I was taught leadership, practiced it and in turn taught it myself in a process of continual personal development over 36 years as an officer in the Army. I am still learning more about it in my second career as chief executive of a hospice.
While some may have expected the change from a public sector hierarchical structure to a third sector organisation, that has very flat management, to have been a challenge, the reality is that it has been remarkably easy. The high standards of training in the Army provided me with many transferable management skills, but the most interesting area has been leadership. In my new position I have regular contact with local and regional NHS executives and what is clear is that many, like civil servants I met in the Ministry of Defence, seem to think that management and leadership are the same thing. They are not.
Indeed this was very clearly demonstrated by the recent documentary made by Gerry Robinson about the NHS, in which senior executives were so busy sitting behind desks managing spreadsheets, following policies and procedures and looking at computers, that they failed to spot the real failings across the organisations that they were supposed to be leading. They may have attended all the necessary management training courses that qualified them for their exalted positions but what they clearly lacked were the soft skills that mark out real leaders.
These are nicely summed up by the title quote taught to me many years ago: ‘Walk slowly among your people and smile’.
Create a culture
The first very obvious lesson is that leaders must be seen. Staff want to know who leads them and should know their leaders by name, face and personality. When teaching leadership to executive teams in the Army it was remarkable to see exactly how the teams mirrored the personality of their leader both subconsciously and deliberately.
A smiling, cheerful, co-operative and open-minded leader will create a similar organisation, while a nonentity, job’s worth, who hides away and is blind to improvements and flexibility will very quickly find that their organisation reflects them and will wither and fail. Most importantly, while walking among the organisation the leader also gets to know the personalities, strengths and weaknesses of individuals. Leaders are like conductors of orchestras: they need to bring the right people into play at the right time to ensure that perfect harmony is reached, and they can not do this if they do not know their people.
There are simple tools to help in this. A good start is to have photo sheets of all staff with their names in your office, then review it putting names to faces before visiting departments in order that staff can be greeted by name. This immediately makes them feel valued. It is also helpful to schedule walks around the organisation to ensure that this happens, a PA, if necessary, can be your conscience: ‘You have not walked around today’. It is far too easy to hide behind busy schedules of meetings and office appointments and to become remote from your staff. However, when taking your daily walk, vary the times otherwise staff may plan for it and effectively hide from you aspects of the organisation that you should notice but that they would rather you did not.
Open door policy
Leaders must be approachable. Someone who always seems to be in a rush deters engagement. Always take time to greet staff politely and exchange pleasantries. This may then evolve into conversations about the business, work practices and teams. Many of the best ideas that lead to improvements in service, efficiency or profitability come from those on the shop floor who are intimately involved in the daily routines of the business. Original thought is not the sole prerogative of managers and leaders.
Approachability is not only improved when walking around; the leader’s office is a key venue. A closed door suggests a closed mind and an unwillingness to engage those outside. Individuals may come to see the leader, find a closed door and walk away never to return, yet the matter they wished to raise could have been of critical importance. Shy individuals will certainly be deterred by closed doors. Leaders should also remember that a closed door might be reinforced by ‘gatekeepers’; they must make it clear to all staff, especially potential gate-keepers such as PAs, that when they say their door is always open, they mean it.
The arrangement of an office is subtly important; beware of desk positioning that subconsciously establishes a barrier in the mind of the visitor and a defence in the mind of the desk owner, therefore do not sit behind a desk when talking to staff. The direction that the leader faces is also important; they must be able to see the open doorway in order to encourage anyone hovering outside to enter. If the leader’s back is turned battling with a computer it will act as much as a deterrent as a closed door. While all will understand that leaders can not spend all their time chatting to their staff and the importance of having doors closed for specific meetings that must not be disturbed, the fact that the leader is obviously prepared to engage with staff either when walking around or by having an open door policy helps to engender trust, a key requirement of leadership.
Fostering trust in your people
The phrase ‘your people’ encapsulates many meanings for leaders. The first is that they will only be ‘yours’ if they trust you and feel a bond with you. They do not have to like you, but they should respect you. While a leader’s position, such as chief executive, holds status that supports the individual on arrival, the leader then has to earn the respect of the staff.
Characteristics such as honesty, integrity, intelligence, vision, humour, consistency, decision-making and good manners will all help earn that respect. One outcome from accumulation of respect across a group is the way that it helps to generate team identity and spirit, which the leader must work hard to foster. Within ‘your people’ there may well be a wide variety of skills, professions, competencies and capabilities. What is certain is that very few leaders will possess all of them, nor should they try to since their staff will not expect them to be experts in everything. The leader who tries to bluff what they do will very rapidly lose any respect they might have earned. To use a Rumsfeld expression, it is always wise ‘to know what you do not know’, and say so.
A leader with sufficient humility to admit their own shortcomings is one that staff will trust, rather than someone who tries to hide them under a cloak of arrogance. The relationship between the leader and the led is one that many take for granted yet fail to think through. Loyalty works two ways; while it may seem natural to expect the led to be loyal to their leaders, what is often forgotten is that it also works the other way. Leaders must be responsible to their staff in a relationship that has been called servant leadership. A leader who genuinely takes an interest in their staff’s needs, training requirements, careers and who is prepared to go out on a limb in the staff’s defence when necessary will inspire great loyalty and a preparedness by staff to go that extra mile themselves for the organisation.
Unspoken messages
It is extraordinary how the whole tone of an organisation and its entire staff is set by the outward demeanour of its leader. No matter how miserable the leader may feel it is important that their emotions are not transmitted downwards. A cheerful, happy leader will stimulate a happy workplace, which in turn improves productivity. Similarly a smartly dressed leader will encourage imitation among staff. No potential client or patient is encouraged by scruffiness; it simply engenders thoughts such as, ‘well, if they cannot be bothered to take care of themselves, how well will they look after me and my interests?’ A leader needs to be proud of the organisation in all that it does and portrays and ensure that their standards are maintained by all who work there. How better to do this than by smiling and encouragement, rather than gruff rebukes?
Continuous development
The soft skills outlined above are not learnt on management courses; they have to be practiced on a daily basis in the workplace by leaders. As they do so they will gain more confidence and develop their own particular style and variations in leadership that will evolve throughout an entire working life as you move from one environment and position to another, hopefully on promotion. The most important asset any organisation has is its people. If they are led well then success will follow, but if the organisation fails then the leader needs to lookin a mirror and ask themselves ‘Where did my leadership go wrong?’
This article originally published in The International Journal of Leadership in Public Services as part of a themed issue on ‘Spirituality, leadership and values’ guest-edited by Peter Gilbert and KWM (Bill) Fulford (Volume 6, issue 2, 2010).
Information about The International Journal of Leadership in Public Services is available at: http://www.pierprofessional.com/ijlpsflyer/index.html
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