SOME COMMENTS ON LEADERSHIP by Joan Marques
Have you ever realized how easy it is to find illustrations about good
leadership? In an eye opening guest-session led by the well-respected Chair
of the Business Department at the University where I am lecturing, he
illustrated this is an amazingly simple way. He asked my students a question
and they all raised their hands. Then he encouraged them to raise their
hands again if they really agreed with his statement, but to raise them all
the way this time. It was this slight difference in raising their hands that
the Chair pointed out as being a way to perceive leadership: "Leadership is
about raising your hand all the way: about stretching yourself to the very
limit instead of settling for mediocrity."
The Chair then asked the group what they considered important in effective
leadership. The first answer that came out of the crowd was: listening. The
speaker immediately confirmed that listening is truly an art. He chose to
elaborate broadly on this phenomenon for a while. He commented that being a
good speaker is a nice thing, but it remains less than half the value of
good leadership. "For talking just draws upon one's own knowledge," he says,
"But listening enriches your leadership qualities and creates goodwill among
the ones that are listened to."
Subsequently, the Chair listed 6 types of listening, as he perceived them:
1. Pretending: This is a shortcoming we all are guilty of sometimes: we then
pretend to listen to another person while we have a whole line of other
thoughts and ideas running through our mind at the same time. This is the
case that emphasizes the difference between hearing and listening: our ears
are open, but our mind is closed.
2. Ignoring: This is actually equal to non-listening. We just choose not to
register what the other person is communicating to us.
3. Partial listening: We choose to just hear what we want to hear. But when
the hard part arrives, we prefer to let that slip by.
4. Complete listening: This is where we listen without judgment: we listen
with the ears open and with the mind open: we give our full attention.
5. Empathic listening: In this case we listen with ears, mind AND heart
open: we try to see things from the perspective of the speaker, realizing
that words may sound the same, but may mean entirely different things, seen
from different perspectives.
6. Silent listening: this is the type of listening that requires a special
mastery. We have to realize here that our mind never rests, and that it
therefore tends to have its own monologues while we listen to others.
Thoughts about the time, about other duties awaiting us, about feelings or
other issues, may interfere with the purity of our attention. In silent
listening the mind is refrained from doing two things at the same time, and
restricted to solely listening to the speaker: entirely focused.
So, a good leader is definitely one that is able to listen well, thereby
disregarding culture, background, nationality, or even personal convictions,
because he or she realizes that these will color his or her view.
Another vital tool in good leadership is the heart. This may sound
emotional, but it is not. The heart is more than just a pump: it brings
about the feeling a leader needs to be able to empathize with his or her
followers.
The chair next cited a 1995 Harvard research, which found out that 85% of
effective leadership can be attributed to character. And character has to do
with values. Values, in turn, pertain to one's perception on what is right
and what is wrong. What is right, finally, has to do with what one perceives
as honesty, which can be defined in numerous ways, one of which is: "saying
what you do and doing what you say." The chair wittily remarked here,
"Honesty is the easiest thing to do, because, if you are honest, you don't
have to remember." In one breath he cited the great Mahatma Gandhi who
stated: "I do what I say; I say what I think; I think what I feel."
Upon a question from a student that the corporate environment sometimes
challenges us to refrain from doing the right thing or being honest, the
Chair replied, "If you are doing the right thing for the right reasons,
nature will ultimately create the right opportunities for you."
The Chair subsequently went into the value of appreciation toward good
leadership. He mentioned that the sincerest form of appreciation is
imitation. With that he meant, that if you believe in something, you should
act upon it. Example? If you believe the universe is good, you should also
be good. And whatever turns out not to be good for you, will be taken away
from you in the end.
One of the most important initiators toward good leadership is the
determination of reality. One should thereby ask, "What is my assignment?
What is my purpose?" In simple wordings, the Chair encouraged us to become,
as a famous author once cited, "The Columbusses of our inner space."
Good leadership, according to the Chair, is also about integrity and
inspiration. However, you will only be able to apply these skills if you
have done the above recommended inner-exploration first in order to find out
about your reality and your values.
And then, good leadership is about one's perspectives: it's about seeing
work as an opportunity instead of a drudge. And it's about truth. It's about
love as a caring concern for others, and it's about non-harming.
Finally, leadership is about the 4 L's:
1. Learning (in which listening is covered)
2. Living ("Being": living the life that is truly yours)
3. Loving (Caring)
4. Leaving a Legacy
The best way to determine for yourself what good leadership means for you is
to wonder what you would answer at age 85 to the following questions:
· What would I have liked to become?
· What would I have liked to acquire?
· What would I have liked to experience?
· What would I have liked to be my contribution? (How would I like to be
remembered?)
If you manage to formulate an answer to these questions at this point in
your life, you have set out your path, and you will know which way to go.
Joan Marques, Burbank, October 10, 2003
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Joan Marques, holds an MBA, is a doctoral candidate in Organizational
Leadership, and a university instructor in Business and Management in
Burbank, California. You may visit her web site at www.joanmarques.com
Joan's manual "Feel Good About Yourself," a six part series to get you over
the bumps in life and onto success, can be purchased and downloaded at:
http://www.non-books.com/FeelGoodSeries.html
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