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This article offers a list of guiding principles for understanding and practicing effective leadership.
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One evening last semester, as I attempted to combat my occasional insomnia with some mind-numbing late night television, I happened across an old Mel Brooks movie. Although the film's title escapes me now, one comedic incident in the picture has stuck with me. The scene features Moses coming down from the mountain with the Commandment tablets not so firmly grasp. Seeing the throng of people awaiting his arrival, Moses (i.e., Brooks) cries out a pronouncement to his flock and promptly drops two of the four tablets. (Actually, the movie Moses carried three tablets. Four work better for my purposes, so I hope I'll be forgiven a small deviation from the course of rectitude. At least I'm honest about lying.) Approaching the crowd, Moses announces something on the order of: “Look, I have come! I bear the twenty…(here he drops the tablets)…the Ten, Ten Commandments!”
Earlier that same evening, I had been wrestling with a problem connected to the undergraduate course I was teaching that term. I had been trying to identify a unique or creative method for concluding the semester's work-a way to summarize the course content and reiterate some of the important aspects of effective leadership.
Aha! I thought. What I needed might, indeed, have been written on the back of the tablets Moses dropped. What I needed and what might have been lost to the world were Commandments! Ten more Commandments! Ten Commandments of Effective Leadership!
Then, inspired either by divine intervention (which I doubt was the case) or by loss of sleep (which I suspect was the case), I quickly scribbled down the following commandments and corollary statements. Thinking they may prove beneficial to others, I share them here in this journal. Not as impressive a format as stone tablets, perhaps, but my pencil skills are somewhat better than my abilities with hammer and chisel. Besides, publication possibilities are more numerous, given the prohibitive costs of stone tablet reproduction. These, then, are the:
• You cannot be an effective leader without knowing your own strengths and weaknesses. Your self –assessment must be continuous and as objective as you can make it. Knowing your capabilities will allow you to improve on your weaknesses and trade on your strengths.
• You must analyze and come to understand your own philosophy of leadership, for only by establishing your own philosophical base, and building form that base a discovery of your motivational factors and personal and professional goals, can you hope to help others tap their potential as leaders. And that is the key to effective leadership.
• Finally, if you have completed your self-analysis and –assessment, and you don't like what you find, change! And don't wait unit tomorrow to do it.
• Bozos tend to lead bozos. So, if you do not relish the idea of leading a bunch of clowns, you better not be one yourself.
• Keep in mind the cardinal rule about actions speaking louder than words, and know that were leadership is concerned (and almost anything else for that matter), what you do is far more important, influential, and effective than what you say.
• If you expect no more from others than what you, yourself, are willing to give, and if you give to any project what you can legitimately give, you will never be disappointed in you leadership results.
• If a stump had ears it would be able to hear, but only people listen. How many of us have experienced purported leaders who have made excellent stumps?
• Most problems that leaders are asked to solve are people problems. Most people are created because of failure in communication. Most failures in communication are a result o people hearing, but not listening, to one another. Active listening is participative listening. It means helping others communicate what they truly wish to communicate; it means focusing on what others are saying, not thinking on how you will respond to them; it means explaining to your communications partner what you think you hear, and sometimes, it means listening carefully to what is not said as to what is. (We might be reminded here of our first blind date, when what was said: “She plays piano beautifully!” o “He drives a Ferrari!” was not as important as what was not said: “She looks like a bulldog” or “He drools on himself.”)
• One more thing to remember about good communication: if you must talk, let it be to ask a question.
• Effective leaders care about other people. They do all they can do to learn about the goals, both personal and professional, of the people with whom they work. They willingly divulge their own goals. They attempt to build teamwork by: (a) identifying the shared goals and objectives of others, (b) recognizing the advantages of a dedicated group's efforts versus these of an individual, and (c) marshalling the talents and abilities of tem members towards meeting individual and team goals.
• As a leader, you must make the effort to know what other members of the team are doing, not necessarily to monitor their progress, but to seek ways and means of providing your own assistance. Leaders look for opportunities to lend a hand.
• Do not hesitate to ask others for assistance. You will come to understand that requesting help is a sincere form of flattery-in asking for assistance you are, in effect, recognizing the knowledge or abilities and, thus, the value of the person to whom you make your request. All of us like to feel worthy. All of us like to feel needed.
• Most of the genuinely honest people you meet will admit they are honest not because of a rigid moral code, but because they are too dumb to keep track of all the lies they might have told. The rest of us never seem to learn that even the smallest of white lies will someday, in some way, return to haunt us.
• Think about it. Most people do not want a liar for a leader. Do you?
• Although it is unwise to be less than honest with those you lead, it is far worse to be dishonest with yourself. Many of the decisions you make will be based upon your perceptual field in concert with your foundation of previous experiences and system of values. If those perceptions, experiences, or values have resulted from less than honest self-evaluation, the decisions you consequently make will be less than your best. And that should never be satisfactory for anyone.
