{"id":1738,"date":"2015-07-25T10:43:33","date_gmt":"2015-07-25T15:43:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/?p=1738"},"modified":"2015-08-03T17:33:32","modified_gmt":"2015-08-03T22:33:32","slug":"leadership-can-you-master-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/leadership-can-you-master-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Leadership: Can You Master It?"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_1806\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1806\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1806 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/6632504_e3d43ac5181-300x199.jpg\" alt=\"6632504_e3d43ac518\" width=\"300\" height=\"199\" srcset=\"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/6632504_e3d43ac5181-300x199.jpg 300w, https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/6632504_e3d43ac5181.jpg 500w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-1806\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Michaelangelo&#8217;s masterpiece &#8211; the Sistine Chapel, Rome<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Great leadership is fine art, not painting by numbers.<\/p>\n<p>During a recent conversation, I asked one of my closest colleagues, an outstanding leader: \u00a0\u201cDo you know the secret of great leadership?\u201d \u00a0His response was an excellent one, \u201cHumility?\u201d \u00a0I said, \u201cNo, that\u2019s important but not it. It\u2019s the willingness to work with people better than you and not feel threatened by them\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>One could argue that such willingness stems from humility. This blog explains what humility really means in the context of strong leadership, and what it means to lead people who are &#8220;better than you.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Everyone has a different idea of what makes a great leader, but in my experience most views are somewhat one-dimensional. There are two common and apparently irreconcilable camps \u2013 the \u201cstrong leader\u201d or the \u201cselfless, empowering leader\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Actually great leaders are all of the above &#8211; strong, though not the way most people think, selfless, empowering, and yes,\u00a0<em style=\"font-weight: inherit;\">humble<\/em>. They are more besides because great leadership is fine art, not painting by numbers. Every leader is different, and mastering leadership takes a lifetime of learning. Hopefully each piece of art you produce is better than the one before \u2013 richer in meaning, a reflection of your unique personality, unfolding experiences and insights.\u00a0After all Michaelangelo was not Van Gogh, who was not Picasso.<\/p>\n<p>Masterpieces of art are rare and invaluable. \u00a0Likewise,\u00a0how many great leaders can you think of, either in public\u00a0life or whom you know personally? Not enough, most people would say. Too many leaders in all walks of life are obviously flawed, so much so that we may question whether they are fit to be there. However,\u00a0no leader comes remotely close to perfection and paradoxically this is hugely encouraging. We need to reboot our expectations.<\/p>\n<p>Two of the greatest leaders in Western culture illustrate my point:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit;\">Abraham Lincoln, by consensus America\u2019s greatest president, came from humble origins. He endured repeated derision, humiliation and failure &#8211; business failure, and career failure in law and politics. He had a difficult marriage and his wife\u2019s wealthy family treated him with disdain as a peasant farmer who would never amount to anything. When he finally became president he won the respect and admiration of some of his fiercest political rivals by incorporating them into his administration, and bringing out the best in them in the interests of two great causes; the ending of slavery in the United States and the country&#8217;s survival during its terrible Civil War (1861-65).<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit;\">Winston Churchill was widely seen as rude, spoilt, bombastic, willful and reckless. His House of Commons speeches were often nowhere near as assured as the scores of witty quotes attributed to him would suggest \u2013 in fact they could be rambling and confused. Throughout his life his so-called \u2018black dog\u2019 of depression stalked him. The lowest point of his career, the disastrous invasion of Gallipoli in 1915 for which he was widely blamed and sacked from the British Government, aged 40, hung like a millstone round his neck for 25 years. When he became Prime Minister in Britain\u2019s \u2018darkest hour\u2019 in May 1940, aged 65, many politicians saw his appointment as unfettered lunacy! Yet he inspired the British public, encouraged Britain\u2019s allies, led a government of national unity to victory in World War II, and is a shoe-in as the greatest Briton ever.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Lincoln and Churchill served prolonged, acutely painful apprenticeships as leaders with no guarantee of eventual &#8216;redemption&#8217;. Both were seen as liabilities but eventually proved their detractors spectacularly mistaken and became revered by generations. Crucially both were able to face up to brutal realities and take responsibility when it mattered.\u00a0Neither of them had a compulsive need to be the \u2018biggest dog in the kennel\u2019 and both were entirely, selflessly focused on getting the job done using all the talents around them.