AXIOMS OF EFFECTIVE LEADERSHIP
By Pastor W.F. Kumuyi ,
General superintendent, Deeper Life Bible Church
General superintendent, Deeper Life Bible Church
(Part 1). Having a leader in charge doesn’t guarantee progress
and profit unless the leader has what it takes for his leadership to function
effectively. Of all the attributes of effective leaders, love appears to me the
most critical.
Effective leadership is the craving of every organisation. No organisation appoints people to top positions merely to fill up existing vacancies. The board wants people who can hold the organisation, keep it running and move it forward. Men and women who can deliver on the bottom-line. Yet we all know that all leaders aren’t miracle workers. Otherwise, all organisations would be standing firm, functioning and flourishing. The world’s industrial landscape is strewn with tombstones of organisations led into ruin by those paid to lead them to success.
Get my point, please: Having a leader in charge doesn’t guarantee progress and profit unless the leader has what it takes for his leadership to function effectively.
Results of studies in leadership functions and performances have indicated that effective leaders have some characteristics in common. Although the listings vary, there are certain attributes that, all scholars would agree, every known effective leader has. For example, a leader may lack charisma – he may not be a dramatic fellow – and still make much success waves that help put his organisation on the world’s industrial map. But no leader can be dull at visioning and yet make his leadership count.
Therefore, leaders who desire to be effective on the job should strive to develop the essential attributes by all means. I call these attributes axioms of effective leadership. They are axioms because, expressed as statements, they convey established or accepted principles of which veracity requires no external proof. They will always hold true regardless of the situation or context. Let’s follow the axioms in outline.
1. Leaders are lovers
Of all the attributes of effective leaders, love appears to me the most critical. Surprisingly, much has been written about effective leadership without a word about love! Yet love is the basic reason why people wholeheartedly may do the bidding of a leader and buy into his success plans. By common sense, nobody would, truly, follow somebody who isn’t fond of him or her.
“L” in leadership is for love. You may chuckle about this, but check it up. Leaders are lovers of people they are leading. The world is rich in history of great visionary leaders whose achievements writers have chronicled in glowing terms. Would the people have bought into these leaders’ recipes for change if the leaders didn’t love the people and show them that their development, welfare and comfort were the pivot of their visions? People choose to follow and be influenced by the man or woman who loves and appreciates them.
Ken Blanchard, an accomplished leadership scholar, trainer and teacher sums it up thus: “It might sound bizarre; but one of the beliefs for effective leadership is to be madly in love with all the people you’re leading.” If a leader dismisses this as mere soft talk, he will pay with rapid employee turnover, low commitment, and slow growth.
I admit there may be organisations that have experienced all-round growth with “loveless” CEO’s at the helm. But who can tell how much better, faster and higher those organisations might have fared had their leader led with the sceptre of love?
Believe me: most employees work for the pay; and as long as they need the money and find no other place to work, they will tag along behind the leader though the fellow is so poor in love. But the workforce starved of love doesn’t give their total best at work. Loyalty and continuity are the first victims of leadership without love.
Percy Barnevik, one of Europe’s most celebrated business leaders and former chairman of ABB, was quoted by Warren Bennis as saying that “organisations ensure that [people] use only 5 to 10% of their abilities at work. Outside of work they engage the other 90 to 95%”. Barnevik would want leaders “to learn how to recognise and employ that untapped ability”.
Barnevik and all leaders worried by employees’ low morale can make their workforce fully bend their backs in service without much ado. They should knock on love’s door. Leaders can’t do anything to make their followers give 100% of their abilities at work unless by loving them, making them feel wanted and appreciated and much valued – treating them as people, not employees!
A UK survey reveals a damning confession by interviewed employees. Only 16% said they use more than half their talents at work. I suspect the workers are saving their talents for use where they feel wanted, loved and appreciated – where they command more than economic value.
However, to practise leadership with love the leader should know what it really means to love his workforce. For love has fallen victim of pervasive human misjudgment. It has been stripped of its divine nature and innocent charm, and dressed in the hood of erotica.
