What is leadership and how can you measure it?

Leadership is a topic in fashion today. I have found almost as many definitions of it as the number of authors I have read. The challenge of defining leadership is mostly about both formulating a sentence that grasps its whole meaning yet being short and sharp enough to make it simple. The longest definition of leadership I have found is 61 pages rich integrative definition of leadership that Bruce Winston and Kathleen Patterson of Regent University have written. And the shortest I know of is John Maxwell's famous "leadership is influence". While I find the former complete yet long, the latter gives just one instrument leaders use rather than really defining what leadership is. To grasp the full essence of leadership in a definition that is still short, I offer the following: Leadership is a process of strategic action and influence whereby wonderful things are realized with people and through people consistently. Here are four measures of leadership:

1. Results: You can measure your leadership by the output and most ultimately the outcome of your endeavors. Ask yourself what performance goals you did set for the company. Are you achieving them?
2.  Stakeholders’ commitment: How committed are your members to the mission. Are they generating creative solutions to problems? Are they going the extra mile taking the challenges that the company is facing? If they had a choice to move to a similar job in another team or company, would they rather stay with you?
3. Stakeholders’ wellbeing: Gains and wellbeing are not a limited pie where “what they get is what I lose”. Selfishness mostly ensues from ignorance. Your importance and your gains are a direct reflection of how many people (members, customers, suppliers, etc.) you are touching and blessing with your work. Wise leaders practice winning together and share dividends of victories generously.
4. Succession readiness: Will your current success be maintained when you or other key players at the company are gone? Readiness for succession means that you have identified and are preparing potential successors at your position and at all key strategic positions under your leadership.

Because we are describing leadership, we also need to explain what leadership is not.

• Leadership isn’t the position you hold. Positions are only contexts in which you decide to practice leadership or anything else you want.
• Leadership isn’t the power you have. In fact, power isn't even a measure of leadership. Power is just a neutral multidimensional instrument that can be used to exercise leadership or something else than it. That is the reason why we do not agree with respected John Maxwell that “leadership is influence”. Influence is just a manifestation of power.

Victor M. Manyim (vmanyim@gmail.com)

Doctor of Strategic Leadership & Coaching

Emergence plans across Africa: are we really going somewhere?

Most African countries today are deploying plans to become “emergent nations” in a decade or two. From Yaounde to Nairobi, from Dakar to Kampala, almost everywhere in Africa, you hear “Vision 20xx”. These plans are carefully crafted and explain how infrastructures and services will be transformed, and how manufacturing, agriculture, energy, transport and healthcare will be metamorphosed. Let us call this part the “hardware”. But this broken hardware of African countries is not the root cause of our problems, it is the consequence. There is an essential part that is missing and that is the cause, let us call it the “software”. It is the internal motivation, the internal drive, the underlying beliefs and values which determine people behaviors and choices. Any transformational plan that is not grounded in a congruent software that drives implementers at every strategic level is doomed. Even if it was forced to take form, it will appear with huge delays and full of malformations. It will amplify rather than break the cycle of poverty. It will increase the gap between the rich and the poor, and therefore it will not be sustained.

The real challenges at hand are:

• To understand how to turn people who have a long history of corruption into people of integrity.
• To turn people away from longstanding exclusion toward inclusion.
• To change endemically self-serving mindsets into common-good oriented people.
• To turn shortsightedness and fire-fighter-response mentalities into long-term-inclined people who execute with perfection.

These issues are at the heart of Africa’s transformation. Are we saying that the hardware is secondary? Far from that. We are only saying that without new positive beliefs and values and behaviors, emergence will not become a durable reality if ever it appears. And there is no positive mentality except it is materialized in a large consumer class in the middle of society, and unless we see exemplary infrastructures and quality services at the reach of the large majority. Both software and hardware need to go hand in hand. The problem is that few of these plans have even thought of the software. And those like Kenya who have evoked it in their plans seldom have a solid methodology to “setup” this new software in the minds of every nation builder across the nation.

Transformational leadership combined with coaching from the top of every institution seem to provide a clear path to rebuilding Africa. Unlike information campaigns which are similar to preaching in the desert, coaching from the top will get leaders to close their “knowing-doing” gap. Our leaders know so many good principles, they have attended so many good schools and training seminars, but that knowledge has remained dead for the most part. Good coaching usually has power to turn knowledge into action. Coaching from the top will create exemplarity at the top and ease the diffusion of good attitudes in the whole society. Finally, coaching from the top means starting with opinion leaders. Making less than three percent of any population, opinion leaders determine the behaviors and choices of almost everyone else. Except governments and communities invest energy and resources in upgrading the software of Africans’ minds, we are doubtful that these emergence plans will make any lasting difference on the continent.

