

You have to tolerate risk and forgive errors.

You must make your people
- know they are needed
- know they are important
- know they are cared about
are given
- fair remuneration and benefits
- the opportunity to do their best
and get a reward for a job especially well done.

You have got to communicate and remember that too much communication is better than too little.

Keep training you team - not only in the job they hold at present but for their future advancement.

Conduct continual performance reviews and advise each person the result.

Take great care when making appointments and promotions - and beware of over-confidence. Overconfidence has killed more airmen, more motor- cyclists, more motorists and destroyed more commercial and political reputations than anything else.

Above all remember that you, as a leader are responsible and accountable for the performance of your team. If the team succeeds, you are entitled to be rewarded, if it fails you should expect to be demoted, moved sideways or fired. If you win, you may get the top job, if you fail you are just another has-been.

So, it is up to you to decide whether you are prepared to take the risks that leadership involves.

Each of you has a great opportunity. You have started climbing the leadership ladder in a great company which is a leader in the information age. You are lucky people.

I conclude by quoting what General Dwight Eisenhower said about leadership: Leadership is persuasion and conciliation, education and patience, of what Sophocles said: A leader is one who has at heart always, the best interests of his people'. and of what I read somewhere: A leader is one who is wise enough to know what is best, ethical enough to lead by example and strong enough to convince others what is right.