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Thoughts on Leadership: Leaders, born or made?

By Gino Blefari | September 3rd, 2010 0 Comments

“If we treat people as they are, we make them worse, but if we treat them as they ought to be, we help them become what they are capable of becoming.”  -Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

People often ask the same three questions about leadership:

  1. Can anyone really become a leader?
  2. Is leadership a quality you either have or don’t have?
  3. Aren’t leaders born that way?

On the surface, it may seem that leadership is innate. But it’s not. Leadership is developed over time. In fact, the best leaders are those that have grown through experience, not those who were born into powerful positions.

Look around and you’ll notice that more leaders are created through time than just born that way. The U.S. military, for example, is full of recruits who often – though not always – come from troubled childhoods. Many in the Army, Navy or Marines have not attended college. Most often, they would seem to be missing the essential ingredients to succeed, yet many times these recruits go on to display great leadership as their careers evolve.

As Warren G. Bennis says in a famous quote about leadership, “the most dangerous myth is that leaders are born, that there is a genetic factor to leadership.”

Leadership takes a lifetime to learn. There are always ways to improve, skills to pick up, and lessons to learn. A leader constantly reflects on life experiences, learns from them and builds them into skills. That collection of skills comes together to produce results.

“Leaders are made rather than born.”

The only born ingredient in the leadership recipe is desire. The desire to lead creates the motivation that drives leaders to lead. Everything else they learned along the way.

So the next time you’re admiring someone who would seem to be born with leadership qualities, think about what life experiences may have contributed to their strengths. Reflect on your own challenges, how you reacted, and how you can learn from those experiences.

This process is essential to your leadership success.

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Thursday Thoughts: Leaders Inspire

By Gino Blefari | August 27th, 2010 0 Comments

“Before you can inspire with emotion, you must be swamped with it yourself. Before you can move their tears, your own must flow. To convince them, you must yourself believe.”
                                                                                                             -Winston Churchill
 
The ability to inspire people to reach new heights is a strong attribute that top-notch leaders possess. Passion and purpose, along with solid listening skills, are characteristics that lead to inspiration. Communicating that passion, purpose and meaning is what helps to establish an organization’s culture.
 
Success in inspiring people requires trust, vision and care. Employees must trust their leader, see a clear vision for the company to move forward and a plan for getting everyone there.
 
That trust is critical. People are not willing to recognize someone as their leader unless they trust them, not just intellectually, but ethically and morally as well. Likewise, people won’t follow someone unless they’re convinced that person knows where they’re going.
 
Inspiration requires a leader to show by example rather than telling others to be inspired. Here are five ways to instill trust and inspiration in others:
 

  • Include others. People need to feel closely connected to the actions and process that lead to decisions and the accomplishment of goals.
  • Feel passion and share it. The inspirational leader is passionate about the vision and mission of the organization. This leader is able to share that passion in a way that spreads it to others.
  • Possess genuine integrity: Integrity inspires others to follow.
  • Listen. When others feel you are listening to their opinions and needs, they will be inspired to work with you.
  • Provide solutions. An inspirational leader gives people what they want within his or her capabilities.

So, you might ask, how can you become an inspirational leader?
 
Realize that inspirational leadership is a fundamental shift in your state of mind. Understand how important personal appreciation and recognition is to maintaining a motivated workforce. Once your team has an inspirational vision, involve everyone in how you will achieve this picture of success.
 
You can build a personal brand identity as an inspirational leader by embracing the mindset that you will be the one who brings out the best in your people.
 
Choose to be an inspirational leader today and convert work into purpose.

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Thursday Thoughts: Listen with a Leader’s Eye

By Gino Blefari | August 20th, 2010 0 Comments

One outstanding quality of a great leader is excellent communication skills. But what exactly makes a great communicator? 

Using an excited tone of voice? Being able to use your body language with your words? Adding just the right amount of humor? Having a strong voice? Maintaining eye contact? Brilliant stories? An abundant vocabulary?
 
Most definitely, all these skills are very valuable and should be perfected daily. But none of these amount up to the single most important part of communication in a leadership situation:
 
Listening!
 
Why does leadership mean listening?
 
A leader must listen closely to the world around him or her to be able to react to it.
 
Business leaders all over the nation are asked about communication and one theme comes up repeatedly – great leaders are great listeners. Extraordinary men and women apply feedback, listen to opinions, and act on that intelligence.
 
