What makes YOU a great leader?
Just yesterday (as of this writing), I had a chance to talk to a class of business students at McGill University. One of my clients is a professor there and honored me with an invitation to field some questions about coaching from the class.
The students came very well prepared. We talked about CEO/Coach relationships, different frameworks, strategic pivots, A-player leadership teams, the hardship of entrepreneurship etc. The talk was a really fun hour, and they definitely didn’t low-ball the questions!
During the conversation I found myself repeatedly drawing from, apart from others, two sources – Patrick Lencioni and the Five Dysfunctions, and even more, the works of Jim Collins. As the questions on leadership were peppering in, I felt an ever increasing urge to share with the students Jim’s definition of leadership and what it means. Of course his message was still fresh in my mind having attended Jim’s workshop just a few weeks prior. So here it goes again:
“Leadership: The ART of getting people to WANT to do what must be done.”
I’m borrowing from Professor Collins heavily here, but it just stuck with me. Paraphrasing:
“Leadership is an art. The key thing about art is that it is unique – otherwise it’s not art, just copying. Every true artist is unique, and so is every leader. We can learn from others, but we don’t succeed by copying Richard, Steve or Elon – we succeed by finding and using our own encoding.”
Jim follows this message with comparing two iconic leaders that couldn’t be more different, but both immensely successful. I’m excited about Jim’s new upcoming book where he digs into the encoding of people more (“encoding” is his term, by the way).
As a leader, think about your encoding. What are the ways you lead that are positive and you should double down on them? What are those ways you lead, potentially holding you back? Invite your team to help you recognize those (here’s a handy tool to do that). I can see how understanding one’s own encoding helps immensely to pave the way for growth.
Oh. And if you haven’t yet, please read BE 2.0 (and any other of Jim’s books).