• All good leaders make mistakes-a host of them. Rarely, however, do they make the same mistake more than once. And when they do err in deed or judgment, they openly admit their mistake, learn from it, and forget it. Generally, others will forget it too.
• One other though: if you promise to do something, do it. It is far better to decline an assignment than to accept that assignment and fail to follow through or give it your best effort.
• If you are to become an effective leader, you will need to become an effective risk-taker. Every action and every decision holds some degree of risk, usually, the more important the decision, the higher degree of risk. Successful leaders know this. They accept the risk. More than that, they embrace it. Realizing that ignored risks are most dangerous, effective leaders study risks, dissect them to their constituent parts, evaluate them, and, finally, determine the best methods of dealing with them. In managing risks appropriately, you will become the controller of event rather then the controlled.
• Generally being optimists, effective leaders see problems as challenges, challenges as catalysts for change, and changes as opportunities. They do not avoid failure; they seek success.
• All effective leaders share one characteristic-confidence in their own ability to get the job done. The personal confidence is often contagious and quick to permeate a leader's entire organization, boosting confidence levels of all team members (in themselves and in their leader). Without that personal or team confidence, a leader is likely to be frustratingly ineffective. For illustration purposes, consider the Army officer who turns to the troops and states in uncertain voice: “Follow mw, soldiers, we can take that hill…I think”; or the wilderness guide who (after flipping a coin) says: “Yes I'm sure, it's the left fork in the trail that will take us back to camp.
• Avoid making any decisions or taking any action until after you have explored the available options and alternatives and feel confident that yours is the appropriate response. Never engage, however, in the worthless pursuit of second - guessing yourself. If your decision or action is wrong, correct it, learn from it, and then get on with it.
• Another note: a wise leader does not confuse confidence with conceit. The correlation between these terms is directly proportional to that between being a leader and a loser.
• The most effective leaders are quicker to act than react. Their best solution to any problem is to solve it before it becomes a problem. They much prefer winning than whining. If they see something that needs fixing, they will do what they can to repair it before being told to by someone else.
• Effective leaders will not accept, “Well, it's always been done that way”, an as adequate response to any question. The constant search for a better way to do things is the force that drives most of them.
• If your leadership is to be most effective, you will have to do all you can to rise above certain innate, very human traits, such as wanting to dismember anyone who dares question tour decisions or your leadership abilities, or wanting to provide in-depth explanations fro what went wrong with this or that decision. No one likes or wants excuses; although they may provide some cathartic relief, they do little good for anyone or anything else.
• Keep in mind how much time and mental energy is spent (and what a pain in a lower extremely is it) having to work with those who are inordinately defensive. Generally, you will avoid them, if possible, and work around them whenever you can. So if you see folks working around you, rather than through you, you might check to see whether you have developed a severe case of defensiveness.
• People disagree with one another. Physics informs us about equal and opposite but does not mention Ludewig's corollary regarding expert judgment: For every opinion uttered by a highly qualified, highly trained expert, there will be a second opinion uttered by an equal qualified, equally trained expert which diametrically opposes the first. Such conflicts of opinion cause disagreement, and disagreement provides fertile ground for practicing leadership skills.
• In dealing with a disagreement, an effective leader should first realize that any given problem has a number of possible solutions and, usually, there is neither a right nor wrong method.
• If you should find yourself on the opposite end of and issue with another leader who is obviously intellectually incapable of seeing the unquestionable wisdom of your point-of-view, the following suggestions might be in order. First, keep in mind that you are not engaged in combat. The point is not who will win or lose, who will be the victor or the vanquish; the real winner is the leader who can facilitate the opposing side's goals while achieving his or her Second, do not make the mistake of publicly digging your heels or adopting some inflexible position to early in any negotiation process. Too many simple problems have been exacerbated by “save face” leaders with an aversion to the taste of crow. Finally, remember that as a leader you may end up crossing over the same river more than once. It would therefore be beneficial to leave a bridge standing for return trips.
• Rarely will an effective leader fail to be an effective follower. The reverse generally holds true as well: the most effective followers (not to confuse with the blind, unquestioning, unthinking, obeisance of toadies, “yes” people, and most graduate students) have the capacity for effective leadership. There are probably many reasons why this is true, but the most important is a corollary to the golden rule we learned, and largely ignored, as children: effective leaders lead as they would like to be led, effective followers follow as they would like to be followed. Emulating a leader you would find effectively follow is not always easy, particularly if you try to maintain the fifth leadership Commandments regarding honesty. It can, however, provide fair measure of effectiveness on your own leadership style.
• If you would not be willing to follow you, who would?
I do not pretend that these Commandments offer any new or exciting revelations for the literature on the study of leadership. They are meant, at the least, as a leadership primer, at the most, as a tool for producing some degree of leadership introspection for readers.
It would not surprise me at all if there were misguided souls to take issue with some of these commandments or their corollary statements. I would, however, direct these or any other critics to Moses. After all, he's the one who dropped the tablets.
Source: Unknown
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