Three Things and a Photo

Seth Godin said, "Give me three things and I can find a place for them in my brain." (Seth's Blog)

Mike Farrand, my good friend, advised, "Make sure to include a photo with your postings - even if it doesn't relate to your text."

So, here goes: three things and a photo:

Three Things (Can you find a place for this in your brain?):

1. Leaders are not born.
2. Leaders are not made.
3. Leaders are created.

And a Photo (How's this!?):

Yes - I took this picture myself - last week in Alaska. Whales are created too!

Cheers! Dick

Leadership is not an option. Perhaps that’s why leadership has become an industry, not just an intriguing subject.

There are few people who don’t lead someone: a son, a daughter, a neighbor, a co-worker. A few lead many; most lead only a couple. Both by role, expectation, and interpersonal relationships, leadership is everywhere – leaders are everywhere. From many perspectives, those who have led us have formed us.

The subject of leadership has mushroomed into an industry that annually sells millions of books, prints untold numbers of magazine and journal articles, and captures thousands of seminar attendees looking for that extra-special advantage. “Experts” and “would-be-experts” wax eloquent on all the skills and maneuvers a leader can employ to move people into some pre-determined, desired behavior pattern.

Possibly there’s little in this human adventure that’s as important as one’s influence on others. The very character of life is the result of those whose influence has led us in one direction or another. So it’s understandable that the subject of leadership would capture center stage in a world struggling to find significance and meaning.

For many practitioners it’s simply a cause and effect dynamic. If the leader can create an effective causation, the effect on those to whom the causation is applied will be appropriate. The effect on the follower is directly impacted by the skill of the one exercising lead causation. Great skill – great effect; little skill – little effect.

The great gurus of business and politics and religion have been carefully and thoroughly analyzed in an attempt to uncover their leadership secrets. Most have a book they’ve written to share with the world the keys to their success. All have been credited with specific keys to their effectiveness – keys that, if you and I could duplicate, would launch a new measure of our own success.

But a student of leadership soon discovers a discouraging fact. The great bulk of information on the subject is simply another way of saying the same thing others have already said – or a new twist on the same motivational behavior that didn’t work last time. It tickles the imagination, gives short-lived new energy to modified old patterns, but adds little to the understanding of this important phenomenon. Even when graced with a Bible verse, a pithy quote from classic literature, or a clever joke, the foundation of our understanding of leadership somehow isn’t strengthened by what someone else did or said. The age-old questions of “where” and “how” and “when” about leadership simply never found resolution in the plethora of pages.

You are correct. There’s a direct relationship between the remarkable creative act of God and the leadership capabilities within each person. That relationship is intriguingly exposed and expanded in your notions of the source of leadership. No longer do we need to discuss whether leaders are born or made – whether leadership is genetic or environmental. The source is The Source. Leaders simply reflect the characteristics God created within everyone.

H. Charles Roost, Ph.D.
Founder and Director, International Steward, Inc.
Grand Rapids, Michigan

I’m mesmerized by this alluring subject of leadership. I have been a professor of leadership and management since 1974. I’ve conducted hundreds of leadership development seminars and workshops involving thousands of organizational leaders across the country. I’ve conducted leadership courses and seminars in nearly fifty nations. I take every opportunity to visit my favorite bookstore, purchase a large cup of my favorite, albeit expensive, coffee drink (a double latte macchiato with heavy cream, extra cinnamon, and a dash of nutmeg – with whipped cream, when my wife is not looking), then scurry to the business section to scope out the latest releases on this fashionable topic. I am zealous to learn all I can about leadership.

Some book titles are intriguing: The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change; The 8th Habit: From Effectiveness to Greatness; The 9 Natural Laws of Leadership; Lead to Succeed: Ten Traits of Great Leadership in Business and Life; The 13 Fatal Errors Managers Make and How to Avoid Them; The 17 Indisputable Laws of Teamwork: Embrace Them and Empower Your Team; The 21 Indispensable Qualities of a Leader: Becoming the Person Others Will Want to Follow; and, How to Think Like a CEO: The 22 Vital Traits You Need to Be the Person at the Top.

Other titles are downright disturbing, such as The 48 Laws of Power. The Machiavellian approach to leadership espoused by this book is not about influencing people in a positive, winsome way. This book is what I call the “I’m here to pull you buzzards into the 21st century” approach to leadership. The 48 Laws of Power is a book about cunning manipulation. It teaches people to do anything, anywhere, at anytime to get what they want regardless of how many people get hurt in the process. If there is any redeeming value to this book, it is to make one aware of the cunning, manipulative people out there masquerading as leaders.

Some titles are absolutely amusing: Jackass Management Traits; The 101 Dumbest Moments in Business; The 108 Skills of Natural Born Leaders; Leading Every Day: 124 Actions for Effective Leadership; and, just when you think “124” traits tops them all, John Baldoni released his book, 180 Ways to Walk the Leadership Talk: The How to Handbook for Leaders at All Levels.

It makes me wonder, what number is next? 360? What are your thoughts?

"Where Have All the Leaders Gone?"

When a problem is this pervasive it must be systemic. Who or what is responsible? Is it the federal government? Is it the escalation of tensions in the Middle East? Are terrorists to blame? Or is it good old-fashioned greed that accounts for these large-scale leadership meltdowns?

It is my conviction that organizations don’t collapse because there are not enough managers; organizations collapse because there are not enough leaders. In the 1960s, the folksingers, Peter, Paul, and Mary, made popular a song that asked the question, “Where have all the flowers gone?” Perhaps today’s headlines should cause us to ask, “Where have all the leaders gone?” As Peter, Paul, and Mary pondered, “Long time passing?”

So, just how many leadership traits are there: 7? 8? 9? 10? 13? 17? 21? 22? 124? 180?

And how fast can one become a leader? Some writers make the dubious claim that you can become a leader in as few as 60 seconds. Another author claims it can be done in as little as 10 seconds. And, not to be outdone, yet another author claims that you can become a leader “now.”

In spite of this deluge of confusing advice about leadership, reports of massive corporate collapses continue to dominate the business headlines:

AVS Sputters into Chapter 11
Japan Registers Third-highest Number of Corporate Failures Since WWII
Germany Posts 25% Rise in Corporate Failures
Charges Filed in HP Spying Scandal
Lucent Posts $7.9B Loss
Tyco to Cut 7,100 Jobs, 24 Factories
Delta to Cut 8,000 Jobs
Kodak to cut 15,000

Richard