Love in leadership, however, isn’t emotional attraction or conditioned fondness. It’s a deliberate, pure show of civility, softness and fondness in human interactions. Love, therefore, is smiles, civility, empathy, sympathy and goodwill in workplace relationships. Its expression in work situations isn’t motivated by labour needs, but by the necessity to show the workforce that they are valued.
If the leader uses employees’ performances as a pre-condition for love, the workforce won’t respond with higher commitment and loyalty; for then will love become a wage not a give, something earned. Employees’ commitment and loyalty will go up only when they are given love as a free plus.
Love in leadership practice has seven features. First, it is compassionate; it empathises with employees. Second, it is considerate; showing respect for employees’ feelings and private out-of-work concerns. Third, it is corrective. Love doesn’t foreclose lashes as some CEOs may think. The lover-leader won’t spare employees who break the organisation’s core values at will. Care won’t prevent the cane when employees grievously err. But habitual love helps temper justice with mercy, reducing the sting of the rod.
Fourth, it is constant. Love as a tool for effective leadership doesn’t operate with conditions. It is the effective leader’s second nature. Fifth, it is conciliatory, steering human relations in the organisation along the path of least resistance, resolving conflicts with win-win face-saving approach. Sixth, this love is constructive. Criticisms are coded as positive observation; the leader doesn’t indulge in tantrums, tongue-lashing people’s worth and value.
Finally, the love is contagious. The leader can’t love and not be loved. Just one example: Before the collapse of Enron, Ken Lay, the CEO, was a leader brimming and dripping with love for his staff. The media may fault his integrity, but Mr Lay conducted himself as a civil, amiable, approachable, generous and friendly leader. No wonder, Ms Carol, one of his managers, said: “Frankly, many people loved the man.” Lay acted love and was loved. To be sure, Enron didn’t go under for lack of leadership love or employees’ low morale.
If you still doubt the impact of a leader’s practical love on his organisation’s growth, ask me. I’m the leader of a multi-racial organisation with operational branches in 44 African countries, and 26 branches across Europe, Asia and America. From a feeble 15-member initiative in 1973, our worldwide membership now comprises about one million people. The phenomenal growth is partly a function of leading with love. Love is my weapon of influence, the sustainer of my organisation’s cohesion.
Habitually, I demonstrate to our multi-racial workforce that they are wanted on board; I recognise and appreciate talents and value people not only for what they are but also for whom they are. I respect their loyalty and attend to their personal affairs as much as I can. I show I’m interested in their families and often ask about their welfare. They know I care. Yet I don’t spare the rod when a worker shamefully misbehaves. Result: Widespread loyalty to my leadership and high commitment to the organisation’s goals. Our workers see the growth of the organisation as their responsibility, not only mine. This shared commitment and responsibility wouldn’t have happened if I had given love no place in my leadership.
Many leaders resist leading with love because they fear it might doom their authority. So, to ensure they are in control, they choose to be toughies with knitted brow, puckered lips and steely eyes. They prefer a frown to a smile and regard a warm chat with subordinates a loathsome taboo. But loving the people doesn’t have a corrosive effect on leadership authority. A smile, a show of concern for workers’ private affairs, civility and courtesy don’t erode authority, but rather help melt workers’ resistance to total submission and painstaking productivity. Find out: a workforce loved by their CEO wouldn’t mind putting their lives on the line to ensure that the organisation’s visions and mission are accomplished.
A leader’s relationship with his workforce should transcend the bottom line – the goals and visions of the organisation. In wage-paying organisations, workers need more than the money to expend the last atom of their talents at work; they need the motivation that comes from the stimulant of their leader’s love. For, to give their total best, workers need to be fed with the belief that they aren’t in the organisation on a be-used-and-get-paid bargain, but that they are in because they are wanted, cherished and appreciated.