Genuine listening generates respect, understanding and trust between talker and listener. Great listening skills are an important resource, educate, build business, innovate and motivate. In particular, employees like, and respond better to, supervisors who they think are listening to them.
 
Pat Croce, a nationally renowned motivational speaker explains in his book Lead or Get off the Pot, the Seven Secrets of a Self-Made Leader pg. 120-121, “The best listeners are those who learn to listen with a leader’s eye. This supernatural-sounding skill doesn’t call for magic spells, but when it’s practiced and consistently applied, it does lead to magical results.”
 
Listening skills have always been important in the workplace. View the possibilities. Observe the body language behind the words and identify the emotions. Listen with an eye toward making a connection. And keep all lines of communication open to all things. If you keep the big picture in mind, you will listen with a leader’s eye.

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Thursday Thoughts: Communicate with Power

By Gino Blefari | August 12th, 2010 0 Comments

“The art of communication is the language of leadership.”
                                                                                         -James Humes
 
Communication is a leader’s most powerful tool. You could possess all the knowledge and experience possible in your field, but without impeccable communication skills, you’ll have trouble leading effectively.
 
In fact, when senior executives and CEOs all around the country are asked to list the most important skills a leader must possess, the answer consistently includes good communication skills.
 
Powerful communication is the work of great leaders. These skills create and support the understanding and trust that’s necessary to encourage others to follow. A manager accomplishes very little if he or she is having trouble communicating with the team.

An example of a well-known executive leader who exudes the power of excellent communication is Starbucks Chairman Howard Schultz. This is a man who knows not only what he stands for, but also is able to communicate those values in an effective way that leads to significant results. He knows how to make an emotional connection with his listeners, and that connection creates an incentive for them to follow.

The three communication qualities that help Schultz stand out as a top-notch persuasive business communicator are:

  • Emotional connection: As I mentioned above, Schultz excels at tapping into people’s emotions as well as their minds to get the most out of them. Everyone can relate to stories. The ability to use stories to get people to see your vision is a powerful leadership quality.
  • Passion: Schultz is great at identifying his own passions and expressing that message to employees and colleagues. When you are passionate, you naturally are excited, energetic and enthusiastic. These are qualities people like to see in others – and if people like you, they are more likely to do business with you.
  • Inspiration: Schultz provides inspiration to employees and colleagues by painting a picture of a world that is made better by his company’s service. Inspiration creates a connection that people remember.

Sounds pretty simple, right? Each of these qualities can be used in your own workplace.

It all starts by stopping to ask yourself: how effective is my communication?

Powerful communication skills are often something we take for granted. In your next real estate transaction, consider that it does not matter what you know about anything if you cannot communicate with people. Leaders need to be sensitive to how and what they communicate to others with their actions and words.

How you communicate the message often is more important than information itself. Learn to communicate better and you’ll find yourself leading more effectively. 

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Thursday Thoughts: Leaders understand the importance of execution

By Gino Blefari | August 5th, 2010 0 Comments

In the book Jack Welch and the 4E’s of Leadership, Jeffrey A. Krames explains that exceptional leaders share four characteristics:

They have energy.

They energize. 

They have edge.

They execute.

Which do you believe Welch sees as most important? Yep, you guessed it:

“The first three E’s are definitely essential; however people who execute effectively understand that activity and productivity are not the same thing. The best leaders are action-oriented, focused on getting outcomes, and know how to convert energy into action and results.”

Extraordinary leaders who know how to execute and get the job done are the ones who ultimately fulfill their goal of building a competitive and successful organization.

The creation of the Ford Mustang is a great example of excellent execution. Lee Iacocca, then the general manager of Ford, was the powerhouse behind this new car. But before Iacocca could make the Mustang a success, he had to discourage Henry Ford II from developing a car called the Cardinal, which he was convinced would be a flop with a new generation of car buyers.

Eventually with his straight talking, Iacocca convinced top management to drop the Cardinal and clear the path for the Ford Mustang.

The company was still hesitant and did not want to be a part of a new-product disaster. Worse yet, managers feared that this new Mustang would lower sales of other Ford cars. Iacocca was undiscouraged and remained convinced that the car market would flourish with the release of the Mustang.

