Seven Principles to Leadership

To be an effective leader, there are seven principles you must incorporate into your leadership behavior and activities.

1. Clarity: This is perhaps your most important
responsibility. You must be absolutely clear about
who you are and what you stand for. You must
be absolutely clear about your vision and where
you want to lead your people. You must be
absolutely clear about the goals and objectives of
the organization and how they are to be obtained.

Especially, you must be absolutely clear about the values, mission, and purpose of the organiza­tion and what it stands for. Everyone around you and below you must know exactly why they are doing what they do and what their company has been formed to accomplish.

2. Competence: As the leader, you must set a stan­dard of excellent performance for the organiza­tion as well as for every person and function in the company. Your goal must be for your com­pany as good as, or better than, your very best competitor. You must be continually seeking ways to improve the quality of your products and services to your customers.

3. Commitment: The leader is absolutely committed to the success of the organization and believes com­pletely that this organization is the best in the business or will be the best in the future. This pas­sionate commitment to the organization—and to success and achievement—motivates and inspires people to do their best work and put their whole hearts into their jobs.

4. Constraints: The job of the leader is to identify the constraints or limiting factors that set the speed at which the company achieves its most important goals of revenue and profitability. The leader then allocates people and resources to alleviate those constraints and remove the obstacles so it can per­form as one of the best in the industry.

5. Creativity: The leader is open to new ideas of all kinds and from all sources. The leader is continually encouraging people to find faster, better, cheaper, and easier ways to produce excellent products and services and to take better care of customers.

6. Continuous Learning: The leader is personally committed to reading, listening, and upgrading his or her personal knowledge and skills as an ex­ecutive. The leader should attend additional sem­inars and courses to improve his or her skills and abilities.

At the same time, the leader encourages everyone in the organization to learn and grow as a normal and natural part of business life. The leader pro­vides time and resources for training and develop­ment. The leader knows that the best companies have the best-trained people. The second-best com­panies have the second-best trained people. And the third-best companies have the least-trained people—and are on their way out of business.

7. Consistency: The leader has the self-discipline to
be consistent, dependable, reliable, calm, and
predictable in all situations. One of the great com-
forts of business life is for an employee to know-that the leader is completely consistent and reli­able. An effective leader does not change from day to day. The leader is not "blown in the wind" by each new situation, problem, or emergency that arises. Instead, the leader is calm, positive, and confident—especially under pressure.

Text 8

The three classic leadership styles have been described below by three different individuals. Look them through and tell which of these managers has an autocratic style, which one a democratic style, and which a laissez-faire style? How do you know?

A technical manager from a West Coast aircraft-manufacturing firm had said, "I manage computer programmers, mathematicians, and other high-powered specialists. Half the time I don't even understand what they're talking about. My main concern is making sure that they have enough elbowroom to apply their creative talents. They want freedom of action, not someone snooping over their shoulders. My people are profes­sionals, and they expect to be treated like professionals. Their skills are in great demand today; one wrong move on my part and they're out the door. Generally, I just let them know what our departmental goals, budget allowances, andtime lines are and then get out of their way. They take it from there. They know that as long as they produce, I can be counted on to make sure that they won't be bothered by anyone."

A bottling-operation supervisor at a local brewery had said, "My people come in, they do their jobs on the line, they collect their pay, and that's it. That's all they want. To be honest about it, I don't think any of them really likes the job. Only one ever graduated from high school. They work at the plant because they need to survive. Kids to feed, bills to pay, you know, the basics. A couple of times I tried to get them involved in dream­ing up new ways of running the line, but they really resented it. They said they would be damned if they would do my job for me. So I just tell them what to do and that's that. I'm the first one to go to bat for them when they're doing a good job, but when one of them gets out of line I chew his butt out good. There's my way and the wrong way. When they do things my way, we get the product out right and on time."

Finally, a nursing supervisor at a regional hospital had said, "We've got a real team. We all enjoy each other's company and depend on one another to do the job. A lot of times we make important decisions right on the spot as a team. It's not easy being a nurse these days. Every time we turn around there is a new piece of equipment to be mastered. And the patients are much more demanding than they used to be. I'm re­sponsible for seeing that our patients get the proper care during my shift, but I couldn't meet that responsibility if I didn't rely heavily on my nurses for their commitment, dedication, ideas, and ability to take charge in difficult situations. I depend on them as much as they depend on me."

Which of these leaders is least likely to delegate responsibility?

Which of these leaders is most likely:

a) to develop a strong hierarchy?

b) to involve staff in collective decision-making?

c) to leave decision-making to individual members of staff?

Task III. Read the text, define the key sentences of each paragraph and translate them into English (in writing). Be ready to speak about the main leadership styles using the information from the text.

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