Generally, the terms "leader" and "leadership" tend to be related to the terms "manager" and "management." Management is something you do with things: you can manage an inventory, a quality system, a check book or resources. Management is not something you do with people. Human beings are led.
Leadership can be defined as: "the art of influencing people to work with enthusiasm, in pursuit of goals for the common good." Leadership consists of a series of skills that anyone can learn and develop, by combining the right desire with the appropriate actions.
Leadership is often confused with power and authority. Power is "the ability to force or coerce someone so that he, although he would prefer not to, do your will because of your position or your strength." Rather, authority is "the art of getting people to voluntarily do what you want because of your personal influence."
You can be in a position of power and not have authority over people. And conversely, you can have authority over people and not be in a position of power. The power your can buy and sell, you can give and take away. Authority has to do with who you are as a person, with your character and the influence you have been forging in people.
If the exercise of power is resorted to, it is because our authority has failed. Leadership is about getting people to do a number of things. When this is intended, two dynamics are combined: the task (or the results) and the human relationship (the people). If you focus only on the task, and not on the human relationship, you will find permanent staff changes, rebellion, lack of quality or low level of commitment. The key to leadership is to carry out assigned tasks, fostering human relationships. Real great leaders possess the art of building relationships that work.
The most important ingredient for a relationship to work is trust. Without her, it is difficult, if not impossible, to maintain a good relationship. Trust is what allows to cement the different elements of a relationship.
Another ingredient is knowing how to listen. When people are cut off and left with the word in their mouth, little positive messages are emitted: “if they cut me off like that, it is evident that they are not listening very carefully, since they already had the answer in mind. They don't value me at all, they don't value my opinion, they must think that what they have to say is much more important than what I have to say.
The role of the leader is not to command. Your job is to remove the obstacles that prevent your people from serving customers well. However, there are too many executives who, rather, are a permanent hindrance. The leader is someone who identifies and meets the legitimate needs of his people and eliminates situations that hinder good customer service.
Once basic needs, such as food, security, identification and self-esteem (hierarchy of needs, according to Maslow) have been satisfied, the next thing is personal fulfillment, which consists of getting people to become the best they can be or that it is capable of becoming. The leader must push and encourage his people to give the best of themselves.
Long-term leadership, one that stands the test of time, has to be built on authority. Leadership begins with the will, which is the only capacity you have for actions to be consistent with intentions and to choose behavior. With the proper will, you can identify and meet the legitimate needs and not the wishes of the people you are targeting. When someone satisfies the needs of others, by definition, they serve and even sacrifice for them. In this way, authority or influence over the people is forged. That is when the right to be called "LEADERS" is earned.
The main qualities of the leader are:
Patience: demonstrate self-control, because companies deal with volunteers who are adults. They are not slaves or animals that you have the right to beat. The leader's job is to point out any mismatch that may occur between the established standard and the work done. The goal of any disciplinary action must be to correct or change behavior; train staff, not punish them. The words "discipline" and "discipline" come from the same root as "disciple" and mean to teach or train.
Affability: pay attention, appreciate, encourage. It has to do with how you act, not how you feel. The important thing in paying attention to people. It is by far active listening. Active listening is trying to see and feel things as the speaker sees and feels them. Deep down in the human personality there is a need to be appreciated. When you start looking for the good part of others, to look at what people do well, suddenly, you see things that have never been seen. Receiving compliments is a legitimate human need and essential for human relationships to work. However, the compliment should be sincere and specific.
Humility: be authentic, without pretense or arrogance. The leader requires authenticity, the ability to be himself. It does not require being vain, pedantic or self-sufficient. Humility is nothing more than the true knowledge of yourself and your limitations. Those who see themselves as they really are, in truth, can only be humble. In short, humility is about being yourself, being authentic with people, and throwing off false masks.
Respect: treating others as if they are important people, because they are.