He put together a team to capitalize on his dream and vision. He pushed the team to design this car in just 14 days. The Mustang was released in April 1964 and Ford showrooms were flooded with people. In the first two years, Mustang generated net profits of $1.1 billion – clearly a stunning success.

“He pushed incredibly hard, making his vision a reality. And he succeeded beyond anyone’s imagination by delivering eye-popping profits (execution).”

We can see that this portrait in execution shows how a leader with a capacity for execution can make the right things happen.

So stop and take a look at yourself and your career. Ask yourself, do I want to deliver results? Am I a consistent performer? How hard will I work to get things done and develop an execution culture? Commit yourself to this and you’ll make execution a critical ingredient in your success.

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Thursday Thoughts on Leadership: Leadership Lessons from the Golf Course

By Gino Blefari | July 29th, 2010 0 Comments

As our 7th Annual Intero Foundation Golf Tournament commences today, I’ve been thinking about how techniques used in the game of golf can be applied to your path to success as a leader.

Ever wonder what golf has to do with leadership? There are quite a few clear connections between the two.

The best leaders use a collection of distinct leadership styles, each of which are used at the right time and in the right manner. Think of it as a skilled golfer who, in the course of a game, picks and chooses each club according to the demands of the shot.

Gary Player, the most successful international golfer of all time with nine major championship victories and nine major victories on the Champions Tour, is truly a golf legend and leader. His dedication to excellence and his golfing accomplishments are what got him there.

His approach to golf and to life in general show impeccable values, perfectionist style and insistence on quality, and are what led him to become a renowned golfer and leader.

Golf and leadership each require making choices and mastering the basics. Golfers and leaders each deal with the consequences of their decisions. They know how to control their emotional swings, how to remain patient and how to always respect their competitors.

For a better understanding of this connection, here are some expectations, descriptions and requirements that pertain to both golf and leadership:

·        Creativity is always required.
·        It can be frustrating at times.
·        Goal-setting is required.
·        You need to always encourage continued improvement.
·        It’s challenging.
·        It requires clear vision.
·        You need to be a problem solver.
·        On occasion, it’s an emotional experience.
·        It involves strategic thinking.
·        It demands endurance.
·        It’s rewarding.
·        You need a strong mental game.
·        It’s a source of great satisfaction.

Sounds like a career in real estate doesn’t it?

As you think back to our golf tournament this year and to Gary Player’s career, ask yourself: which course will I choose to take me to the top?

As you choose your path remember what Gary Player explains in his new book, “Don’t Choke”:

“Over the years, I’ve heard people say, ‘That Gary Player was certainly lucky in his career’. But if it was just luck, how come I kept doing it? And how come Nicklaus kept doing it? And Ben Hogan, and Sam Snead, and now Tiger Woods? It’s not luck. It’s being able to bring something out of yourself when it’s really necessary, and when it counts. That’s the difference between being very good, a star, and a superstar. Remember – The harder you practice, the luckier you get.”

Greater understanding of leadership leads to opportunities for improvement. This is how you become a more effective leader.

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Thursday Thoughts: Crises and the Practice of Leadership

By Gino Blefari | July 23rd, 2010 0 Comments

“People with passion find a way to get things done and to make things happen, in spite of the obstacles and challenges that get in the way.”  
                                                                                                                 -Steve Jobs

After you spend some time leading a company or team, you inevitably encounter a crisis. How you deal with that crisis as a leader ends up mattering more than the crisis itself.

On June 24, the consumer technology industry’s darling, Apple Inc., found itself wrapped up in a publicity nightmare. Many of the consumers who’d bought the latest iPhone 4 were reporting reception issues, and evidence showed that a defective antennae was causing dropped calls and poor connections when held a certain way.

The issues were more than a big deal partly because of all the fanfare leading up to the iPhone 4 release. When the long-anticipated iPhone 4 was announced in early June, Apple said it was the biggest leap they had taken with the product since the original iPhone shipped three years ago. The company sold more than 3 million iPhone 4s in the first 22 days on the market.

The negative press regarding the defective antennae continued to pile on, causing Apple CEO Steve Jobs to abruptly end his Hawaii vacation to address the issue in a rush press conference.

