What is the true role of a leader?
Last month Fortune released its third annual list of "The World's 50 Greatest Leaders."
It carries names you would expect, like Jeff Bezos, Tim Cook, and Pope Francis. It also names some people you may not know like Marc Edwards, the Virginia Tech professor who led the team that proved Flint's water supply was poisonous, and Carla Hayden, the current nominee to lead the Library of Congress.
No list like this is perfect. The 50 people on this one are mostly highly successful men and women and not "everyday" leaders. But we can learn a lot looking at what sets these, the "greatest" leaders, apart.
One thing we noticed is that these leaders are mostly successful in spite of their power. People like Edwards have little "official" power, and yet he succeeded by speaking truth to those with more formal power. All of the people on this list are advocates. They stand for big ideas, and often fight for people and principles that can't fight for themselves.
These leaders stand out because they relentlessly go after a bigger vision. Leaders are people who represent big ideas, not authority or power.
A lot of people in power positions get this wrong. The truth is, if you give your people something to believe in that is bigger than their daily tasks you don't need power to get things done. If your coworkers buy into the vision, trust in you and know you care about them, you don't have to force them to follow you. Missing those ingredients? Formal power isn't going to help you.
This is one of the main messages of Approachable Leadership. You CAN NOT be a great leader without being close to your coworkers. You must create a safe space where they actually want to talk to you, where they're not afraid they're going to get fired or yelled at the moment something goes wrong.
Be the kind of leader people want to approach and work for. This is the key to engagement, which is at historic lows. In fact, Gallup's 2015 State of the American Manager report found that, "the manager accounts for at least 70% of the variance in employee engagement." |
|
