How to Identify Leaders in Your Company
Challenge is the crucible of leadership and there is no time like the present to look for the leaders in your organization. So what should you look for - and how can you create the environment to bring out the leaders?
There are many books which have been written about leadership in companies - probably thousands - and they run the gamut of styles: developing leaders through process (a favorite with HR teams), mentoring, motivational etc. But in a small company the hunt for leadership is a very practical one. You need people who can step out of the group to make a difference.
All the books and papers on leadership can be boiled down into a handful of critical behaviors to watch for when you challenge your organization:
- Embracing risk. Future leaders have an appetite for risk (see my post on leadership and risk) and see it as an opportunity. An opportunity to make change happen, to have an impact, to make something new happen. The risk can be personal (looking a fool, failing) or it can be for the company (losing a stretch deal, developing a risky product that never works) but it is the risk itself that will stretch the team and the emerging leader is often the person most comfortable with the level of risk. Conservatives need not apply.
- Having followers. The phrase is old and corny - "the definition of a leader is someone other people are following" - but it's so true in a company. Making new and significant change happen, especially in technology, rarely happens through authority. It happens because someone has an idea and motivates with the idea so others follow. When I am looking into my organization for leadership I look for whose ideas are carrying the day, and how is that person communicating and nurturing the ideas to have other people follow them.
- Lead by doing and succeeding. People want to be successful and they will often follow someone who they can observe being successful, someone who gets things done. The motivation is to learn, to be around a winner, to have the fun of being on a winning team. It's almost impossible to be effective as a leader if you are not effective as an individual and many leaders emerge because they are good at what they do and other people want to work with them and for them to learn themselves (although sadly this is not always the case of who gets promoted ...).
- Putting the company first. This is one I often see ambitious people early in their career forget. Especially in politicized companies or organizations where there is a great deal of personal wealth to be made (think company headed into an IPO or an aggressive bank). But as a CEO my interest is always 100% company first. It's the only way to measure success. So when I see someone posture or behave in a political way for their own gain I don't care how good they are, I can't see them as a leader. One of the five values at FirstRain is "Take ownership for the company's success" and I look for which employees have taken on the company's success as their own.
I don't prescribe to any one style of leadership being better than any other. Society often remembers leaders from the Great Man or Hero theory of leadership - like President Obama today - who use intelligence and charisma to lead. But in a company you need more than great men (or women) because you need to find the ability to lead different skills sets and personalities who will respond to different styles of leadership.
But if you are the leader of a company or a team, whether they work for you or they are a team you are leading across your community, you can find your anchors, the people who you can count on to help you get the job done, by looking for these four simple characteristics: embracing risk, having followers, succeeding and putting the company (or your shared goal) first.
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Great article! I was surprised to find that I am, or have the potential to be, a leader. Perhaps that explains the last two companies for which I worked firing me, one for no real reason and the other for tardiness.
There isn't much point in being the person described in this article, the results are as spelled out by Pippen, commenting before me.
One can talk all they want about leaders and leadership , but the fact remains that most companies "manage for mediocracy". To have real leaders is a scary thing. I recently returned to the corporate world after 20 years of running my own company. I will last about another 3 to 4 weeks, before I leave. I am surprised I lasted 2 months. Not sure what I'll do next, most likely start another business. Managing mediocracy has never been something I have enjoyed. Many companies manage to metrics that fall well below the declared value of managing for excellence. Real leaders rock the boat and make the "group think" people way too nervous. The standing nail eventually gets pounded down. I am working for one of the so called enlighten corporations. It's all about teams and team members. It is nothing more than shared mediocracy. If a real leader develops or is brought into the "team", the team can actually black ball the new member and usually do if their comfort zones are threatened. It is a friggin joke, but everyone buys into it seeing it's the soup de jour. Real leaders leave and start their own companies.
