Personal Leadership Philosophy and Development Plan

Leadership Assumptions and Core Beliefs

My assumptions about leadership have changed over time. I used to believe that leadership was simply a matter of having strong motivational skills. That remains a part of the role, but as I have become more interested in leadership, a number of other influences have come to shape my views.

I feel that leadership is about communicating a common vision and exuding confidence. Both of these stem from my original view that motivation is important, but over time I have come to believe that motivation stems not just from pep talks but from the confidence the leader projects. Before a team or organization can have confidence in you and your vision, you need to have confidence in yourself and your vision. A large part of leadership is believing in yourself, your people, and your organization's mission. Once that confidence permeates throughout the organization, the leader can marshal the organization's resources more effectively.

I believe that marshalling resources toward an end objective is critical to leadership, because leaders are measured more on their results than on anything else. In the corporate world, leaders are measured by profits; in government, there are other measures such as the state of the economy, public safety, and the ability to continually improve conditions for citizens. For a leader to be truly effective, he or she must be able to clearly define a set of objectives toward which the organization will work. Without guidance, workers will simply perform their duties without inspiration, and with no improvement of results to show for it. A strong leader will clearly define objectives and set out a path for employees to follow toward those objectives.

One of the more subtle aspects of leadership I have come to appreciate is that the achievement of desired results stems from a leadership style that removes barriers to success for the members of the organization. I generally eschew the autocratic leadership style for a couple of reasons. I believe that people today are more intelligent and better trained than in the heyday of Frederick Taylor's scientific management and should be empowered accordingly. Moreover, the tasks involved in meeting organizational objectives today are so complex that autocracy will invariably lead to grinding bureaucracy.

I also believe that a true leader must be willing to accept responsibility for outcomes that are undesired or below expectations. The leader is the person who sets up the system, understands the organization's resources, and marshals them to meet objectives. As such, the leader must be responsible for the failings of the system as well as its successes. Leaders unwilling to accept responsibility will fail to inspire the organization and will thus lose their ability to motivate, guide, or marshal resources.

I believe that there is no single true leadership style and that different styles work in different situations. This fundamental belief not only stems from my observations of multiple leaders in multiple situations, but also inspires me to continue examining different leaders across different contexts. I draw largely on the corporate and political worlds for my primary leadership influences. In the corporate world, two distinct types of leaders emerge — crisis leaders and day-to-day leaders. The return of Steve Jobs to Apple to pull the company out of total disarray was certainly a case of inspiring crisis leadership. He was immediately able to drive strong changes to the organization, including changes to its culture. However, I have become equally influenced in recent years by day-to-day leaders such as Fred Smith at FedEx. A crisis can, in my view, make it easier for a new leader to galvanize an organization. But for an organization to continue to excel and exceed past performance without any crisis speaks to a softer, more complex leadership style. I seek to learn from leaders such as Smith, who inspire their organizations to excellence every day without any crisis to compel action.

I draw much of my leadership influence from the corporate world, but there is much to be learned from the political world as well. I admire political leaders for their ability to juggle a wide range of priorities, many of which are more consequential than the mere generation of capital. Furthermore, the degree of scrutiny is so much higher because the political leader is accountable to far more people and faces direct opposition from political opponents.

Looking at the history of political leadership has also colored my views on different leadership types. As in business, there are leaders who are inspirational in a time of crisis — Winston Churchill, Lech Wałęsa, or Nelson Mandela, for example. Yet these leaders often struggle when the crisis has subsided and they are forced to lead nations through more mundane affairs. I compare these with skilled administrators like Kublai Khan, who were able to shepherd nations into a golden age of peace and prosperity, and I see that different leadership styles are ideal for different situations.

Defining Quality in Organizations

One lesson I have drawn from studying poor leaders is that even leaders placed in positions of high authority should never place themselves above the organization. Dynasties fail because of petty rivalry, companies fail when executives put their own interests above those of shareholders, and nations face war and economic strife when leadership prioritizes its own interests above those of the people it represents. From this I take the lesson that as a leader I must always be guided by strong morals and values. Whatever other leaders do, it is important for me to always work toward positive contributions to the world and to the organization I am serving.

It can be difficult to pin down what quality looks like. At the outset of scientific management, Taylor hypothesized that for any given problem there was only one best solution. Quality, therefore, was defined as finding and implementing that one best solution. Total Quality Management (TQM) is a system of managing by process, wherein there can be no single static best way. Thus, quality is defined more as the best way at a given moment to achieve the objectives of that moment (Wood & Wood, 2002). This theory essentially expanded on Taylor by recognizing that objectives and best practices are in a state of constant flux as a result of continuous changes in external and internal environments.

The notion of quality has been further expanded in management theory, with concepts such as Six Sigma taking hold. Quality in Six Sigma is defined as the reduction of errors — a system that produces high-quality results is one with a minimum of defects (Hashmi, 2009). Such definitions lead to goal setting, which Ordonez et al. (2009) point out is a flawed tool for leadership. The pursuit of stated goals is necessary for an organization, they hypothesize, but is fraught with many negative side effects. Quality, therefore, is not merely the pursuit of error reduction leading to the achievement of goals.

