Winning - Jack Welch [20]
Each of these leaders would give you a different list of leadership “rules.”
If asked, I would give you eight. They didn’t feel like rules when I was using them. They just felt like the right way to lead.
This is not the last you will hear of leadership in this book. Virtually every chapter touches on the subject, from crisis management to strategy to work-life balance.
But I’m starting with a separate chapter on leadership because it is always on people’s minds. Over the past three years, during my talks with students, managers, and entrepreneurs, leadership questions invariably were asked. “What does a leader really do?” for instance, and “I was just promoted and I’ve never run anything before. How can I be a good leader?” Micromanagement often comes up as an area of concern, as in, “My boss feels as if he has to control everything—is that leadership or babysitting?” Similarly, charisma gets a lot of queries; people ask, “Can you be introverted, quiet, or just plain shy and still get results out of your people?” Once, in Chicago, an audience member said, “I have at least two direct reports who are smarter than I am. How can I possibly appraise them?”
These kinds of questions have pushed me to make sense of my own leadership experiences over forty years. Across the decades, circumstances varied widely. I ran teams with three people and divisions with thirty thousand. I managed businesses that were dying and ones that were bursting with growth. There were acquisitions, divestitures, organizational crises, moments of unexpected luck, good economies and bad.
And yet, some ways of leading always seemed to work. They became my “rules.”
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WHAT LEADERS DO
1. Leaders relentlessly upgrade their team, using every encounter as an opportunity to evaluate, coach, and build self-confidence.
2. Leaders make sure people not only see the vision, they live and breathe it.
3. Leaders get into everyone’s skin, exuding positive energy and optimism.
4. Leaders establish trust with candor, transparency, and credit.
5. Leaders have the courage to make unpopular decisions and gut calls.
6. Leaders probe and push with a curiosity that borders on skepticism, making sure their questions are answered with action.
7. Leaders inspire risk taking and learning by setting the example.
8. Leaders celebrate.
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THE DAILY BALANCING ACT
Before we look at each rule, a word on paradoxes. Leadership is loaded with them.
The granddaddy of them all is the short-long paradox, as in the question I often get: “How can I manage quarterly results and still do what’s right for my business five years out?”
My answer is, “Welcome to the job!”
Look, anyone can manage for the short term—just keep squeezing the lemon. And anyone can manage for the long—just keep dreaming. You were made a leader because someone believed you could squeeze and dream at the same time. They saw in you a person with enough insight, experience, and rigor to balance the conflicting demands of short-and long-term results.
Performing balancing acts every day is leadership.
Take rule 3 and rule 6. One says you should show positive energy and optimism, showering your people with a can-do attitude. The other says you should constantly question your people and take nothing they say for granted.
Or take rule 5 and rule 7. One says you need to act like a boss, asserting authority. The other says you need to admit mistakes and embrace people who take risks, especially when they fail.
Of course, life would be easier if leadership was just a list of simple rules, but paradoxes are inherent to the trade.
That’s part of the fun of leading, though—each day is a challenge. It is a brand-new chance to get better at a job that, when all is said and done, you can never be perfect at.
You can only give it everything you’ve got.
Here’s