Overview

Leadership requires the cultivation of multiple competencies and skills, along with the ability to demonstrate those skills in real world interactions with others.  These skills fall in three broad categories:

A.     Visioning– leaders inspire people towards a noble purpose by engaging the head and the heart. They also establish the culture that will support the vision.

B.     Connection– leaders first know themselves, so they can effectively build relationships with others.  Additionally, leaders build teams that are connected with each other based on a foundation of trust.

C.     Feedback– leaders have a specific role to provide comments to others on their behavior.  This includes both appreciative comments and constructive comments.  A foundation of feedback provides leaders with the opportunity to help grow and develop members of the team.  In short, leaders develop other leaders.

A. Vision & Culture: Setting the Goal and Setting the Tone

The prime responsibility of leadership is to lay out the goal that the organization will strive towards. They also have overall responsibility for the culture of the organization – the way that things are done, and how people treat each other. Vision and culture are closely related – for example, a fintech company whose vision is to ‘transform the way that customers engage with their banks by using cutting-edge technology’ will naturally require a culture that encourages risk-taking, collaboration, and open dialogue. Conversely, a wealth management firm with a vision to ‘help families to ensure a legacy for coming generations through prudent investment’ may cultivate a culture that values processes, consistency, and long-term relationships.

There is a symbiotic relationship between vision and culture; each reinforces the other. A compelling vision can energize and motivate team members, giving them a reason to invest emotionally and intellectually in their tasks. However, without a culture that supports that vision, the energy dissipates, and the vision remains unrealized. Culture is the operational engine of any organization; it determines how smoothly and effectively the vision is translated into reality. As the stewards of both vision and culture, leaders need to be vigilant in aligning the two, recognizing when adjustments are needed, and taking action to keep the organization on course.

Leaders also need to embody the culture that they want to create. There is a saying that goes: ‘if you talk about measles, but you have a cold, people are going to catch a cold.’ The biggest tool that a leader has at their disposal is their own behavior. If a company says that it is a place of high trust and honest feedback, but the CEO is prickly and defensive when challenged about an issue, then the CEO’s attitude, rather than her words, will filter down through the organization.

In order to set the vision and culture, leaders need to be excellent communicators, which involves not just speaking but also listening. Leaders should be adept at articulating the organization’s goals, explaining the rationale behind them and explaining how these goals align with the broader vision. Effective communication about the vision should be an ongoing activity, not a one-time event. The same applies to culture; constant communication and reinforcement of cultural values keep them fresh in the minds of team members and ensure that they are practiced, not just preached. Listening intently allows leaders to understand the nuances and concerns that may exist within the team, making the cycle of communication, reflection, and adjustment more impactful.

Of the two communication skills: speaking and listening, one is clearly more important than the other. The more important one is… listening. You might think that the ability to speak publicly is the defining trait of effective leadership. It can indeed be a useful asset for leaders to have. However, listening is a more foundational skill than speaking in most contexts. Effective communication as a leader is about incisiveness, not the confidence of your words. You will only be able to communicate in an impactful way if you understand those you are communicating with.

Liz Truss was the United Kingdom’s shortest-serving Prime Minister, spending just 50 days in office in 2022. Her premiership failed because she tried to make sweeping changes to economic policy, without realizing that her political party and the country as a whole did not trust her to make such drastic changes. When interviewed on these policy changes, she seemed out of touch, not acknowledging the reservations that people had about her drastic approach to policy. Because of this, she was forced to resign, and the changes she had tried to make were reversed. Her leadership failed because of a failure to listen, not a failure to speak.

Effective leadership is a delicate balance between logic and emotion. While data, facts, and strategy (the head) are vital, equally crucial is the ability to connect emotionally (the heart) with team members, stakeholders, and customers. Leaders who can merge these two aspects can resonate more deeply with their teams, leading to a cohesive, aligned, and motivated workforce.

B. Connection: Know Oneself in Order to Build Relationships with Others

Leadership is fundamentally about connecting with others.  The opportunity for connection draws from strong self-knowledge.  Leaders need to know their strengths and weaknesses- and most especially what triggers them to act outside of their regular behavior.  Leaders must know their triggers and decide when to modify their behavior for a given situation.

The ability to flex one’s behavior to meet the needs of others provides a strong foundation for relationships.  Everyone is different and will present leaders with different preferences for how to interact.  The best leaders live by the platinum rule: “Treat others at THEY want to be treated.”  This requires the ability to practice empathetic listening to understand others and the ability to accept and work with people who are different from you.

From the foundation of strong relationships, it is possible to build trust amongst large and larger groups of people.  One practical model of trust includes four key areas for leaders:

1.     Competence– leaders need to be competent in core skills and pursue excellence

2.     Consistency– leaders need to show up reliably across a range of situations

3.     Character– leaders need to exhibit integrity in which their actions match their values and stated commitments

4.     Compassion– leaders need to honor the dignity in others and express appropriate empathy

When leaders can operate in all four of these areas, they are capable of building trust across many types of teams and in many situations.

C. Feedback: Provide constructive and appreciative comments to others

It is the responsibility of a leader to help others achieve their best possible work. An essential tool in achieving this is giving feedback, both appreciative and constructive.

While both positive and constructive feedback are needed, it is not wise to give them in equal amounts. Research suggests that 5:1 ratio of positive to constructive feedback is necessary to maintain healthy relationships, across various domains.^{1 2 3} It may be possible to motivate people in the short term by withholding praise and offering only criticism, but as the 2014 movie Whiplash illustrates, this is not an environment which results in people giving their best over the long term.

What can be recognized and celebrated?

Appreciative recognition can be given for three areas:

Results – It is always good to recognize when people have achieved great results for the organization, ensuring that all who have contributed meaningfully feel appreciated. This can be relevant where there is a large chain of people involved in a project – those whose work was vital in the early stages of a project should receive recognition along with those involved in the final delivery.

Effort – Recognition should also be given for effort, even when the results of this effort are not necessarily seen, either because the results will emerge some time in the future, or when someone has failed nobly at a project. Through the agile approach in software development, it has become increasingly common to take a ‘fail quickly, learn fast’ approach. Where failure has been essential to pushing a project forward the efforts should be recognized.

Embodying a culture – In a values-driven organization (and all organizations have values, whether they are written down or not), people should be recognized when they embody the culture that makes the organization thrive. It may be small acts that show that someone cares, or a way of interacting with others which makes them feel seen, but however someone shows up positively, this should be called out.

Frameworks for feedback

Feedback, whether positive or constructive, is most effective when it covers three things, the Situation, the Behavior, and the Impact.

The Situation is the circumstances in which the behavior occurred.

The Behavior is something objective – something that can be seen or heard. It is not a subjective judgement about someone’s motives.

The Impact is how someone’s behavior made a difference to the organization, whether in terms of time, money or the impact on those around.

To illustrate, see the following examples:

Table 7.3 – Examples and non-Examples of Feedback

It is the job of leaders to set the tempo – giving positive feedback regularly, and being open to receive constructive feedback themselves. Doing this will create a culture where feedback is normal.

References

[1] Gottman. (1996). What Predicts Divorce? The Measures. United States: Taylor & Francis Group.
[2] Hart, B., & Risley, T. R. (1995). Meaningful differences in the everyday experience of young American children. Paul H Brookes Publishing.
[3] Losada, M., & Heaphy, E. (2004). The Role of Positivity and Connectivity in the Performance of Business Teams: A Nonlinear Dynamics Model. American Behavioral Scientist, 47(6), 740–765.