State of Leadership by Steve Linn

Contact: Larry McAlister lmcalister@crosbyvolmer.com 

Reproduced with permission 

When listing the names of the most influential leaders of this century, a few names come immediately to mind: Andrew Carnegie.  John F. Kennedy.  Martin Luther King.  Katharine Graham.  Jack Welch.  Rudy Giuliani.  These men and women are the heirs to a proud legacy of American leadership.

Some people say this legacy is faltering.  I am more optimistic.  All through my life – whether at West Point or in the business world – I have met and worked with great leaders.  Some of them are famous, some are not; some already lead major corporations, others don’t – yet.

There are many leaders out there to carry the torch of American leadership.  So I do not believe that as a country we face a leadership crisis – though I understand why some people do. 

Leadership is, in fact, a tangible and not an abstract concept.  Far from being in crisis, the foundation of leadership has been solid for thousands of years.  But leaders need to learn to apply these fundamentals in a world of new expectations.  Leadership needs to touch people and help them see the future for themselves and their organization. 

U.S. News & World Report’s October 2005 issue was dedicated to the topic of leadership and cited results of a poll they conducted with the help of Harvard University’s Center for Public Leadership.  The survey revealed that Americans are highly disapproving of the current state of leadership.  It seems most Americans feel that our leaders are worse than those of twenty years ago.  Only 14% of those surveyed had a great deal of confidence in the country’s business leaders.  They fear the country will decline without the backbone of highly qualified people to guide and inspire us.

And indeed it would – if there were any shortage of people ready for leadership.  Yet these people exist in abundance and I meet them every day.  Some are already strong leaders; others have unrealized potential.  So the inventory of American leadership is not running low.  It is, however, getting harder to see.

As business moves faster and faster, leaders struggle with ambiguous roles.  The truly global economy carries both opportunities and fears.  Meanwhile, our society demands immediate gratification and individuals desire a future free from risk.  In this environment, it is tough for leaders to prove their worth.

The nation’s newspapers are not dominated by news of the thousands of exceptional leaders who make America work.  Instead, headlines scream corruption, scandal and incompetence.

We increasingly hold our political leaders in disdain.  More than forty years ago John F. Kennedy called upon Americans to ask not what their country can do for them, but what they can do for their country.  Today, such noble words would be greeted with cynicism, incredulity and possibly even ridicule.  No one would deny that politicians could be better leaders.  Unfortunately in today’s world real leadership often goes unrecognized and, at worst, is treated with suspicion.

The fall from grace of corporate titans like Bernie Ebbers, Conrad Black and Ken Lay brought business leadership into the same disrepute in which political leadership now languishes.  Americans once revered industry.  Today, as the leadership survey reveals, many can no longer see past the corruption and fraud of a few egregious offenders.

I have said I am optimistic, and I am, for examples of strong leadership abound.  But the perception of a lack of leadership can itself be dangerous.  It risks becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.

For this reason, we must redouble our efforts to cultivate the next generation of American leaders.  We must also work to restore the public’s confidence in those leaders, whether in the political or business worlds.

Perhaps a lesson in leadership will help keep our nation’s best on track.  In my military background and years of consulting the nation’s corporate leaders, I have come to believe that there are three essential qualities of an effective leader, which I refer to as the 3 Cs:  Clarity.  Confidence.  Courage.  These three nouns speak volumes about what true leadership demands.

Clarity: Leaders fail when they are unable to engage their organizations and clearly communicate their plans and objectives.  Leaders must ensure that employees always know what is expected of them, and that when possible they understand how their work contributes to the larger effort.

Some of the greatest business, political and military disasters in history have come about despite careful planning and courageous leadership.  When the light brigade charged catastrophically into the valley of Death in 1854, they did so because the commanding general gave ambiguous orders.  In the business world, lives may not be on the line – but the company might be, if leaders cannot communicate their objectives in simple terms that employees can act against.

Clarity also means two-way communication.  Without two-way communication, leaders are blind – they assume that they have been clear about their goals and that they have been understood.  Ensuring that communication flows both ways not only lets leaders know when they are unclear, it also gives them the honest information they need to run their businesses.

In an age of superstar CEOs, Procter and Gamble’s Alan Lafley puts results above ego.  Without clear direction, morale at the consumer products giant had sunk to a terrible low; a quarter of the company’s brand managers had already quit.  By being clear about his objectives and fostering two-way communication with his employees, Lafley has boosted low morale at P&G – as well as its share price.

