"Leadership Like
White-Water Canoeing"
Copyright ©
2005 Brent Filson , All Rights Reserved
The Filson Leadership Group, Inc.
http://www.actionleadership.com/
Although world
business is undergoing historic changes, the
prevailing view of what constitutes business leadership is
stuck
in the past. Generally, business leaders view leadership as
an
order-giving process. The word “leadership” itself comes
from
old Norse root meaning “to make go.” Many leaders believe
that
they must “make” people go by ordering them to do things.
But today’s new business realities are requiring new kinds
of leadership, leadership that has very little to do with
order
giving. Organizations are more competitive when leaders
don’t
make others go but instead have those others make themselves
go
— when employees are not ordered to do tasks but instead are
in
the frame of mind and heart that they want to do those
tasks.
That “want to” is the cutting edge of competitiveness.
Order-leadership in business has its roots in the beginnings
of the Industrial Revolution. “Order” comes from a Latin
root
meaning to arrange threads in a weaving woof. The captains
of
the Revolution dealt with the relatively uneducated country
people who flocked to their factories by ordering them
where,
how, and when to work. The most efficient and effective
production methods resulted from workers being “ordered” or
ranked like threads in the woof of production lines. Refined
and empowered by the Victorian commercial culture, with its
patriarchal power structure and strong links to Prussian
military
organization, the culture of the order-giver leader reached
its
zenith in the United States after World War II.
During the post-war years, many U.S. businesses were like
ocean liners plowing through relatively calm seas, their
leaders,
like liner captains and mates, running things by getting
orders
from superiors, giving orders to subordinates and making
sure
that those orders were carried out.
But today, with competition increasing dramatically, with
the volume and velocity of information multiplying, with the
pyramidal structures of order-giving businesses flattening,
leaders need skills not akin to ocean liner piloting but
white-water canoeing. Order leadership founders where lines
of
authority are blurred, information proliferates, markets
rapidly
changing, and employees are highly skilled and educated.
A new kind of leadership, a new vision of leadership is
needed — leadership based on the principle that the leader
doesn’t make others go by ordering them about but instead
has
them go by creating an organizational environment in which
they
prompt themselves to go.
This new leadership is: 1. Motivational. 2. Action-based.
3. Results-driven.
Motivational: Leaders do nothing more important than get
results. But leaders can’t get results themselves. They need
the people they lead to get results. And the best way for
them
to get results is not to order them but to motivate them to
take
action that produces results. However, the English language
misconstrues motivation. English describes the act of
motivation
as something one person does to another person. Leaders
can’t
motivate anybody to do anything. We communicate — the people
themselves motivate. They motivate themselves. Only they can
motivate themselves. The motivators and the "motivatees" are
the
same people. We engage in the new leadership when we
recognize
that we are motivating people to get results only when we
set up
an environment in which they are actively motivating
themselves.
Action-based: A key aspect of the new leadership lies in
the first two letters of the word motivation. Those letters
—
“mo” — are also found in the words “motion,” “momentum,”
“motor,”
“mobile,” etc. The words denote action — physical action.
Motivation isn’t what people think or feel but physically
do.
To engage in the new leadership, leaders must constantly be
challenging others to take physical action that leads to
results.
Results-oriented: Motivated people are useless to a
business. People taking action are useless to a business.
Only
those people who get results are useful. The thing is that
people who are motivated and taking action are more likely
to
get results. Leaders must have a passion to achieve results.
Not just results — but more results, faster results. They
must
permeate the culture of their organization with a more
results
faster esprit.
Clearly, many order leaders have a passion for results.
But as to the new leadership, how people get results is as
important as their getting those results. To get
more-results-faster, the order leader demands that people
run
faster in the organizational gerbil wheel. But there is a
limit
to how fast and hard people can work before they burn out.
The new leader, however, recognizes that to achieve more
results
faster on a continuous basis that people can’t simply speed
up,
work harder, and be straight-jacketed by tight controls.
They
must replenish their spirit and energies. They must slow
down to
develop and employ powerful processes, and they must
challenge
others to lead for results. The new leader’s effectiveness
is
not measured so much by his/her actions but by the
effectiveness
of the leadership activities he/she challenges others to
engage in.
The recent emergence of interlocking global markets has
stimulated a new vision of world commerce, a vision of a
single
global playing field. Leaders must match their business
activities to the demands of that vision. But a
corresponding
new vision of leadership has not emerged.
Stuck with an outmoded vision of order leadership, today’s
leaders are not seizing the full array of opportunities
before
them. When they begin to establish leadership that is not
order-driven but is instead motivational, action-based and
results-oriented, the world might not beat a path to their
door
but more importantly, they will beat paths to the doorsteps
of
the world.
=============================
2005 © The Filson Leadership Group, Inc. All rights
reserved.
=============================
The author of 23 books, Brent Filson’s recent books are, THE
LEADERSHIP TALK: THE GREATEST LEADERSHIP TOOL and 101 WAYS
TO GIVE GREAT LEADERSHIP TALKS. He is founder and president
of The Filson Leadership Group, Inc. – and has worked with
thousands of leaders worldwide during the past 20 years
helping them achieve sizable increases in hard, measured
results. Sign up for his free leadership ezine and get a
free guide, “49 Ways To Turn Action Into Results,” at
http://www.actionleadership.com