One of the difficulties in defining quality is that there are essentially two types of organizational objectives — quantitative and qualitative. Management science has long focused on quantitative objectives, which are easy to understand, measure, and evaluate. However, the sum total of an organization's output extends beyond the realm of the quantifiable. Qualitative measures also exist and can impact the quality of organizational output just as significantly. It can be argued that even qualitative outputs will eventually affect quantitative results. Ford's loss of reputation as a result of the Pinto scandal, for example, cannot be directly quantified, but the sales and profit decreases that flow from the scandal can be. The implications of the damaged reputation, however, cannot be undone once the damage has been done. Thus, it is important for managers to control qualitative output before those impacts manifest in quantitative form.

In this way, the notion of quality as typically defined in production-oriented theories like Six Sigma or TQM proves inadequate. As Ordonez et al. (2009) showed, managers tend to focus on quantitative goals over qualitative ones, in part because measurement of the former is so much easier. This has significant implications for the definition of quality: because quality extends beyond what is easy to measure, managers and management theorists alike continue to struggle with its definition.

It is precisely this confusion that hints at a first truth about quality: quality looks different at different organizations. Each organization must define quality on its own terms, which allows managers to best understand all the components of quality on which they must focus. It is the role of the leader to define quality for the organization, helping to alleviate some of the issues inherent in an over-reliance on goal setting. Leaders must effectively communicate not only the goals, but the hierarchy of those goals and the means by which they should be attained. They must constantly challenge workers to maintain focus on each goal, not just the ones easiest to pinpoint or measure.

Quality, then, is in the eye of the beholder. The leader defines the organization's priorities, which then become the vision of quality. The concepts of Six Sigma can be applied broadly to include qualitative goals as well, minus the specific measurement component. Quality becomes the deviation between the leader's vision and the organization's actual outputs.

The Sears case discussed by Ordonez et al. illustrates an organization that set a non-meaningful goal not tied to any big-picture objective. The result was an ill-conceived goal that did not result in the achievement of genuine quality. The goals were met, but the company lacked quality overall because the goals themselves were inappropriate — a failure stemming directly from a lack of organizational vision at the leadership level.

The Leadership Challenge Framework

The leader's role as communicator is also critical to the development and achievement of high organizational quality. Each employee must weigh competing goals with respect to priorities and ultimate organizational objectives. This requires the cultivation of a strong leadership team. The autocratic style may suit a Taylorist workplace, but the modern workplace requires several levels of leadership, each with strong competencies in communication and motivation. The cultivation of leadership is therefore critical to overall organizational success.

The Leadership Challenge approach is founded on five key steps: model the way, inspire a shared vision, challenge the process, enable others to act, and encourage the heart (Kouzes & Posner, 2009). These steps provide a framework for understanding the ideal skill set of an effective leader.

Modeling the way requires that a leader develop a holistic vision of the organization's future, incorporating all of its aspects. More importantly, a visionary leader will be able to see the path by which the organization moves from its present situation to the fruition of that vision. Imparting a shared vision requires that a leader be inspirational and a strong communicator. Having a vision is one thing; translating that vision into action requires communicating it throughout the organization so that every member rallies behind it. We can see this at a company like FedEx, where not only did the earliest employees commit to the vision — enabling the firm to survive hard times — but employees today remain committed to it.

Challenging the process is a more demanding element of leadership. The view that organizational processes and systems must remain subject to change, and that managers must be prepared to take risks, stems from the TQM idea that constant adaptation is required to maintain quality. Effective leaders are always aware of the current situation and willing to make adjustments to meet current realities. They have a disdain for complacency, which drives them to accept risk as part of leadership and to accept that some risks will result in negative outcomes. The ability to be comfortable with failure is therefore another key leadership trait.

Enabling others to act is an essential leadership element. The view that workers are unable to comprehend their responsibilities has been set aside, along with the autocratic style. To achieve full organizational buy-in, leaders must foster an environment where each unit sustains its own quest for quality, with members contributing to goals and holding each other accountable. This requires a leader who is willing to delegate authority when warranted, encourage communication, and remove obstacles to excellence.

Encouraging the heart is often difficult for leaders with a strong orientation toward quantitative thinking. It has been shown that the value of extrinsic rewards is typically overstated, while the value of intrinsic rewards is understated — particularly for workers with complex jobs or those who place more value on achievement than on basic needs (Stein, 2007). The ability to understand and tap into the motivations of employees is therefore another defining trait of an effective leader.

Based on these insights, it is clear that effective leadership requires a wide range of soft skills. Being a visionary, a communicator, and a motivator moves far beyond the basics of goal setting and technical expertise. Leadership is a multi-faceted role involving both hard and soft skills. The leader must understand the workings of the organization well enough not only to formulate a vision but also to chart the path by which the organization can reach it.

Conclusion

The leadership development plan mirrors the way that the best leaders lead. I will create a vision for myself and then lay out the steps to follow in pursuit of that vision. I will constantly re-evaluate that vision and the steps I am taking, seeking to understand what has been effective and what has not, what I have learned and what I have yet to learn. The process is ongoing and, at times, may require bold steps to maintain momentum.