Motorola is another example of what can happen when the leadership of a company fails to articulate a unifying strategy.  Units in the company once operated autonomously.  The consequences were poor customer service and a lack of vision.  CEO Edward Zander turned the company around by emphasizing teamwork between the units in the common pursuit of his vision.  Motorola’s market share increased from 13.5% in 2004 to 19% a year later.

Confidence: Strategy is important to any business, but the best strategies can fail if they are not executed well.  The first step to great execution is to develop a plan, challenge it, and reflect upon it.  When I was at West Point, we used to participate in war games to hone our strategic instincts.  Leaders should put their plans through mental war games and explore every contingency.  When they do, they’ll have the confidence they need to execute their plan.

There’s no denying it: things can go wrong and they usually do.  Leaders who lack confidence in their strategies fall apart at the first sign of trouble.  But when leaders have the confidence that comes from considering their strategy from every angle, they can be ready for anything.  And this confidence will spread: employees will know that they are being led by someone with a solid plan who will know what to do if something goes amiss. Confidence creates focus. It allows us to know what is important, and to know that  if we stay focused on the critical activities the results will follow.

Confidence also means being aware of your company’s capabilities – its processes, its people, its technology – and knowing how to leverage them most effectively.

Investors urged Genentech CEO Arthur Levinson to give up on a new cancer drug.  Initial clinical trials were not promising.  But Levinson, himself a scientist who had been at the company for more than 25 years, had absolute confidence the research would pay off.  It did. The drug was approved to treat colon cancer in 2005, and earnings have soared.

Courage:  It’s all too easy for today’s executives to sit back, pass the buck and blend into the crowd.  Too many people who are supposed to be business leaders in fact spend their time covering themselves and avoiding decisions.  Playing it safe is one thing – nobody gets hurt.  In the post-Sarbanes-Oxley world, having courage is that much more difficult. Courage is easy to expect from someone else but tough when you put yourself at risk. But truly great business leaders have the courage to strive for something more than security and mediocrity.  They’re willing to take personal risks for results that are great, not just adequate. 

The quality of leadership sets the tone for the entire organization.  Employees respect and try to emulate courageous leaders.  From the mail room to the executive suite, companies with courageous leadership tend to be more competitive, more innovative and more successful.  Courage attracts talent.

Weak leaders, on the other hand, spawn an atmosphere in which employees spend their time protecting themselves.  When a company is burdened by a timorous, defensive corporate culture, it is almost impossible for it to succeed.  It may survive for some time on its mediocrity, but it will never achieve greatness.  And the most talented employees will flee to more dynamic companies.

Manpower CEO Jeffrey Joerres demonstrated courage when he told his salespeople to stop going after mediocre accounts and focus on the really profitable ones.  “Not all business is good business,” he said.  

You can imagine how some people at Manpower must have reacted to this.  It’s easier to land a thousand mediocre accounts than a handful of exceptional ones.  As Manpower attracted more and more marginal business, its revenues rose slowly -- but its profits stagnated.  For a mediocre firm, this would be fine.  But Joerres didn’t want to lead a mediocre firm.

Joerres’s plan was very risky – but his courage paid off.  Manpower’s profits tripled.

Another company has also benefited from courageous leadership.  September 11th could have killed Boeing’s commercial aircraft business, but CEO Alan Mulally didn’t let the slowdown slow Boeing down for long.  His courageous decision to bet the company on the development of new technologies led to the blockbuster 787 Dreamliner, now the fastest-selling new jetliner in history.  In one year, Boeing’s orders more than quadrupled.  Even when business is slow, markets reward courage.

Some organizations are slow to change, but over time they all come to reflect the tone set by their leaders.  Great leaders make great companies.  Unfortunately, Americans now see more and more of their leaders settling for mediocrity and safety over greatness.  

Yet as you can see, plenty of American business leaders already know how important clarity, confidence and courage are to strong leadership.  There are thousands more who are less famous but no less successful.  I have faith in the future of leadership in this country.  I think if we work to cultivate our leaders and equip them for the changing world of tomorrow, we can restore the American people’s faith in leadership. The fundamentals of leadership have not changed but adapting these fundamentals to a changing world is the challenge of all future leaders. To restore faith in our leaders, we must all strive to focus on the fundamentals of leadership: clarity, confidence and courage.

Steven M. Linn is a Director of the Paiva•Fredrickson Group where he shares responsibility for establishing strategic direction, sales and marketing, client engagement management, and client coaching.

Larry McAlister

Vice President
Crosby~Volmer International Communications
1601 Northwest Expressway, Suite 300
Oklahoma City, OK73118
405.843.5800 / 405.850.1811 (Cell)