Brought to you by Jeff Thoren, DVM, ATC  

We’ve all seen the traits in bosses, colleagues, and maybe even in ourselves if we’re honest: leaders who have the right skills, use the latest management tools, articulate the right messages with just the right “spin,” and hone the right strategies.  But underneath something seems to be missing.  Leadership, it seems, involves more than a set of skills.  But what?

Our September newsletter article highlights a study of 125 successful leaders whose common denominator was a transformative passage through which they recognized that leadership wasn’t about their own success or about getting others to follow them.  They had to come face to face with the limits of what they had done before, confront the necessity to change, and move from “I” to “We.”

Here’s this month’s feature ...

The Transformation from "I" to "We"
by Bill George and Andrew McLean

From - Leader to Leader, No. 45, Summer 2007

Highlights from the article:

• Contrary to the competence-based approaches to leadership development of the past three decades, these successful leaders did not cite any characteristics, styles, or traits that led to their success.  Instead, they focused on their life stories, the people and life experiences that shaped them as leaders, the personal difficulties that they had to overcome en route to becoming successful leaders, and the realization that the essence of leadership was in aligning their teammates around a shared vision and values and empowering them to step up and lead.
    

• Jaime Irick, a West Point alumnus and emerging leader at General Electric says it well: “When you become a leader, your challenge is to inspire others, develop them, and create change through them.  You’ve got to flip that switch and understand that it’s about serving the folks on your team.”
    

• The transformation from “I” to “We” involves a journey.  For most leaders, the first three decades of their lives are spent gathering experience, skills, and relationships before opportunities to lead present themselves.  During this phase, they typically rely on their own individual efforts to be the best - facing challenges alone, racking up impressive accomplishments, and gaining notice and recognition from others in the process.
    

• In spite of the rewards for outstanding individual performance – like increasing professional responsibility and acclaim, promotion to management roles, and financial success – most leaders reach a point on their journey when their way forward is blocked or their worldview is turned upside down.  It is the lessons learned from difficult periods in their lives that seed the transformation from “I” to “We.”  Challenges force them to reconsider their approach and, at some point, all leaders have to rethink what their life and leadership are all about.
    

• Transformation for most leaders results from going through a “crucible,” a singular or sometimes protracted challenge that tests them to their limits.  Crucible experiences cause leaders to reevaluate the direction of their lives and make a commitment to goals larger than themselves.  The end result is an authentic leader with a greater sense of clarity around their own values, sense of compassion, sense of purpose, and reliance on others. 
    

• Only when leaders stop focusing on their own ego needs are they able to develop other leaders.  They become less competitive and are more open to other points of view, enabling them to make better decisions.  A light bulb goes on as they recognize the unlimited potential of empowered leaders working together toward a shared purpose.

  
For the full text article, go to ...
http://www.leadertoleader.org/knowledgecenter/journal.aspx?ArticleID=103

What Will Be Your Legacy?

Leadership author Jim Kouzes poses the following questions to first-year students in his leadership classes at Santa Clara University:

• Are you on this planet to do something, or are you here just for something to do?

• If you’re on the planet to do something, then what is it?  What difference will you make?  What will be your legacy?

Pretty heady stuff for eighteen-year-olds - even most adults haven’t though seriously about these questions.  Kouzes doesn’t expect his students to have ready responses; he just believes that they ought to be thinking about these things.  “What will be your legacy?” does not have a single, right answer.  It’s not a math problem with an established formula.  But asking it opens people to the notion that somewhere in their life’s journey, they are going to be struggling with determining the difference they want to make, with doing things that matter.

Leadership is not solely about producing results.  That is, success in leadership is not measured only in numbers.  Being a leader brings with it a responsibility to do something of significance that makes families, communities, work organizations, nations, and the world better places than they are today.  Not all these things can be quantified.

Leadership also means being willing to pay the price – facing and learning from hardships and set-backs along the path towards making a significant difference.  Author Patrick Lencioni shares that when he graduated from college he wanted to change the world.  “Call it what you will,” he says, “I was determined to make a difference.”  However, the problem with his zeal, he goes on to explain, was that he hadn’t thought deeply enough about two fundamental questions: “Who am I really serving?” and “Am I ready to suffer?” 

Here are a few other questions to trigger your thoughts about your legacy:

• What will be your greatest contribution to your family?

• What will be your greatest contribution to your friends?

• What will be your greatest contribution to those you’ve led?

• What will be your greatest contribution to your organization?

• What will be your greatest contribution to your community?

Next Month

According to author Margaret Wheatley, there is a generic form of leadership that people independent of culture, age, or ethnicity really want: a leader who is focused on others, has real integrity, walks the talk, is a good listener and enjoyable to be around, and has vision and engages everyone in making that vision real.  The bad news is that, in challenging times, we often revert to a more command-and-control-like style.  How does your leadership need to change?

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