by those attributes that you feel you have mastered, and put an X by those that you need to further develop in yourself.Talk about your own mistakes before criticizing the other person.
—Dale Carnegie
We have now seen two distinct leadership styles: the inspirational leader and the organizational leader. Let’s briefly review them to assist you in your own leadership style.
From the perspective of those who work closely with inspirational leaders, there is often not a lot of middle ground. The environment these leaders create is exciting and electric. Some people admire their passion and hail them as visionaries. Others are frustrated by their unpredictable nature.
Working with an inspirational leader, even a true master of inspirational leadership, is a bit like taking a roller-coaster ride. Some people are thrilled. It gets their adrenaline going and they want to ride again. Others stagger away vowing, “Never again.” Either way, everyone agrees that inspirational leaders have a gift for putting their unique stamp on things.
Organizational leaders are of a different sort altogether. Their effectiveness derives much less from personal dynamics. If inspirational leadership is like a temperamental high-performance sports car, then organizational leadership is more like a well-engineered sedan. Organizational leaders are built to withstand the bumps in the road, and to get good gas mileage for the long haul. They are interested in creating a rock-solid structure, both for the present and for those who will come after them.
Organizational leaders like to see things through to completion. They are good at anticipating obstacles and developing alternative strategies. People describe these sorts of leaders as being on top of things. Unlike the inspirational leader, they often have a tremendous capacity for thinking about detail.
Now that you’re getting a feel for the different ways leadership masters operate, it’s time to take what you’ve learned and apply it. For the next two chapters, we will take you through a series of self-assessment questions. After you have read this chapter and absorbed the background information on the questions, please go to the action steps section and write your responses to the self-assessment questions in the space provided. At the bottom of each space you’ll find information to help you interpret what you’ve written and to begin identifying your personal leadership style.
As we begin our discussion of the questions, please remember this: Nothing is written in stone. This self-assessment questionnaire is simply a picture of where you are right now. It is an indication of where you stand at this moment in your personal development.
If you don’t like the picture, then you’ve got the power to change it. You have free will, imagination, and the capacity to grow. If you like the picture, you can gain insights to expand on your strengths.
As you consider the questions, there are a few key points to keep in mind. Be honest with yourself, try not to second-guess the questions, and do not answer them in the way you think you should. This assessment is for your benefit and no one else will see it.
Also, try to avoid brief, generalized answers. Write as much as you can for each response, including circumstances, thoughts, emotions, and people (internal and external details that will flesh out your answer into something useful for you to work with later). The more you write, the more you’ll get out of the process. With these things in mind, we’re ready to begin.
Your experience with making difficult or important decisions has nothing to do with the length of your résumé, nor whether you’ve ever been interviewed by CNN. No matter where you are in your professional life, whether you’re an administrative assistant or a CEO, you’ve already made some very big career decisions. You may not have realized it. If you have not, it is critical that you do.
This point was made very well by a man named Doyle Brunson, who has won the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas, Nevada, ten times. Once, Brunson was asked about the pressure he felt when he pushed a million dollars’ worth of chips into the center of the table on a single bet. “That’s not pressure,” the gambler replied. “Pressure is when you’re betting your last dime.”
The importance of any decision is determined by how much it can affect your own life. Smoking a first cigarette may turn out to be a big decision and a very destructive one, though it didn’t seem like much at the time. Seemingly insignificant choices like returning a phone call, answering a letter, or doing a friend a small favor have transformed more than one person’s life. So give this some real thought. Often the most life-changing choices are really about changing small details of things we do every day.
This is like the difference between a poet and a novelist, or between an inventor and an engineer. A concept person thinks of an idea like Pet Rocks or Beanie Babies. An execution person knows just how to price and market them. A concept person sketches new lines of fashionable clothing each season. An execution person adapts those designs for production, contracts with vendors, and oversees an ad campaign to promote them.
Concept people see everyday objects with fresh eyes. They are masters at free association. Their talents are what spark new trends, inspire innovative products, create fresh approaches, and cause new services to be born. Execution people play a much different role. Without them, clever ideas would never manifest themselves in our daily lives. They fiddle with ideas until they can be realistically turned into products that hit the shelves at cost and on time.