Apple handled some things inadequately during this calamity, but eventually ended up doing the right thing. Here are five leadership qualities Steve Jobs used to get through this crisis that we can all learn from:

  • Strive to educate. In his press conference, Jobs focused more on the larger issues of the smartphones rather than the signal deprivation. He wanted to combine his learning with action and impel the public to seek greater understanding of the product.
  • Maintain constant communication. As this whole debacle transpired, Jobs’ main goal was to show that communication is the real work of leadership.
  • Become a problem solver. Apple did not choose to simply forget about this issue and not deal with it. Instead, company officials dealt with the situation head on and extended support to their customers.
  • Don’t be afraid to show your vulnerability. Jobs began his press conference by admitting the company is not perfect. In doing this and explaining that Apple does have faults, he showed he was strong enough to care.
  • An apology is a powerful way to make things better. At one point, Jobs offered a pure apology. His forgiveness does not change the past, but it will enlarge the future.

The clear lesson here is that it is only in the practice of leadership that we influence our world. Rather than view the iPhone 4 problems as a setback, Jobs saw it as a healthy, inevitable part of becoming a successful company.

As American football coach Lou Holtz once said, “Ability is what you’re capable of doing. Motivation determines what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it.”

Steve Jobs exemplified just that. Without his passion and leadership to get through the crisis, the public would not have believed in his ability to resolve the iPhone 4 antennae situation.

As you think about your career and obstacles you face, remember that Steve Jobs believes, “Passion rules! Passion is about our emotional energy and a love for what we do. Without passion it becomes difficult to fight back in the face of obstacles and difficulties.”

The next time you face a crisis, let your passion kick in and guide your leadership decisions.

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Thursday Thoughts: No Mystery to Mastery

By Gino Blefari | July 16th, 2010 0 Comments

Want to hear a secret that the world’s greatest business leaders, athletes and musicians all know and live by? Here it is:

There is no mystery to mastery. Hard work and dedication are what distinguish the masters from the masses.

Notice anything missing there? What about talent?

In his bestselling book, “Outliers,” Malcolm Gladwell dives into this topic of mastering a skill. He says it takes a minimum of 10,000 hours for a musician to gain mastery over an instrument. In the book, the debate is over whether talent plays a role in mastery. Is there such a thing as innate talent?

Gladwell explains:

“Achievement is talent plus preparation. The problem with this view is that the closer psychologists look at the careers of the gifted, the smaller the role innate talent seems to play and the bigger the role preparation seems to play.”

Psychologist K. Anders Ericsson and two colleagues conducted two studies to further explore this question of talent. One study compared star violinists with good violinists and those who were unlikely to ever play professionally. The violinists who ended up in the top tier were those who had increased their practice time and who, by the age of 20, had reached a total of 10,000 hours of practice.

In the second study, Ericsson compared amateur pianists with professional pianists. The amateurs never practiced more than three hours a week. The professionals, however, steadily increased their practice every year until the age of 20 and like the violinists, had reached 10,000 hours of practice by that age.

Here’s what Gladwell noted in “Outliers” about Ericsson’s studies:

“The striking thing about Ericsson’s study is that he and his colleagues couldn’t find any ‘naturals,’ musicians who floated effortlessly to the top while practicing a fraction of time their peers did. Nor could they find any ‘grinds,’ people who worked harder than everyone else, yet just didn’t have what it takes to break the top ranks. Their research suggests that once a musician has enough ability to get into a top music school, the thing that distinguishes one performer from another is how hard he or she works. That’s it. And what’s more, the people at the very top don’t work just harder or even much harder than everyone else. They work much, much harder.”

This appears to be the case with top athletes as well.

In his book, “The Score Takes Care of Itself,” legendary San Francisco 49er head coach Bill Walsh explains the reason behind the glorious success of Jerry Rice and Joe Montana, perhaps the greatest receiver and quarterback in NFL history:

“…they understood the absolute and direct connection between intelligently directed hard work and achieving your potential. We all do; you do; I do. Everyone who’s a serious player knows what it takes. The difference is how much you’re willing to give to get there.”

So does talent count? Sure. The point, though, is that talent is not whole game nor is it the deciding factor. And this is true not just in music or sports, but also in business.

There is no mystery to mastery. Most of us know what it is we have to do to win. It comes down to how much time you’re willing to put in to beat out the rest.

