There’s no blue print or one-size-fits-all leadership recipe, but there are some key areas that all leaders must be effective in. Coming from the non-profit world, I’ve heard them as the “Three M’s.” The leader must understand and move forward the organization’s MISSION, must be able to effectively articulate the organization’s MESSAGE, and must manage and master the organization’s MONEY.
Anyone that thinks there is ONE blueprint for leadership is probably sorely lacking in perspective. Having worked in both corporate and religious settings (and having served in the military), I can tell you that ideas upon which each of those broadly-defined communities bases it's ideas of great leadership are often very different. That doesn't mean that there isn't overlap. Certainly there is...but the overlap doesn't fully define the parameters.
Not a blueprint exactly, but perhaps an amalgamation of certain skills and personal attributes, including but not limited to the ability to process complex information quickly and explain it to others, charisma, genuine care for and attempt to understand others, superior decision making, and consistent, equitable treatment.
Brad Szollose’s 9 Steps to Developing the Leader Within...
1) Learn to admit your weaknesses while working on turning them into strengths.
2) Support and develop every member of your team...even the weakest of the group.
3) Create a vision that excites both you and your people.
4) Dedicate yourself to learning about your industry and being a better leader. Then share it.
5) Help others develop leadership skills as well. Remember, a Master will teach his students to surpass him.
6) To be respected you must give respect first.
7) Reward and acknowledge winners. People don't leave corporations, they leave management. Show a little appreciation and you've got someone who will be fired up for the next task.
Hummmm, that's a tough one, again, I agree with others here there is no one blueprint, but similiar characteristics.
to add on to M Donovan's list
4. Charisma, lets be honest are we going to follow a Mr Burns other than to pay the bills !
5. Accountability - this is huge ! a great leader that is accountable and can hold others accountable is already a head of the game.
6. Knowledgeable, Hey now that is a great quality.
I see many great qualities listed, I believe one very important quality not listed is responsiveness. I think it is very important to communicate consistently. If an employee is feeling ignored, you run into the chance the individual coming to conclusions that may not be accurate. This could lead to lower morale etc. Again it
is important to provide feedback whether it be positive or not.
Is this a trick question? It assumes an answer one way or the other - which is really kind of linear in the sense of a continuum with success at one end and failure at the other. I prefer to conceive the answer to be far more dynamic than a progressive schedule that suggests a good, better, best track record of success. Can you imagine how long that list might have to be to define success? Are Brad Szollose's shameless self-promotion of "9 Steps to Developing the Leader Within" realistically going to be enough? Why not 900 steps or 9000 steps? One could be selling one's self short if success is too limited to just a few benchmarks.
I wonder whether the concept of "blueprint" is also too limiting. I wonder whether one could ever create a blueprint for self-discovery that isn't limited to the choices we make and don't make. I wonder whether leadership is more of a state of being than a function we perform. I guess it even comes down to defining the word and concept of leader, for me.
Thank you Jay Tatum for keeping my ego in check. Your comments did give me a good chuckle, after all, is there a system that works for everyone? Probably not...but we can start with some sort of structure.
Understand this- sometimes I get carried away...but my heart is in the right place: I want people to succeed, especially in this age of transience and lack of moral and ethical guidance.
I have been on the board of directors for my own company and done well financially. So I can teach a better style of leadership...after all, I've done it, especially during the most chaotic period of financial history in American history: the Dot Com Boom.
But let's lay a few ground rules for all messages on this string:
1) Give more than one word answers. We don't know who you are responding to when it is posted several pages later.
2) Give us all some knowledge from your expertise. These questions on Fast Company have a purpose - to amass intelligent answers from other professionals in various fields. It is a magazine after all.
.
3) Bashing others says more about you than the person you are bashing. Read the ClueTrain Manifesto...after all, your network is what gives you strength. If you want access to my network, you have to prove to me that you can play nice with other adults.
4) Please, please, please say something we can all use for our own success. I for one look forward to every ones input on this site...I am ALWAYS learning.
Thanks Jay, and please, feel free to email me offline as well.