Both talents are necessary. Neither could accomplish much without the existence of the other. Both are potential leadership masters. Which one are you?
Meg, a recent law school graduate, took a trip to Europe before returning to take the bar exam. While visiting Prague, she found that walking the streets of an old-world city could be its own kind of education. On a narrow side street, Meg peered through a window and observed an elderly watchmaker with three young apprentices. Dozens of delicate watch parts were arranged neatly on the table in front of them. There were heaps of tiny coils and springs and bits of metal and delicate crystals for use as watch faces. From time to time, the watchmaker stood up to look at an apprentice’s work, but for the most part, the view through the window was one of pure concentration and of people inspired by detail.
Detail-oriented people thrive in situations that allow them to delve into the process of taking things one step at a time with methodical concentration. They find no appeal in a broad, generalized approach to things.
Of course, some people would be climbing the walls instead of patiently disassembling an antique watch. For them, the methodical attention that’s required for this kind of effort is boring and may seem pointless. They have the capacity for great commitment and hard work, but when it comes time to dive into the smaller parts of the process, they’re already onto the next order of business. Their strengths don’t lie in carefully fitting together the smaller pieces of the puzzle, no matter how critical those pieces might turn out to be.
Do you play to win or to prevent yourself from losing? Do you think that the best defense is a good offense, or is it the other way around?
Don’t make the mistake of thinking one of these styles is somehow better than the other. On the surface the aggressive thinker might seem like a superior leader, but don’t be fooled. Depending upon the circumstances, conservative thinking can save the day.
Imagine that an armed robber has taken hostages in a bank. Time ticks away as the gunman inside the building remains in a standoff with police. The public may be crying out for action, but more often than not, it’s the cool-headed, conservative approach that saves the people inside. It may not make for a great movie adaptation, but that matters very little to the families of the hostages who are released unharmed. In this instance it is easy to see that an aggressive move could quickly turn into a violent and needless disaster.
In the business world, however, there are plenty of opportunities for aggressive thinkers to flourish. When America Online announced that it would purchase the giant Time Warner conglomerate, it was easy to forget that, only a few years before, the future of AOL was anything but bright. The hourly fees the company charged for Internet access were drastically undercut by other providers. Customers were leaving AOL in droves. Then, in a move that took everyone by surprise, Steve Case of America Online announced that hourly fees would be abolished, and service would be offered for a single monthly fee, one that in many cases was only a fraction of what people had been paying.
The line of demarcation is clear. Aggressive leaders are not daunted by risks. They are creative strategists and they are often at their best when their backs are against the wall. Conservative leaders limit damage. They anticipate ways to avoid unnecessary losses to protect the larger organization. Different kinds of people have different strengths. Your task now is to discover where your own strengths lie.
In other words, do you trust your gut or trust the numbers? When you’re faced with a tough choice, do you respond intuitively or analytically?
While it’s true that instincts and hard data often work together, when they’re at odds, one often trumps the other, depending upon which process makes you most comfortable. When a very successful bond trader left the Chicago Board of Trade to take a position trading natural gas in Houston, it seemed like a step into the unknown. Why would anyone want to leave a career that was providing such success? The bond trader himself found it difficult to explain. “The numbers only tell me so much,” he said. “I work on instinct. I don’t know any other way to describe it.”
Steve Jobs, of Apple Inc., is a similar example of instinctive decision making. When he returned to lead the company he had cofounded, there were serious problems that Apple had never faced before. Sales were dismal. Other brands had caught up with Apple in ease of use, and many were significantly less costly. The numbers were definitely bad, but Jobs remained passionate about Apple. He had faith in its strength as a market innovator, and as a company that had its finger on the consumer pulse. He had strong instincts about what was missing from the home computer market, and the iMac model proved him right. It was small, easy to operate, portable, and fun to look at.
A less emotional approach to decisions is also a valuable approach. For many people the notion that “the numbers don’t lie” has served them very well when it comes time to make a tough choice, regardless of what’s happening in their gut. What’s critical is becoming aware of your own process and identifying your own decision-making priorities.
