What do Dads and Great Leaders Have in Common?

This week let’s talk about leaders. Sunday is Father’s Day and it’s a good time to look back over your life and reflect on the first leadership style that influenced you. Whether your father was great, good, bad, abysmal, or absent, you learned lessons from him that can serve you now.

There’s an old adage that you may be familiar with: “There are no business problems, only leadership problems.” That’s how important leadership skills are. Businesses rise and fall based on the strength of their leader and that person’s team. Would Apple have been as successful without Steve Jobs? Would Microsoft have been a behemoth without Bill Gates? Would Harpo have become a multi-billion-dollar enterprise without Oprah Winfrey?

Great leaders have some traits in common:

• Visionary
• Great communication skills
• Courage and ability to blaze trails in their industry

Poor leaders have some traits in common, too:

• Focus more on themselves than the business
• Poor communication skills
• Unable to admit they’re wrong

Great business leadership failures, as chronicled by Portfolio.com, include:

• Bob Nardelli, who was at the helm of Home Depot and Chrysler when each company lost market share precipitously, lost top executives, and lost their reputation for customer service and satisfaction;
• John Scully, who helmed Apple after forcing out Steve Jobs and was in turn ousted by the board when Apple was on the brink of bankruptcy;
• Bob Allen, who misunderstood the direction of telecom in the 1990’s, ultimately laying off 50,000 AT&T employees in the wake of a $12 billion loss over just a few months.

When it comes to leadership, the #1 attribute when preparing to lead or looking for leadership talent in others is the desire to learn. Leaders need to understand they have blind spots – in other words, they need to have the desire to learn what they don’t know so they can know it. Without a strong affinity for reading and learning, there is no personal or professional growth. Leaders don’t spring forth fully formed – they’ve surrounded themselves with mentors, teachers, and coaches. They focus on learning all they can about their industry, all they can about themselves, and all they can about effective leadership.

Whether you’re looking to become a leader, be a better leader, or hire great leaders, here are some things to focus on:

• Communication skills – having a vision is one thing. Effectively communicating it to others in a way that gets their support, buy-in, and desire to be part of achieving the vision is a hallmark of a great leader.
• Strong core values – great leaders not only have a code of ethics they espouse and expect others to uphold, they hold themselves to those standards, too. They walk their talk.
• Flexibility – when a course-correction is needed, great leaders are transparent with their teams about the need, the reasons behind it, and the new direction. Business environments constantly change – great leaders see and use the changes to their advantage.

As you’re reading this, are you questioning whether you have what it takes to be a great leader? The skills can be learned and honed, so all you need is the desire to learn. If you’d like a little inspiration, the world’s second-shortest podcast touches on leadership often. Here are three Wellbeing Wisdom Tiny Bites episodes (all 90 seconds or less, hence the “tiny” part of the name!) that might light a fire for you:

• Do you want to make your team members stars? Here’s a Tiny Bite for that!
• Do you need to be a better boss to yourself? Here’s a Tiny Bite for that!
• Just need some good, old-fashioned fatherly advice? Here’s a Tiny Bite for that!

If your dad is still physically in your life, think about what positive leadership skills he demonstrated to you when you were a child. Maybe this Father’s Day is a good one for you to give him the gift of appreciation for what he taught you. Think of a story you can tell him, or ways you’ve used his advice and it’s turned out well. If your dad is like mine, not physically here anymore and yet still with you as a vivid collection of memories, sift through those memories and use them to inform how you lead your own team, whether it’s a business team or a family team.

Leadership skills…learn them, use them, and pass them on to tomorrow’s leaders.

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