UPDATE: I didn't even make it another 3 weeks. It's my day off today and after writing the above comment I called in to let them know I would be leaving the company. Boy, do I feel good!
sonoffestus, you have a point but you do seem to be a leader. You are probably a leader that hate to see injustice and I would hire you in a minute. I agree with you when you stated leaders open their own buisness this is true but in order to get there don't you think by working at another company for awhile and learning the ends and out of a buisness is useful for a leader who may be thinking of opening his own buisness. You seem to hate the backstabbing that goes on in some companies and so do I but I have found out as long as we the people exist that kind of operation will continue. People get scared and do what they know to do and that is create a lie on someone who may be excellant at the job they do. Also you probably don't have the patience to stick it out and make change occur you see one thing I've notice about true leadership the person that has this gift has the ability to draw people and they listen to him or her, they have the ability to get people to rethink a project ect..... Usually people seek them out for advice. I believe you have this gift and yes it is a gift, now some have it and have done crooked things with it but a true leader is looking to make positive things happen and not to harm anyone. Goodluck.
Thanks for your positive thoughts and yes I do agree it is good for one to work for a company for a while to "learn the ropes" as one might say. This is why I went back to work for a major USA corp. I indeed learned alot from this experience even though it has been a short stay. I learned that things have changed very little since my last stint in the corporate world 20 years ago. Actually, I believe things have deteriorated. Maybe this is why corporate America finds itself in the position it is today. Not sure what will be next, but times like these are really the best times to incubate new ideas and businesses.
Thomas Edison hired more people and spent more money on R&D during the great depression than any other time in his early years. Coming out of the depression he had the people and the products the country and the world needed and wanted. I read this about him when I was 13. I have never forgotten this little tidbit of knowledge. Now at 56 I will use this 43 year old lesson again.
The best option for anyone who sees themselves as a leader is to start their own business.
Don't waste very much of your life trying to get an existing company to move.
They won't until, as in the present moment, they hit the wall so hard that new leadership is needed.
This is a nice idea, but the fact is that the normal operations of most large organizations tend to crush anyone with real leadership potential because they are a threat to people who presently hold power.
Years ago, I heard the truest comment on how "leaders" in large companies really work;
"In every company there is at least one person who knows exactly what is going on, and exactly how to fix it. This person must be fired immediately."
In modern corporate America, if you do any of the following you will be demoted or fired;
1) Embrace Risk: You will be branded as "reckless."
2) Having Followers: You will be seen as a threat to the upper management "Good Old Boy Club."
3) Lead by Doing and Succeeding: You will be accused of "Not being a team player".
4) Putting the Company First: You willand be abused with 80-100 hour work weeks and lose your family .
This all comes under the corollary;
"No good deed goes unpunished."
I work for a fortune 100 company with tens of thousands of staff and I take exception to your list. First and foremost, leadership demands Sacrifice. When troops on the field of battle gravitate toward someone, it's because that someone has taken on the sacrifice of the troops himself. He's held accountable and displays PERSONAL risk and extreme courage FOR OTHERS not himself. I defy anyone to find this in Corporate America today!
Embracing Risk - Personal with realized acknowledged accountability
Having Followers -
Few if any follow anyone, ranking officers force march subordinates. Rank in corporate America is a failed concept. Should be Tribal.
Lead by Doing - most officer don't talk about what they are doing until it's completed because the other vultures will steal it.
Putting Co First - This is a mirage, a myth, an idea that gets the same patriotic furor going. Mis-interpreted as cutting subordinate project workers per diem "for the company" is a good example.
Identifying leaders within a company is not always easy. Each company culture tends to have its own criteria. As an executive coach for nearly a decade, I've seen hundreds of leaders with real potential get passed by. It is still an exclusive club, and you need to know the rules. And those rules change with the economic environment and corporate culture.
In this environment, yes, Penny is spot on--embracing risk gets you tagged as leadership potential, but depending on the culture, so can innovation.
But based on what I've seen in Fortune 500s, I'd vote for those individuals who have vision and can execute. It's a killer combination.
Most if not all CEO's are looking for key people that provide validation for the CEO. That's what they [the CEO's] actually mean as "Leadership"
Like the author, they define Leadership in many ways, however, the CEO's are the only ones who don't understand that basic inconsistency between what they preach and what they practice.
Isn't that one of Penny's points - that real leaders put the company first?
I agree completely that many CEOs just hire and/or promote their groupies. Some of our economic troubles can be traced to the proliferation of CEOs whose primary interest is inflating their egos and enriching their already bulging personal coffers.
Their success as leaders beyond the title in their companies can be, in most cases, correlated with the falling value of the stock. We shareholders pay the price.
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