Some people hear the word consensus and breathe a sigh of satisfaction. Others hear the same word and grit their teeth. Why the different reactions?
Leaders who favor consensus and collaboration consider it the optimal group dynamic. They feel that the rightness of a decision is validated when most of the group agrees with it. It’s a harmonizing process. Consensus builders are convinced that going forward as a team will increase an organization’s overall effectiveness. Even on a personal level, they’re most comfortable in this sort of atmosphere.
Being a consensus builder, however, takes considerable skill and tenacity. It requires knowing how to interact with all sorts of personalities. It means being an astute judge of others. These leaders are tireless negotiators, constantly readjusting their mental balance sheets, while they edge everyone closer to the middle. Like a cat that always lands on its feet, a consensus builder knows how to stay in control while navigating a fluid situation.
In all of American history, the classic consensus builder was President Lyndon B. Johnson. As a senator, he had a reputation as the skilled deal maker. Johnson could get politicians on both sides of the aisle to support a bill or to rally around a cause. That skill served Johnson well when he was elected president. Despite overwhelming opposition from Southern senators, Johnson was able to get the 1964 Civil Rights Act passed by Congress. After many days of grueling debate, America had the most sweeping civil rights act in the country’s history.
At this point, you may be wondering, “Who in their right mind would be against consensus?” After all, what could possibly be wrong with everyone being in agreement? But every aspect of leadership has a flip side, an opposite style that can be equally effective.
When Bill Gates of Microsoft holds a business meeting, nothing annoys him more than a room in which all are nodding their heads. Gates believes that consensus often is a sign of lazy or conformist thinking. The best work, in his opinion, comes from confrontation, challenge, and contrarian thinking. “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard” is a comment Gates has made more than once in a business meeting, just to get the sparks flying.
How would you react to that sort of style? Are you a consensus builder or someone who likes to puncture balloons?
You have now been given six questions that will assist you in assessing exactly what your leadership style is. These questions are reiterated in the action steps below. Be sure to answer each as specifically and completely as possible.
1. Before revisiting the leadership assessment questions, review the list of guidelines for effective leadership below. Put a by those attributes that you feel you have mastered, and put an X by those that you need to further develop in yourself.
The effective leader should keep the following guidelines in mind when it is necessary to change attitudes or behavior:
• Be sincere. Do not promise anything you cannot deliver.
• Forget about the benefits to yourself and concentrate on the benefits to the other person.
• Know exactly what it is you want the other person to do.
• Be empathetic. Ask yourself, “What is it the other person really wants?”
• Consider the benefits that person will receive from doing what you suggest.
• Match those benefits to the other person’s wants.
• When you make your request, put it in a form that will convey to the other person the idea that he or she, personally, will benefit.
It’s naive to believe you will always get a favorable reaction from other persons when you use these approaches, but the experience of most people shows that you are more likely to change attitudes this way than by not using these principles. If you increase your success by even a mere 10 percent, you will become 10 percent more effective as a leader than you were before. And that is your benefit.
2. Answer the following questions, keeping in mind these two points. First, be honest with yourself. This assessment is for your benefit, and no one else will see it. The more honest you are, the more lifelike your verbal snapshot will be. In particular, avoid the temptation of second-guessing yourself to create a “better” answer—because for this exercise, the best answer is the truth, just as it occurs to you.
Second, try to avoid brief, generalized answers. Write as much as you can for each response, including circumstances, thoughts, emotions, and people. Include internal and external details that will flesh your answer into something useful for you to work with later. The more you write, the more you’ll get out of the process.
1. What is the biggest career or work-related decision you have made, and how did you make it?
2. Are you a concept person or an execution person? Please explain your answer.
3. Are you inspired by detail or impatient with it? Provide examples for your answer.
4. Are you a conservative or an aggressive leader? Why do you say that?
5. Do you use your emotions in your work-related decision making? Give specific examples.
6. As a leader, do you try to build consensus or do you go at it alone? Please explain.