Humility is a wonderful thing and I have to thank Brad Szollose for pointing that out to me in his response to my response to the intial question. I apologize to Brad, and others, for calling the question into question. Isn't it interesting, though, that simply challenging the question of a blueprint for successful leadership is so provacative? If the intent of the question is to create a dialogue and amass intelligent answers from others in various fields, one might conclude that said responses might create a dialogue and actually amass intelligent answers, though I am somewhat skeptical at this point that dissenting opinions would be considered intelligent which leads me to wonder whether amassing emotional answers would be given the same weight as intelligent answers. I'm just not sure. Might me an interesting point to consider in discussing successful leadership, whether the blueprint analogy works or not, since successful leadership is really more emotional than cerebral. I regret to say, however, that I have never read the Clue Train Manifesto (I'm Appalachian by birth) and always understood that my strength comes from the Lord, not my network, so I'm gonna have to do some reading to get caught up with the Intelligencia of the world. I have read The Holy Bible, Generation to Generation, Friedman's Fables, and A Failure of Nerve and these tend to bias my worldview when it comes to successful leadership. I would also like to apologize to Brad for calling a spade a spade. I remarked in my first response to the question that Brad's shameless self-promotion of his 9 Steps might not be adequate and suggested that it was shameless, self promotion. Clearly, I was mistaken. I still don't think it is adequate but I recant the slur given the lack of moral and ethical guidance on my part. Successful leaders, in my profession, ask for forgiveness when they err. I can do no less.
Actually Jay, many of the points you laid out are so valid, I am wondering if you may not have a new future in developing leadership "systems." It is needed so badly in this day and age...
The Bible is a great place to start and it is obvious that you are a pillar of HIS strength to apologize on a public forum. I thank you and accept.
Know that you have a friend and my undivided attention from here on out.
I do not feel there is a blueprint to being a successful leader. It does however depend upon what is meant by the term successful. A successful leader is one who sets an example for others to follow. Those that conduct themselves with integrity of character in everything they do are examples for others to follow. The true successful leader is one who leads by example. It is providing an example for others to do their best in everything they do. Leaders are created through circumstance in many cases but it is a position for which individuals must have the personality to bring out the best in others.
I'm currently serving my second combat tour in Iraq. I can tell you that the common traits of great leadership do exist, however each person has to have their own unique way about them.
My personal theory on leadership is that in life, there are managers and there are leaders. Managers tell you what to do and have to "manage" the project to every last detail. Leaders give their people the sense of responsibility and accomplishment that make them want to contribute 100% towards the team every day.
I don't believe that a "blueprint" is what makes a successful leader. The bottom line are the results, Was the goal(s) achieved? Is the team morale high? Efficiency, effective results?
Mark Salinas, Viscom, MN
Actually, my co-author (husband) and I have been researching effective leadership for the past 15+ years. Trust is the key ingredient to being an effective leader, and we have found that great leaders exhibit trust in four ways: by being Reliable, by being Open and honest, by showing they are Competent, and by demonstrating Compassion with others. We call this the ROCC of Trust.
Your question implies that successful leaders can be molded based upon a blueprint. As a leadership coach, I have come to believe that leadership is a contact sport: a relationship between leaders and their colleagues.
The sustainable success of leadership training results not from ongoing contact between the coach and coachee, but rather from continuing dialogue among the individuals trying to make changes and their trusted change partners or peers. On a regular basis, these developing leaders asked for feedback on how they were progressing on their targeted behaviors.
Leaders who ask for input and then follow up to see if progress is being made are viewed as people who care, other studies reveal. Coworkers who don’t respond to feedback are considered to be uncaring.
“The leader of the past was a person who knew how to tell. The leader of the future will be a person who knows how to ask,” noted Peter Drucker in a classic statement. Colleagues believe leaders who ask for input increase their effectiveness. Conversely, those who don’t follow up are not necessarily bad leaders, but coworkers perceive no improvement.
Which types of developmental activities will have the greatest impact on increasing executives’ effectiveness? How can leaders achieve positive long-term changes in behavior? Lured by the promise of instant success, many companies are writing checks without asking critical questions about program design and actual accomplishments.
Leadership programs work very well if they use a multi-tiered approach. Most fall into one of four types:
Sorry to say, there IS a blueprint for corporate leadership, we just don't know what it is...but we definitely know what it is NOT.
There must be some sort of structure...otherwise so many people on this board wouldn't say "I do not feel there is a blueprint to being a successful leader....BUT here is a blueprint I use."
What it takes is to understand what works for you individually. Take that knowledge of self, and integrate it with the people you are leading. Help develop your team and you will see results.
Leadership is about driving the bottom line. PERIOD. How you do it can win you awards or get you put in jail. It is up to you.
I guess I'm stuck in the Twilight Zone of Corporate Leadership. I thought leadership was about the Top Line as well as the Bottom Line and everything in between. I agree with Bradley that we know what it isn't (a scary thought coming from corporate leaders) and we kind of have a idea of what it should be (an even scarier thought than the former scary thought).