Love leads corporate emphasis away from monetary concept of employment on to the worth of employees as people. When organisations stop treating workers as machines and begin dealing with them as people, the bottom-line will be ensured. People who work for the pay simply work; those who work for the love, work well. (To be continued).
Effective leadership is the craving of every organisation. No organisation appoints people to top positions merely to fill up existing vacancies. The board wants people who can hold the organisation, keep it running and move it forward. Men and women who can deliver on the bottom-line. Yet we all know that all leaders aren’t miracle workers. Otherwise, all organisations would be standing firm, functioning and flourishing. The world’s industrial landscape is strewn with tombstones of organisations led into ruin by those paid to lead them to success.
Get my point, please: Having a leader in charge doesn’t guarantee progress and profit unless the leader has what it takes for his leadership to function effectively.
Results of studies in leadership functions and performances have indicated that effective leaders have some characteristics in common. Although the listings vary, there are certain attributes that, all scholars would agree, every known effective leader has. For example, a leader may lack charisma – he may not be a dramatic fellow – and still make much success waves that help put his organisation on the world’s industrial map. But no leader can be dull at visioning and yet make his leadership count.
Therefore, leaders who desire to be effective on the job should strive to develop the essential attributes by all means. I call these attributes axioms of effective leadership. They are axioms because, expressed as statements, they convey established or accepted principles of which veracity requires no external proof. They will always hold true regardless of the situation or context. Let’s follow the axioms in outline.
1. Leaders are lovers
Of all the attributes of effective leaders, love appears to me the most critical. Surprisingly, much has been written about effective leadership without a word about love! Yet love is the basic reason why people wholeheartedly may do the bidding of a leader and buy into his success plans. By common sense, nobody would, truly, follow somebody who isn’t fond of him or her.
“L” in leadership is for love. You may chuckle about this, but check it up. Leaders are lovers of people they are leading. The world is rich in history of great visionary leaders whose achievements writers have chronicled in glowing terms. Would the people have bought into these leaders’ recipes for change if the leaders didn’t love the people and show them that their development, welfare and comfort were the pivot of their visions? People choose to follow and be influenced by the man or woman who loves and appreciates them.
Ken Blanchard, an accomplished leadership scholar, trainer and teacher sums it up thus: “It might sound bizarre; but one of the beliefs for effective leadership is to be madly in love with all the people you’re leading.” If a leader dismisses this as mere soft talk, he will pay with rapid employee turnover, low commitment, and slow growth.
I admit there may be organisations that have experienced all-round growth with “loveless” CEO’s at the helm. But who can tell how much better, faster and higher those organisations might have fared had their leader led with the sceptre of love?
Believe me: most employees work for the pay; and as long as they need the money and find no other place to work, they will tag along behind the leader though the fellow is so poor in love. But the workforce starved of love doesn’t give their total best at work. Loyalty and continuity are the first victims of leadership without love.
Percy Barnevik, one of Europe’s most celebrated business leaders and former chairman of ABB, was quoted by Warren Bennis as saying that “organisations ensure that [people] use only 5 to 10% of their abilities at work. Outside of work they engage the other 90 to 95%”. Barnevik would want leaders “to learn how to recognise and employ that untapped ability”.
Barnevik and all leaders worried by employees’ low morale can make their workforce fully bend their backs in service without much ado. They should knock on love’s door. Leaders can’t do anything to make their followers give 100% of their abilities at work unless by loving them, making them feel wanted and appreciated and much valued – treating them as people, not employees!
A UK survey reveals a damning confession by interviewed employees. Only 16% said they use more than half their talents at work. I suspect the workers are saving their talents for use where they feel wanted, loved and appreciated – where they command more than economic value.
However, to practise leadership with love the leader should know what it really means to love his workforce. For love has fallen victim of pervasive human misjudgment. It has been stripped of its divine nature and innocent charm, and dressed in the hood of erotica.