Do you think you could treat everyone you lead as if they were an important person? Everything a leader does is a message. When the leader is late, different messages arrive. One is that their time is more valuable than ours, which is quite an arrogant message. Second, this lateness tells those who wait that they are insignificant people and that, surely, the leader would arrive on time with an important person. Also, it is communicated that they are not too upright, because serious people keep their commitments. Being late is highly disrespectful behavior and is also habit-forming.
Generosity: meeting the needs of others, even if that means sacrificing your own needs. The opposite of generosity is selfishness, which means “my needs first, hell yours.
Indulgence: do not hold a grudge against those who harm us. People are not perfect. Positive behavior towards people should be practiced, which consists of being open, honest and direct with others, but always in a respectful way.
It is to face situations in a positive way and let go of any trace of resentment, because it destroys the human personality.
Honesty: be free from deception. A lie is a communication, of any kind, made with the intention of deceiving. There are no white lies. Trust, built on honesty, is the cement that maintains human relationships. Honesty involves helping people have clear perspectives, holding them accountable, being willing to share both good and bad news, informing them of the results of their work, being consistent, having predictable reactions, and being fair.
Commitment: stick to your own choices. True commitment is a vision for personal and group development, coupled with continuous improvement. The committed leader is dedicated to the integral development of his person, to continuous improvement and to becoming the best possible leader, the one that the people he leads deserve.
The scriptures say "Love your neighbor as yourself" and not "Love yourself." There is a lot of diligence in loving yourself but not so much when it comes to loving others.
It is important to create a healthy environment in which people can grow and prosper.
The metaphor of the garden can be very helpful: «What does my garden need? Maybe I'll pay it off with a little appreciation, appreciation and praise? Does my garden need weed removal? Do I have to take care of eliminating pests? Many leaders have failed to be patient and have abandoned the task before the fruit could have grown.
It should be publicly praised, never repressed. When someone is reprimanded in public, they are exposed to their peers and everyone who witnesses it. Why is it so unpleasant to attend a public reprimand? Because others wonder: When will it be my turn?
Remember the wise saying of Alcoholics Anonymous: "The only person you can change is yourself." Tolstoy said that everyone wants to change the world, but no one wants to change himself. As a leader, you can try to stimulate him, but the change in people depends on a choice that is not in your hands.
«What we believe or what we think does not matter in the end. The only thing that really matters is what we do » John Ruskin
Ideas, feelings, beliefs - paradigms - have a lot of influence on behaviors. When human beings commit to devoting all their attention, time, effort and other resources to something or someone, they develop, over time, feelings towards the object of their attention. It is easier to translate actions into feelings than to translate feelings into actions.
Leadership begins with a choice. "Man, ultimately, determines himself and ends up being what he makes of himself." What makes people better "depends on their decisions, not on conditions." There are two things that nobody is spared from doing in this life: dying and making decisions. Refusing a choice is, in itself, a choice. The path of authority and leadership begins with the will, which consists of the choices that are made so that the acts are consistent with the intentions.
Leadership is not a question of personality, poses or charisma, but of who you are as a person. It is a matter of substance. That is to say, of character. Ideas become acts, acts in our character and our character in our destiny. We do not see the world as it is, we see the world as we are; we see and find what we are looking for ».
The leader who is founded on authority is called to make countless choices and sacrifices. It takes a lot of discipline. The mission of building authority for yourself by serving those under your responsibility can give that man, that woman, a true goal in this life. Leading with authority takes a lot of work, but of course "those who follow everyone will never be followed by everyone."
The leader's golden rule says, "I have to behave with them exactly how I would like to be treated." Says Dr. Albert Schwitzer: "I don't know what our destiny is, but of one thing I am sure: the only ones who will be truly happy will be those who have tried to see how they could serve and who have found it."
You have to be crazy to keep doing the same thing and expect different results.
Grupo Kaizen SA, Based on «La Paradoja», J. Hunter, Ediciones Urano, Empresa Activa 1999