I wonder whether we might employ some imagination and say that one size does not fit all and that there are a variety of ways to lead where each has equal footing and some common ground. In my world of religion, the tendancy is to think in absolutes, which is what most of the responses have been as in either/or, a kind of polarizing effect. In other words, I'm right and you are not. I would appeal to your common sense and sense of imagination and invite you to move beyond the either/or thinking about leadership to a both/and way of seeing this. When we have orthodoxy at one extreme and heresy at the other, we tend to divide and conquer. When we employ some heterodoxy and recognize more than one correct way of examining the topic, we may find we have more in common, even though we may chose to disagree.
Excuse me, Rod Serling is asking for my autograph.
Leadership is about getting sustainable results through others. A good place to start building leadership capability (and getting better results) would be to assess and develop emotional intelligence, use positive leadership styles and create a resonant working climate. And a desire to receive and give feedback will help the program, too.
While the jury is out re a blueprint for effective leaders, a basic tenet that has served well from ancient respected monarchs to Jack Welch ; serve your people first.The practical methods of leadership that John Adair espouses are also valid. So a blueprint -who knows? Solid tenets and tools are available. Let's use them.
26 Total
April 21, 2008 at 12:52pm by M Donovan
If by "blueprint" you mean the qualities/characteristics needed, I'll go with:
1. Honesty
2. Integrity
3. Steadfastness
April 21, 2008 at 4:18pm by Todd Nettleton
There’s no blue print or one-size-fits-all leadership recipe, but there are some key areas that all leaders must be effective in. Coming from the non-profit world, I’ve heard them as the “Three M’s.” The leader must understand and move forward the organization’s MISSION, must be able to effectively articulate the organization’s MESSAGE, and must manage and master the organization’s MONEY.
April 21, 2008 at 11:49pm by Eric Wilbanks
Anyone that thinks there is ONE blueprint for leadership is probably sorely lacking in perspective. Having worked in both corporate and religious settings (and having served in the military), I can tell you that ideas upon which each of those broadly-defined communities bases it's ideas of great leadership are often very different. That doesn't mean that there isn't overlap. Certainly there is...but the overlap doesn't fully define the parameters.
April 22, 2008 at 12:02am by Tracy Diziere
Not a blueprint exactly, but perhaps an amalgamation of certain skills and personal attributes, including but not limited to the ability to process complex information quickly and explain it to others, charisma, genuine care for and attempt to understand others, superior decision making, and consistent, equitable treatment.
April 22, 2008 at 12:12am by Ray Gardner
Yes.
April 22, 2008 at 12:48am by Bradley Szollose
Brad Szollose’s 9 Steps to Developing the Leader Within...
1) Learn to admit your weaknesses while working on turning them into strengths.
2) Support and develop every member of your team...even the weakest of the group.
3) Create a vision that excites both you and your people.
4) Dedicate yourself to learning about your industry and being a better leader. Then share it.
5) Help others develop leadership skills as well. Remember, a Master will teach his students to surpass him.
6) To be respected you must give respect first.
7) Reward and acknowledge winners. People don't leave corporations, they leave management. Show a little appreciation and you've got someone who will be fired up for the next task.
8) Admit to what you don't know.
9) Listen, listen, listen.
April 22, 2008 at 12:56am by Bradley Szollose
Check out my Leadership Series at:
http://ezinearticles.com/?expert_bio=Brad_Szollose
Leadership 1 - The Consciousness Of Management
Leadership 2 - Establishing Your Own Management Style
Leadership 3 - Work On Being Respected, Not Liked
Leadership 4 - Become a Resource, Not a Know-It-All
I hope these insights I've learned over 30 years can help.
Brad Szollose
April 22, 2008 at 1:30am by Tony Kelly
no
April 22, 2008 at 7:05am by Steven Heath
Every leader has their own style and method for motivating people. The successful leaders are those who treat others in the organization with respect.
April 22, 2008 at 8:57am by Jody Powers
Hummmm, that's a tough one, again, I agree with others here there is no one blueprint, but similiar characteristics.
to add on to M Donovan's list
4. Charisma, lets be honest are we going to follow a Mr Burns other than to pay the bills !
5. Accountability - this is huge ! a great leader that is accountable and can hold others accountable is already a head of the game.
6. Knowledgeable, Hey now that is a great quality.
April 26, 2008 at 1:45pm by Mark Salinas
I see many great qualities listed, I believe one very important quality not listed is responsiveness. I think it is very important to communicate consistently. If an employee is feeling ignored, you run into the chance the individual coming to conclusions that may not be accurate. This could lead to lower morale etc. Again it
is important to provide feedback whether it be positive or not.
