October 2014

LEADING INSIGHT
The Essence of Leadership:
Nine Tools for Creating Highly Successful Teams

BY MATT TENNEY

We all know the types of people who make great leaders, right? They’re the brilliant, talented, wunderkinds who are poised to change the industry. The persuasive, outgoing schmoozers who get along with just about everyone. The industry veterans who have done it all and seen it all. Or the capable, go-to guys and gals who are always first to walk into a room and take charge.… Or are they?

All of these types can turn out to be terrible leaders. Sure, each of them might have some success at quickly mobilizing a group. But over time, they tend to become less effective because they’re not able to maximize the achievement of each person in the group. They’re more likely to think that their own ideas are the best and simply expect people to do what they’re told.

Truly great leaders don’t aspire to lead so that they can have more power, prestige, perks, or money. Great leaders aspire to lead because they want to be of greater service to the greater good. Here are nine tactics to help you achieve higher levels of success by consistently serving and inspiring greatness in others.

Show them that you care. Unless your team truly believes that you have their well-being in mind, you won’t be able to develop the kind of influence that leads to long-lasting success. Ask if they’re happy and find out why or why not. This will send a clear message that you care, especially if you follow up with actions that address any sources of discontent.

Create a healthy culture of accountability. Being a servant leader doesn’t mean that you can’t demand excellence or hold people accountable. I suggest taking the subjectivity out of goals by making them binary: Either they’re achieved or they’re not—no “kind of” or “partially” allowed.

Ask more and better questions. Highly effective leaders tend to spend more time asking questions of team members than they do giving orders. But the questions aren’t about micro-management or second-guessing. They’re about soliciting input or feedback and finding ways to be of greater service.

Spend less time talking. Whenever possible, leaders should speak last, speak less than 10% of the time, and refrain from offering personal opinions. In doing so, you’ll get more input. Your team will be more involved and feel more valuable. You’ll also get more buy-in from team members.

Connect work to a higher purpose. Great leaders are able to help the people they lead see the connection between their (sometimes mundane and frustrating) work and the big picture. Step one is for you, the leader, to create the mission and the vision of the team, respectively.

Don’t be just a manager. Be a mentor who is developing great human beings. Don’t just evaluate your performance based on how well the team accomplishes the mission. Work to ensure that if any team member is asked the question—Did you grow personally and professionally as a result of working with your leader?—the answer would be a resounding, “Yes!”

Place the needs of the team above your own. Great leaders aren’t afraid of being replaced. In fact, they look to replace themselves as soon as possible by helping their team members develop the requisite experience and skills. When you do so, it’s a clear sign to senior leadership that you yourself are ready for more responsibility and should be in charge of a bigger team.

Measure the things that really matter. We need to do a better job of measuring who we are and how well we treat each other. As a leader, I suggest that you seek feedback on how well you live the values of the organization and how well you treat the members of your team.

Practice mindfulness to become the ultimate leader. Most people want to do a better job of serving and caring for the people around them. Mindfulness training helps us close the gap between intention and action. To begin the practice, pick a simple activity like drinking water and make an effort to let go of thinking and be fully present for that activity. Commit to being mindful each time you drink water for a week. The next week, continue with drinking water and add another activity. After a couple months, you’ll be practicing mindfulness during most of your day. You’ll notice that you’re happier, more resilient to stress, and more present for the people in your life.

When you focus on serving and caring for the people on your team, you’ll earn their loyalty and build a tremendous amount of influence with them—and influence is the essence of leadership. Great leaders are able to influence people’s behaviors in ways that help them achieve higher levels of success and thereby create and sustain high-performance teams.

Matt Tenney is the author of Serve to Be Great: Leadership Lessons from a Prison, a Monastery, and a Boardroom. He can be reached at www.matttenney.com.