The Twelve Absolutes of Leadership

Purpose is the “why” of an organization, the overarching force that connects your team—intellectually and emotionally. With purpose, organizations become aligned to a greater motivating force that goes beyond making money, which, alone, is not a sustaining motivator. Far more important is the sense of being part of something bigger—of making a difference, of contributing to society and the world at large. With purpose, you raise the sights of the organization beyond what people thought possible.

• Shared purpose creates a sense of urgency.
• Purpose is the difference between doing well some of the time and doing one’s best all of the time.
• Embody purpose. People will watch you and follow your lead.

To anticipate is to look beyond the horizon and envision what is there. Based upon the reality that you see today, you predict and estimate what tomorrow holds. As a leader, you must build the skill of anticipating by identifying trends. Although you are the one to shepherd the process, encourage your team to speak up and share their views. Together, identify the trigger points of change and what they mean for today and tomorrow.

• The better equipped the organization is to see today clearly, the better it will be at systematically predicting the future.
• Leadership is chess - think several moves ahead
• Set a tone of urgent patience.

Strategy lays out the path and sets the pace of how to achieve the mission and vision. It is not enough to have goals and objectives or even an over-arching purpose. You must have a plan of how to reach them. Strategy needs to be forward-looking enough to generate momentum and drive the organization forward, while also being flexible, adaptable, and responsive. Strategy must move the organization fast enough to accomplish what needs to be done, while never outpacing the ability for the organization to adapt.

• Strategy is far less about planning in the calm than it is about decision-making and course-correcting in the midst of the storm.
• Strategy starts with the results of today and lays out the path to the future.
• Never underestimate the potential for uncertainty, fear, mistrust, and ambiguity to derail a strategy.

No matter how well you anticipate, you will encounter the unexpected. It may be a new competitor or it could be a fortuitous market development. In order to navigate, you keep your eye on the future, while staying nimble and agile in the here-and-now. Stay objective, able to admit mistakes and open to new ideas. Navigating requires decision-making skills—sometimes without all the information that you would like to have. If you wait too long, however, the opportunity to act may pass you by.

• The unexpected is to be expected -- plan on it.
• Plan a little, think a lot, decide always.
• Failure to choose is a choice.

People truly are an organization’s greatest asset. As a leader, your job is to attract, align, develop, challenge, guide, and inspire others. Draw upon the power of engagement to bring out the best of your team. People who are engaged feel stretched and challenged; they are motivated to grow and expand their view of what they believe is possible. Create a team of people with complementary strengths—not a team that duplicates you. And always, lead yourself first through continuous commitment to self-improvement in order to lead others.

• When you’re the leader, it’s never about you, but it starts with you.
• The leader sees how the pieces fit together, a mosaic of talents and abilities that create a team that is powerfully diverse in its perspective, ideas, abilities, and experience.
• Push for accord rather than for consensus.

Communication is the leadership skill that everyone knows, but few do very well. As the leader, you must communicate continually to share information. If knowledge is power then it is empowering to tell people what they need to know. What you say and how you say it delivers a message that is more powerful than words alone. Be consistent in all your communication, no matter what the venue.

• In good times, people look to the leader for validation, and in difficult times they look to the leader for assurance.
• Back up what you say with what you do.
• When your team members believe they can trust what you say, they will follow what you do.

There is only one way to gauge how well your strategy is being executed: measure. Measuring should do more than quantify the distance between point A and point B. Monitoring results and applying metrics allow you to identify what is working—and what is not. As the leader, you cannot stick with just the obvious: top-line and bottom-line growth, margins, and so forth. You need to measure the positive impact your organization has on your customers—how what you do becomes the value-added for those who buy your products or services.

• More important than the results are what you do with them.
• Let others judge the results; you discover the implications of the results.
• If you focus only on today’s goals, tomorrow will come before you’re ready for it.

Listening is far more than hearing what is being said around you. Listening establishes an emotional connection. As a leader, if you do all the talking, how can you possibly listen to what anyone else has to say? At the same time, know that people will not tell you everything you want to hear. You must make it safe for them to give you the truth, particularly when there is a problem or bad news. Rely on your trusted advisors and confidants who can provide feedback and insight without sugarcoating.

• Listening is to hearing as speaking is to talking.
• Leadership can be lonely, but it shouldn’t be isolating.
• Communication is 80 percent listening and inquiring, and 20 percent speaking. The former must guide the latter.

Empowering others gets things done. But empowerment does not happen by directive. You cannot make others be empowered. Your job is to inspire people so that they empower themselves to do more, to be more. Empowerment happens when you delegate opportunities, not just tasks. Give people the authority to make decisions and determine the course for themselves within the broad guidelines you have set. Help them to embrace the joy of the journey and not only the final outcome.

• The leader is the master of the organization’s narrative.
• When people feel empowered to do more, they will become more.
• You own the mistakes; empower the team to own the victories.

The more you learn and grow as a leader, the more you will elevate the organization. Read voraciously. Learn from all your experiences, especially your failures. Knowing what went wrong and why will help you be better prepared the next time. Continually process what you have learned and apply that knowledge to new situations. Learn, adapt, and grow as a person and a leader, and your team will do the same.

• What you knew yesterday, got you where you are today. What you learn today determines your success tomorrow.
• Knowledge is what you know. Wisdom is acknowledging what you don’t know.
• Achievements fade, but progress inspires and learning endures.

Reward is much more than compensation, because money cannot buy loyalty any more than it can buy happiness. A far more potent and lasting reward is the intrinsic value that people realize from what they do. To encourage this thinking, you must reward and celebrate every step of the way. Focus on incremental achievements, not just final results. Rewards need not be large or even tangible. A thank-you note, an email of praise or encouragement, recognition at a meeting—these seemingly simple things mean a lot to the recipient.

• To lead means to be in charge of the "care and feeding" of those who follow.
• If it sounds simple, it's not; if it seems obvious, it’s elusive.
• Focus first on the "why" (as in, the behavior you want to elicit), and much later on the "how much."

Leading is less about analytics and decisions, and much more about aligning, motivating, and empowering others to make those decisions. To lead is to learn from the past to define the future, in order to inspire others to move purposefully forward. When you’re a leader, authenticity will always trump charisma. The best source of authenticity is your belief in the organization’s mission--knowing that your team can, indeed, punch through the small opening in the sky. To lead is to inspire others by letting them look into your eyes and see your soul.

• Leadership is grace, dignity, and restraint.
• The accountability you want to see at every level must start with you.
• Words motivate, actions inspire.