Mark Salinas, Viscom Technology Group, MN
May 1, 2008 at 2:53am by Jay Tatum
Is this a trick question? It assumes an answer one way or the other - which is really kind of linear in the sense of a continuum with success at one end and failure at the other. I prefer to conceive the answer to be far more dynamic than a progressive schedule that suggests a good, better, best track record of success. Can you imagine how long that list might have to be to define success? Are Brad Szollose's shameless self-promotion of "9 Steps to Developing the Leader Within" realistically going to be enough? Why not 900 steps or 9000 steps? One could be selling one's self short if success is too limited to just a few benchmarks.
I wonder whether the concept of "blueprint" is also too limiting. I wonder whether one could ever create a blueprint for self-discovery that isn't limited to the choices we make and don't make. I wonder whether leadership is more of a state of being than a function we perform. I guess it even comes down to defining the word and concept of leader, for me.
May 1, 2008 at 10:46am by Bradley Szollose
Thank you Jay Tatum for keeping my ego in check. Your comments did give me a good chuckle, after all, is there a system that works for everyone? Probably not...but we can start with some sort of structure.
Understand this- sometimes I get carried away...but my heart is in the right place: I want people to succeed, especially in this age of transience and lack of moral and ethical guidance.
I have been on the board of directors for my own company and done well financially. So I can teach a better style of leadership...after all, I've done it, especially during the most chaotic period of financial history in American history: the Dot Com Boom.
But let's lay a few ground rules for all messages on this string:
1) Give more than one word answers. We don't know who you are responding to when it is posted several pages later.
2) Give us all some knowledge from your expertise. These questions on Fast Company have a purpose - to amass intelligent answers from other professionals in various fields. It is a magazine after all.
.
3) Bashing others says more about you than the person you are bashing. Read the ClueTrain Manifesto...after all, your network is what gives you strength. If you want access to my network, you have to prove to me that you can play nice with other adults.
4) Please, please, please say something we can all use for our own success. I for one look forward to every ones input on this site...I am ALWAYS learning.
Thanks Jay, and please, feel free to email me offline as well.
Brad
May 2, 2008 at 6:38am by Jay Tatum
Humility is a wonderful thing and I have to thank Brad Szollose for pointing that out to me in his response to my response to the intial question. I apologize to Brad, and others, for calling the question into question. Isn't it interesting, though, that simply challenging the question of a blueprint for successful leadership is so provacative? If the intent of the question is to create a dialogue and amass intelligent answers from others in various fields, one might conclude that said responses might create a dialogue and actually amass intelligent answers, though I am somewhat skeptical at this point that dissenting opinions would be considered intelligent which leads me to wonder whether amassing emotional answers would be given the same weight as intelligent answers. I'm just not sure. Might me an interesting point to consider in discussing successful leadership, whether the blueprint analogy works or not, since successful leadership is really more emotional than cerebral. I regret to say, however, that I have never read the Clue Train Manifesto (I'm Appalachian by birth) and always understood that my strength comes from the Lord, not my network, so I'm gonna have to do some reading to get caught up with the Intelligencia of the world. I have read The Holy Bible, Generation to Generation, Friedman's Fables, and A Failure of Nerve and these tend to bias my worldview when it comes to successful leadership. I would also like to apologize to Brad for calling a spade a spade. I remarked in my first response to the question that Brad's shameless self-promotion of his 9 Steps might not be adequate and suggested that it was shameless, self promotion. Clearly, I was mistaken. I still don't think it is adequate but I recant the slur given the lack of moral and ethical guidance on my part. Successful leaders, in my profession, ask for forgiveness when they err. I can do no less.
May 2, 2008 at 7:23am by Bradley Szollose
Actually Jay, many of the points you laid out are so valid, I am wondering if you may not have a new future in developing leadership "systems." It is needed so badly in this day and age...
The Bible is a great place to start and it is obvious that you are a pillar of HIS strength to apologize on a public forum. I thank you and accept.
Know that you have a friend and my undivided attention from here on out.
Brad
May 3, 2008 at 10:48pm by Dennis AuBuchon
I do not feel there is a blueprint to being a successful leader. It does however depend upon what is meant by the term successful. A successful leader is one who sets an example for others to follow. Those that conduct themselves with integrity of character in everything they do are examples for others to follow. The true successful leader is one who leads by example. It is providing an example for others to do their best in everything they do. Leaders are created through circumstance in many cases but it is a position for which individuals must have the personality to bring out the best in others.
May 7, 2008 at 5:46am by Charles Matovu
suBJECT TO FURTHER DEBATE ONE WOULD FEEL THERE CERTAIN FUNDAMENTALS OF ANY GOOD LEADER, THE ABC'S , THERE SOME BLUE CHIPS
May 11, 2008 at 2:16am by Matthew Reasor
I'm currently serving my second combat tour in Iraq. I can tell you that the common traits of great leadership do exist, however each person has to have their own unique way about them.