Love in leadership, however, isn’t emotional attraction or conditioned fondness. It’s a deliberate, pure show of civility, softness and fondness in human interactions. Love, therefore, is smiles, civility, empathy, sympathy and goodwill in workplace relationships. Its expression in work situations isn’t motivated by labour needs, but by the necessity to show the workforce that they are valued.
If the leader uses employees’ performances as a pre-condition for love, the workforce won’t respond with higher commitment and loyalty; for then will love become a wage not a give, something earned. Employees’ commitment and loyalty will go up only when they are given love as a free plus.
Love in leadership practice has seven features. First, it is compassionate; it empathises with employees. Second, it is considerate; showing respect for employees’ feelings and private out-of-work concerns. Third, it is corrective. Love doesn’t foreclose lashes as some CEOs may think. The lover-leader won’t spare employees who break the organisation’s core values at will. Care won’t prevent the cane when employees grievously err. But habitual love helps temper justice with mercy, reducing the sting of the rod.
Fourth, it is constant. Love as a tool for effective leadership doesn’t operate with conditions. It is the effective leader’s second nature. Fifth, it is conciliatory, steering human relations in the organisation along the path of least resistance, resolving conflicts with win-win face-saving approach. Sixth, this love is constructive. Criticisms are coded as positive observation; the leader doesn’t indulge in tantrums, tongue-lashing people’s worth and value.
Finally, the love is contagious. The leader can’t love and not be loved. Just one example: Before the collapse of Enron, Ken Lay, the CEO, was a leader brimming and dripping with love for his staff. The media may fault his integrity, but Mr Lay conducted himself as a civil, amiable, approachable, generous and friendly leader. No wonder, Ms Carol, one of his managers, said: “Frankly, many people loved the man.” Lay acted love and was loved. To be sure, Enron didn’t go under for lack of leadership love or employees’ low morale.
If you still doubt the impact of a leader’s practical love on his organisation’s growth, ask me. I’m the leader of a multi-racial organisation with operational branches in 44 African countries, and 26 branches across Europe, Asia and America. From a feeble 15-member initiative in 1973, our worldwide membership now comprises about one million people. The phenomenal growth is partly a function of leading with love. Love is my weapon of influence, the sustainer of my organisation’s cohesion.
Habitually, I demonstrate to our multi-racial workforce that they are wanted on board; I recognise and appreciate talents and value people not only for what they are but also for whom they are. I respect their loyalty and attend to their personal affairs as much as I can. I show I’m interested in their families and often ask about their welfare. They know I care. Yet I don’t spare the rod when a worker shamefully misbehaves. Result: Widespread loyalty to my leadership and high commitment to the organisation’s goals. Our workers see the growth of the organisation as their responsibility, not only mine. This shared commitment and responsibility wouldn’t have happened if I had given love no place in my leadership.
Many leaders resist leading with love because they fear it might doom their authority. So, to ensure they are in control, they choose to be toughies with knitted brow, puckered lips and steely eyes. They prefer a frown to a smile and regard a warm chat with subordinates a loathsome taboo. But loving the people doesn’t have a corrosive effect on leadership authority. A smile, a show of concern for workers’ private affairs, civility and courtesy don’t erode authority, but rather help melt workers’ resistance to total submission and painstaking productivity. Find out: a workforce loved by their CEO wouldn’t mind putting their lives on the line to ensure that the organisation’s visions and mission are accomplished.
A leader’s relationship with his workforce should transcend the bottom line – the goals and visions of the organisation. In wage-paying organisations, workers need more than the money to expend the last atom of their talents at work; they need the motivation that comes from the stimulant of their leader’s love. For, to give their total best, workers need to be fed with the belief that they aren’t in the organisation on a be-used-and-get-paid bargain, but that they are in because they are wanted, cherished and appreciated.
Love leads corporate emphasis away from monetary concept of employment on to the worth of employees as people. When organisations stop treating workers as machines and begin dealing with them as people, the bottom-line will be ensured. People who work for the pay simply work; those who work for the love, work well. (To be continued).