\u00a0However they did have one major advantage &#8211; perilous, existential crises concentrate the mind wonderfully!<\/p>\n<p>This is a big subject, but here are the practical takeaways:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit;\">The widespread predilection for \u2018strong\u2019 leaders &#8211; charismatic figures with big egos who tend to impose their unquestionable personal convictions on others &#8211; is simply a childlike urge for a parental figure who can offer protection and (apparently) remove the cancer of uncertainty, and with it the responsibility to think for ourselves. It is generally unrealistic, irresponsible, and often deeply dangerous &#8211; an emotional and intellectual cop-out. People who think this way are courting disaster and frankly deserve it. Why? Because like the rest of us any leader will be error-prone, full of contradictions and inconsistencies, and will only have fragments of the overall jigsaw puzzle. History and personal experience (certainly in my case) teach us that \u2018strong\u2019 leaders are invariably bad news. Most of them eventually self-destruct and sadly they usually damage or sink other people en route.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit;\">Real humility is borne of quiet self-assurance. It comes from having discovered what others value you for and feeling good about it, good enough to accept your own weaknesses (which are many), recognize where other people can outperform you, encourage them to do so, and take genuine pleasure in their achievements. The most effective leaders are great team players \u2013 they know what role they excel in, they stick to it, they defer to others when necessary and they work hard to help others to succeed in their respective positions for the sake of the team,\u00a0<span class=\"underline\" style=\"font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit;\">even if this means someone else gets the plaudits<\/span>. In fact there is compelling evidence that the more a leader ascribes credit to others and to good fortune, the more others will highlight him or her as having been the necessary catalyst and inspiration for their success. To put it another way,\u00a0the more you give the more you receive.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit;\">The best leaders are frequently overlooked or underestimated because their &#8216;substance&#8217; greatly exceeds their &#8216;style&#8217;. They reject hubris and hyperbole and let their actions speak instead. They channel their egos and energies into the success of the collective enterprise and they think big on behalf of everyone else, sometimes very big. Jim Collins\u2019 outstanding 5 year research program \u201cGood to Great\u201d (2001) contains various inspirational case studies. My favorite is probably Darwin Smith, who became CEO of Kimberly Clark when it was just a mediocre regional paper mill company in Wisconsin USA, going nowhere. Collins describes Smith as the \u2018nerdy in-house lawyer\u2019, a softly spoken man whose appointment as CEO raised eyebrows \u2013 one Board member publicly questioned whether Smith was qualified for the job. Early on Smith made the momentous decision to sell all of Kimberly Clark\u2019s paper mills, the entire heritage of the company, its be-all-and-end-all, and pitch it into battle as David versus Goliath &#8211; Proctor &amp; Gamble. People were incredulous \u2013 it was like deliberately sinking your boat in the middle of the ocean and setting off on a flimsy raft to paddle thousands of miles to safety. Collins says one commentator described it as \u201cthe gutsiest move he\u2019d ever seen in business\u201d but most people thought it was suicidal. 25 years later Kimberly Clark had become the world\u2019s leading paper-based consumer products company.\u00a0Looking back after retirement, Smith said simply \u201cI never stopped trying to become qualified for the job\u201d.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Great leaders are needed in all walks of life and at all levels in organizations. Are you willing to pay the personal price, have you got the strength and humility, and will you liberate those who are \u2018better than you\u2019 to be exceptional? The rewards are extraordinary, though they aren\u2019t always the ones people expect or even demand.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Great leadership is fine art, not painting by numbers. During a recent conversation, I asked one of my closest colleagues, an outstanding leader: \u00a0\u201cDo you know the secret of great leadership?\u201d \u00a0His response was an excellent one, \u201cHumility?\u201d \u00a0I said, \u201cNo, that\u2019s important but not it. It\u2019s the willingness to work with people better than&hellip;&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/leadership-can-you-master-it\/\" rel=\"bookmark\"><span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Leadership: Can You Master It?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":1806,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[408],"tags":[868,867,106,869],"class_list":["post-1738","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-management-leadership","tag-abraham-lincoln","tag-humility","tag-leadership","tag-winston-churchill"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1738","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1738"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1738\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1869,"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1738\/revisions\/1869"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flevy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}