They all came to the conference with the possibility of learning about the new trends in the industry and seeing their colleagues. They were willing to sit through many sessions with an eye to bring back new ideas and lessons to each of the firms they lead. They were all leaders in their own right, with courage and vision. These were the leaders I had the privilege of presenting to on “Why Leadership Matters” this past weekend in New Orleans.
It is never easy being vulnerable and sharing the truths of what is happening in our workplaces. To expose the challenges we face each day can feel risky and uncomfortable. But that is exactly what happened during my presentation, as a group of highly committed senior leaders patiently waited for their turn to speak into the microphone. As each partner spoke, the room remained silent, with an occasional chuckle and a chiming in of “Sounds like my firm.”
So what three questions did I pose to the leaders?
1. How do we lead the teams we have?
2. What is preventing us from leading?
3. What would great leadership look like?
Strong leadership is the key to an organization’s survival. When senior leaders model strong leadership, their team members will be empowered to lead from wherever they are.
In fact in a 2012 study entitled, “The Value of Bosses”conducted by the U.S National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), the findings suggest that good bosses and managers can impact the performance of a team significantly.
What they found was:
- Replacing a bad boss with a good one increases productivity of each direct report’s output by more than 10%.
- Replacing a boss who is in the lower 10% of boss quality with one who is in the upper 10% of boss quality increases a team’s total output by about the same as adding one worker to a nine-member team.
- Workers who are assigned to better bosses are less likely to leave the firm.
So that’s why leadership matters!
The senior leaders I met this weekend, realized that although they may be leading imperfect teams, they still had the ability to make a difference. These are the teams they were given and these are the teams they need to embrace. Transforming an imperfect team into a high performing team depends on strong leadership. One way that can begin to happen is by cultivating a trusting work environment where both leaders and team members walk the talk, following through on what they say they will do. It also involves leaders sharing their mistakes and failures as well as the lessons they learned from them.
[Tweet “Strong leaders freely share their failures and mistakes.”]
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Sounds like a great session for the people at the conference! I really love the question about what great leadership would look like. Helping people imagine the future preps them to figure out what step that they can take to make it a reality.
I also agree that leaders can take the team they have and make things better instead of complaining that the raw materials are holding them back from success.
Thanks, Terri!
It’s so true that leaders can get stuck in a pattern of blaming their teams instead of holding themselves accountable. My presentation tried to help these senior leaders see what actions they could take to empower themselves as well as their teams.
The topic of developing trust kept emerging and the attendees ultimately realized they needed to be trustworthy to cultivate trusting team environments.
Thanks for your great insights Alli!
Great post, Terri!
I often ask myself this question: what does great leadership look like? I think many others do as well. The problem is that there is not one answer—there are many! Often it depends upon the team’s needs, or the organization’s needs, etc.
But ultimately, it is about finding ways that everyone can feel they are being challenged to be the best they can be. How to motivate, encourage, and support others to take their career to the next level.
Sounds like an amazing conference!
I agree that great leadership can mean a lot of different things. At the conference I asked the partners to think of what great leadership looked like for themselves and their firms. They all had a lot to say about it, even though I thought they may be anxious to share. It was a great conference and I even shared our book, “Energize Your Leadership” and signed a bunch.
I love your ideas about leadership- being challenged to be the best they can be.
Thanks LaRae!
Terri, Those are really powerful questions. I would have loved to have heard your talk. I’m going to log into my UofMD account next so I can get my hands on that report!
I believe questions are a great way to get leaders thinking and I chose those 3 questions because they really embody what leadership is all about including our fears. The NBER study is extraordinary and when you read it you see that key to a team’s survival is a good boss. Of course. that is your great message as well.
Thanks Karin!
Terri – I love the data in this post and your questions.
And especially appreciate your quote at the bottom about strong leaders freely sharing their failures and mistakes.
Several years ago I a story about a group of business leader that were meeting for the first time and asked to share their greatest failure and learning with the group. One person really struggled to answer those questions and was told that unless he could put “his rock on the table” he could not earn the trust of the rest of the group or be a part of the group.
Years later one of my co-workers told a story about the CEO of the company we both worked for. She said that before I started working for the company – when the CEO was still a VP she made some decisions that had a massive negative impact on the organization. Not long afterwards that VP stood in front of all of the employees at every location and owned her mistake, apologized and shared her lessons learned. The employee then shared that everyone respected and trusted that VP more because of her sincerity and ownership.
Fantastic story, Chery, and thanks so much for sharing it!
Unless leaders can admit mistakes, people around them will never trust them or stand by them. I am a big believer in failing to succeed. Without failure it is impossible to achieve the extraordinary.
Thanks so much Chery!