Over the years, I have had the privilege to work with and for some extraordinary leaders. Leaders who inspire greatness in their people, who have the ability to uplift others, who are prepared to step into the trenches, roll up their sleeves and do some heavy lifting. Leaders who have the incredible gift of being capable of influencing others and creating environments where the focus is on win-win and not win-lose. Leaders who, from the outside at least, appear to have the gift of ‘everything they touch turning to gold’. These leaders set an exceptional standard and benchmark for excellence, a benchmark which I have sought to model my own leadership on.
This was highlighted to me like a massive spotlight just last week – I was working with a leader in a large organisation who was growing more and more frustrated. It appeared that no matter what he did, he just could not achieve the traction and generate the momentum he was looking for. As a result, the morale of the team was dropping, people appeared to be less engaged, their energy was low, not to mention the level of performance of the team. As an exercise I spent some time with one of his direct reports to understand their perspective, and attempt to identify what may have been missing. It was a very interesting discussion. Despite the leaders best intentions, his direct report was confused and really unsure of why he was there and what he was there to achieve. He said ‘sometimes I feel as though I am walking through quicksand in the dead of night, with my hands tied behind my back, a massive load on my shoulders, and not knowing where I am going’. Apart from being impressed with the creative metaphor he used, I reflected on his comments and how he was feeling and realised where the challenge potentially was – his leader had not executed on what I term the True North of Leadership – Clarity. Continue reading