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Thursday Thoughts: Leaders Have Edge

By Gino Blefari | July 9th, 2010 0 Comments

“When you confront a problem, you begin to solve it.”              
                                                                            -Rudolph Giuliani

Sometimes we are called upon to lead in an unforeseen circumstance. We are judged by how quickly we react to something and how effective that reaction was in helping the situation.

That reaction often is what distinguishes great leaders from the rest of the crowd. It’s what gives great leaders edge. Leaders with edge are competitive and know the value of speed. They are confident they know when to go or stop. They don’t get paralyzed by the paradox.

Rudolph Giuliani is a political leader who’s shown he has a great deal of edge. While he was big on being prepared, he never could’ve known what would happen on Sept. 11, 2001, the day of the tragic terrorist attacks on New York City, or how he would react to it. Just months from retirement as the city’s mayor, he could’ve hunkered down that day, issuing commands from an undisclosed location.

Instead, he showed his true edge. He was everywhere at once helping, guiding, leading and most of the time he was at Ground Zero where the attacks occurred. Even his harshest critics applauded him that day. Of course, Giuliani could not have known exactly what would happen that day, but he had prepared himself all along for leadership and that’s what guided his actions.

Giuliani urges others to “prepare relentlessly.” He said he learned early on never to “assume a damn thing” and he followed his own advice.

Before being elected mayor of New York, Giuliani was concerned that he would come to the job not fully prepared. So he put together a tutorial on being mayor that included a series of seminars designed to help educate him on those aspects of the mayor’s job he did not know as well.

Those sessions, he later wrote, not only provided the knowledge he needed, but also afforded him the chance to think through how he would perform in various situations. He argued that leaders should take all the time they have to make the best decisions, but that they should start weighing alternatives now, not days from now!

Giuliani may have been what Peter Drucker would call a “natural,” but he took nothing for granted and left very little to chance. He relentlessly prepared for leadership and held himself accountable to tough standards. All these factors converged to benefit New York and the nation on the one day that mattered most.  

Giuliani’s edge was in preparing to lead no matter the situation, reacting quickly and not standing paralyzed by the tragedy at hand.

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Thursday Thoughts: Leaders Make Energy and Passion Contagious

By Gino Blefari | July 1st, 2010 0 Comments

Energy and passion are the key drivers to business success. But what does it really mean to be energetic and passionate as a leader and more importantly, as a corporation? One of my favorite passages in a book called “What the Best CEOs Know” by Jeffrey Krames, shows energy and passion at work through a look at leadership at Southwest Airlines and GE:

One business leader who consistently showed his energy and passion was Southwest Airlines’ feisty founder, Herb Kelleher. In a period when most of his larger rivals were racking up multibillion-dollar losses, Kelleher was delivering steady growth and profits, year after year, and winning industry wide customer service awards. What was his secret?

Like Jack Welch, GE’s Chairman for over a decade, Kelleher reinvented the management rulebook. Among other things, he hired for passion, thereby creating a unique service organization that was known for its positive attitude and good humor. “If you are not on fire about what you’re doing, why you’re doing it, and the people who do it with you,” he explained, “then you can’t kindle their minds, hearts and devotion to a cause.”

In addition to hiring for passion, he argued that the organization should let people be themselves at work- and then go even farther. The company, he wrote, should “celebrate the achievements of (its) people, often and spontaneously.”

Southwest became legendary for celebrating the milestones experienced by its employees, including their weddings, births, marriages, and other happy moments- and also for acknowledging and sharing in employees’ losses and catastrophes, which is almost unheard of in large corporations.

The point? Kelleher’s action added energy to the organization. He valued informal dialogue. He urged his managers to speak from the heart, as well as from the head. He underscored the idea that job titles aren’t important but that leadership qualities are. Kelleher believed strongly that an organization’s two most important constituencies are its employees and its customers- in that order. “Employees are your premier customers,” argued Kelleher. If the company succeeds in involving and inspiring its employees, they become more tolerant and more empathetic- toward each other and also toward their external constituencies.

Source: Jeffrey Krames, “What the Best CEOs Know,” (McGraw-Hill) (pp. 189-191)

Bottom line: love what you do and you’ll inspire not just yourself, but the employees around you who are integral to your company’s success. Soon you’ll find yourself amidst an organization that carries a reputation for passion and energy – the kind that everyone wants to work for and do business with. Passion and energy come from within, but can be very contagious.

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