My personal theory on leadership is that in life, there are managers and there are leaders. Managers tell you what to do and have to "manage" the project to every last detail. Leaders give their people the sense of responsibility and accomplishment that make them want to contribute 100% towards the team every day.
May 16, 2008 at 4:42am by Mark Salinas
I don't believe that a "blueprint" is what makes a successful leader. The bottom line are the results, Was the goal(s) achieved? Is the team morale high? Efficiency, effective results?
Mark Salinas, Viscom, MN
May 17, 2008 at 3:04pm by Karen Mishra
Actually, my co-author (husband) and I have been researching effective leadership for the past 15+ years. Trust is the key ingredient to being an effective leader, and we have found that great leaders exhibit trust in four ways: by being Reliable, by being Open and honest, by showing they are Competent, and by demonstrating Compassion with others. We call this the ROCC of Trust.
May 17, 2008 at 3:09pm by John Agno
Can we really Train Leaders?
Your question implies that successful leaders can be molded based upon a blueprint. As a leadership coach, I have come to believe that leadership is a contact sport: a relationship between leaders and their colleagues.
The sustainable success of leadership training results not from ongoing contact between the coach and coachee, but rather from continuing dialogue among the individuals trying to make changes and their trusted change partners or peers. On a regular basis, these developing leaders asked for feedback on how they were progressing on their targeted behaviors.
Leaders who ask for input and then follow up to see if progress is being made are viewed as people who care, other studies reveal. Coworkers who don’t respond to feedback are considered to be uncaring.
“The leader of the past was a person who knew how to tell. The leader of the future will be a person who knows how to ask,” noted Peter Drucker in a classic statement. Colleagues believe leaders who ask for input increase their effectiveness. Conversely, those who don’t follow up are not necessarily bad leaders, but coworkers perceive no improvement.
Which types of developmental activities will have the greatest impact on increasing executives’ effectiveness? How can leaders achieve positive long-term changes in behavior? Lured by the promise of instant success, many companies are writing checks without asking critical questions about program design and actual accomplishments.
Leadership programs work very well if they use a multi-tiered approach. Most fall into one of four types:
Personal growth programs
Skill-building programs
Feedback programs
Conceptual awareness programs
May 22, 2008 at 9:50pm by Bradley Szollose
Sorry to say, there IS a blueprint for corporate leadership, we just don't know what it is...but we definitely know what it is NOT.
There must be some sort of structure...otherwise so many people on this board wouldn't say "I do not feel there is a blueprint to being a successful leader....BUT here is a blueprint I use."
What it takes is to understand what works for you individually. Take that knowledge of self, and integrate it with the people you are leading. Help develop your team and you will see results.
Leadership is about driving the bottom line. PERIOD. How you do it can win you awards or get you put in jail. It is up to you.
May 23, 2008 at 9:10am by Jay Tatum
I guess I'm stuck in the Twilight Zone of Corporate Leadership. I thought leadership was about the Top Line as well as the Bottom Line and everything in between. I agree with Bradley that we know what it isn't (a scary thought coming from corporate leaders) and we kind of have a idea of what it should be (an even scarier thought than the former scary thought).
I wonder whether we might employ some imagination and say that one size does not fit all and that there are a variety of ways to lead where each has equal footing and some common ground. In my world of religion, the tendancy is to think in absolutes, which is what most of the responses have been as in either/or, a kind of polarizing effect. In other words, I'm right and you are not. I would appeal to your common sense and sense of imagination and invite you to move beyond the either/or thinking about leadership to a both/and way of seeing this. When we have orthodoxy at one extreme and heresy at the other, we tend to divide and conquer. When we employ some heterodoxy and recognize more than one correct way of examining the topic, we may find we have more in common, even though we may chose to disagree.
Excuse me, Rod Serling is asking for my autograph.
May 25, 2008 at 3:48pm by Chuck Bolton
Leadership is about getting sustainable results through others. A good place to start building leadership capability (and getting better results) would be to assess and develop emotional intelligence, use positive leadership styles and create a resonant working climate. And a desire to receive and give feedback will help the program, too.
May 27, 2008 at 11:44am by Mark Salinas
The bottom line:
"Results"
Mark Salinas, MN
May 29, 2008 at 11:10am by deva naidu
While the jury is out re a blueprint for effective leaders, a basic tenet that has served well from ancient respected monarchs to Jack Welch ; serve your people first.The practical methods of leadership that John Adair espouses are also valid. So a blueprint -who knows? Solid tenets and tools are available. Let's use them.