Leading Business is Hard Work

The corporate leaders who did understand the human side of their business and who were most effectively motivating and mobilizing their people were operating mostly by instinct. just like the entrepreneurs. These leaders were acting from the profound institution that profits follow principles. Why were these leaders with all the immense resources at their disposal, giving with their gut? 

 Because almost no solid data existed to make the case for investing in people.

A high-performance enterprises that natures and taps the talents, ideas and energy of its people. Healthy enterprises start from core human values, such as trust, integrity, and team work, and they balance the needs of all their stakeholders-employees, customers, shareholders, and the larger community. they don't do this merely because it's right or fair. they do it because it's better business, because it gives them profound and enduring competitive advantage of a fast, flexible work, culture, where employees act like they own the business, learn on the job, and care deeply about quality and service.

The first is crisis in commitment. People are not working at their full potential competitive advantage comes from the effort workers put in above and beyond "just doing their job". If a line workers in a factory see as better way to reuse scraps but does not share it with the company, that worker is, technically, still doing his job. He is earning his pay, fulfilling the letter if not the spirit of his contract. but in a competitor's factory down the road- or across the-ocean-another workers comes up with the some recycling ideas and pushes to get it implemented. suddenly the second factory gets more out of its raw material than the first-and not because of superior technology or training, but purely because an employee gave more than that was strictly required.

Leading Business Is Hard Work. Sometime  people were downright passive-aggressive. other times they were indifferent, as if their spark had been snuffed out. and often they blamed management. the bureaucracy was too cumbersome. Top leadership hoarded information, especially financial figures that would clarify the big picture and enable workers to suggest improvement the glass ceiling kept women and people of color "in their place". Technology was implemented without any thought to the workers who used it, causing health problems like repetitive stress syndrome. A restless demand for extra work hours ate into precious times for family and leisure.

In the misguided efforts of leaders in hidden another message: leaders need followers. leaders don't want docile, do only-as-ordered employees instead, they want responsible, mature, forward-looking associates. They want partners who are as committed as they are to the success of the enterprises.

The simple fact is that leaders and followers need each other, but they are not working well together. These rifts divide not just employees and employers, but also politicians and constituents, doctors and patients, teachers and students. Everywhere our leader-follower relationships are tense, cynical, confused, and mistrustful. This dysfunctional relationship is primary cause of the crisis in commitment. But the responsibility of mending the relationship lies with leaders. Leaders must take the first steps, for it is leaders who set the rule, create the culture, and determine the values and principles that guide the organizations. Indeed, fostering mature and robust leader-follower partnership is what leading people is all about, but most leaders aren't pulling their weight. To put it another way, followers aren't following because leader aren't aren't leading.

To short, healthy, high-performance enterprises models of the organization that will succeed in the twenty-first century. in every case, the key was leadership. Healthy, mature, self ware leaders were unlocking the best in their employees, and therefore the best in the enterprises as a whole. But where leaders were still projecting more of their dark sides, leadership acted as a jailer rather than a liberator, confining, creativity and enthusiasm, and keeping the best prospects of organization shut way.

with growing conviction, the only way to transform an organization in the deep, long-term ways that inspire people and invigorate their efforts on organization's leadership. what we need, in all walks of like and all endeavors is new leadership.

The eight principles of leading people:

In studying and working with these kinds of leaders, Robert H. Rosen have come to recognize eight principles that run through all their stories, eight stands that, when woven together, from wisdom in action. They are:

1. Vision: leaders see the whole picture and articulate the broad perspective with others. By doing so, leaders create a common purpose that mobilize people and coordinates their efforts into a single, coherent, agile enterprises.

2. Trust: Without trust, vision becomes an empty slogan. Trust binds people together crating a strong resilient organization. To build trust, leaders are predictable, and they share information and power. Their goal is a culture of candor.

3. Participation: The energy of an organization is the participation and effort of its people. Leaders challenge is to unleash and focus this energy, inspiring people at every level of the enterprise to pitch in with their minds and hearts.

4. Learning: Leaders need a deep understanding of themselves. They must know their strength and shortcomings, which requires a lifelong process of discovery, and they must be able to adapt to new circumstances. So too be with their organization. It must promote constant innovation and the leaders must encourage their people to refresh their skills and renew their spirits.

5. Diversity: Successful leaders know the power of diversity and the poison of prejudice. They understand their own biases, and they actively cultivate appreciations of the positive aspects of people’s differences. In their organization. They insist on a culture of mutual respect.

6. Creativity: In a world where smart solutions outpace excessive work, creativity is crucial. Leaders pay close attention to people’s talents, learning on their strengths and managing around their weakness. They encourage independent, challenging thinking, and they invest in technologies that facilitate the efforts of their people.

7. Integrity: A leader must stand for something. As a public citizen acts by deep-seated principles. Every wise leader has a moral compass, a sense of right and wrong. Good leaders understand that good ethics is good business.

8. Community: Community is mutual commitment, and it inspires the highest performance. Its human nature to go the extra mile for one’s neighbors and fellow citizens, and a mature leader stresses the organization’s responsibility to the surrounding society. A leader also acts as a steward of the natural environment.

Ref. : Leading people "Robert H. Rosen with Paul B. Brown"