Victor Manyim

How do leadership and coaching work together?

Based on descriptions of coaching skills from Kimsey-House, Kimsey-House, Sandahl, & Whitworth (2011), Rogers (2012), Collins (2009), Stoltzfus (2005), & Bennet & Harper (2008), and based on Winston & Patterson’s (2006) integrative definition of leadership, the following table gives comparative skills of coaching and leadership:

Coaching skills	Leadership skills
Focusing on the coachee. Listening and "harvesting": (articulating, clarifying, meta-view, metaphor, recovery, clearing, reframing. making distinctions). Asking powerful questions. Asking permission.	Focusing on the company’s vision. Mobilizing. Training and equipping. Modeling. Empowering. Energizing. Personal renewal and growth.
Skills shared by coaching and leadership
Selecting. Influencing and intuition (intruding and blurting). Building a relationship of trust and respect (honesty, humility, and credibility). Service. Goal setting. Requesting and guiding. Brainstorming Challenging, assessing, supporting (acknowledging progress and championing). Bottom-lining. Healing.

                                              Table 1: Comparative skills of coaching and leadership

Reading this table inevitably raises the question: "Is there even a clear line between leadership and coaching? The answer is "no". How then do both processes work together?

One function of effective leadership is to develop followers. Therefore coaching can become a powerful tool at the service successful leaders. Actually good coaching with an alignment between the company’s vision and each follower’s personal dream can create a powerful leadership model. Here are two examples:

1. Leaders “influence [followers] by humbly conveying a prophetic vision of the future in clear terms that resonates with the follower(s) beliefs and values in such a way that the follower(s) can understand and interpret the future into present-time action steps” (Winston & Patterson, 2006, p.7). Good coaching will help the manager identify follower’s beliefs and values, and will facilitate the process of selection, positioning and alignment, and thus create effective teams.
2. When managers only focus on their views, they deprive their team form followers’ insights and engagement, and isolate themselves. Good coaching enhances commitment through listening, intuition and positive discourse, and causes followers to expend their energies (physical, intellectual, emotional, and spiritual) willingly and enthusiastically (Winston & Patterson, 2006) for the pursuit of the organization’s goals. Can you see the power of getting followers to give their best this way? That is what leaders can achieve when they coach followers.

Coaching skills are not necessarily inherent to leadership. Some of them could actually be in conflict with good leadership. For example, coaches ask questions, avoid offering advice and solutions, and seldom request actions. Most times they only create structures to support solutions developed by coachees. Leaders for their part request and advice more although they also consider followers’ opinions. On the other hand, some coaching skills are strongly useful to both coaching and leadership, like bottom-lining. Kimsey-House et al. (2011) note that coaches go to the bottom line, coachees do the talking. In leadership also, bottom-lining confers and enhances leadership power.

References

Bennett, J. L., Harper, M. (2008). Executive Coaching Readiness Assessment Scale. Presented at Academy of Management. Anaheim, CA.

Kimsey-House, H., Kimsey-House, K., Sandahl, P., Whitworth, L. (2011). Co-active coaching: Changing businesses, transforming lives (3^rd ed.). Boston, MA: Nicholas Brealey Publishing.

Rogers, J. (2012). Coaching skills: A handbook. : Berkshire, England: McGraw Hill.

Stoltzfus, T. (2005). Leadership coaching: The disciplines, skills, and heart of a christian coach [Kindle edition]. Available from www.amazon.com

Winston, B., & Patteson, K. (2006). An Integrative Definition of Leadership. International Journal of Leadership Studies 1(2), 6-66.

Humility starts with a healthy sense of self-perception

A healthy self-perception is a good foundation for humility. If I know I am loved and accepted as I am, I become more ready to recognize others’ unique value as well. Humility is the quality that makes people so aware of their limitations that their sense of entitlement vanishes authentically. While being mostly reserved for those with reasons to boast, humility is enforced by deep spirituality. Being powerful creates conditions for one’s humility to be validated, and knowing God reveals one’s sense of worthlessness and catalyzes humility.

To demonstrate humility, a leader must be safe, confident, and connected to God. The Bible illustrates this in John 13: 3-5: In order to wash his disciples’ feet, Jesus first “knew that the Father had given everything into His hands”, second, had a clear sense of his origin and destiny. This combined knowledge of God and of self, made him safe and confident to wash His disciples’ feet. A competent teacher is confident to be receptive to students input to knowledge acquisition. A competent physician demystifies what he or she is doing and receives input from the patient. In the process of being down to earth, the leader builds followers’ confidence, and tells them: “you too can become like me”. The leader also connects better with followers and builds their competences. On the other hand, “pride or the loss of … humility is the root of every sin and evil” (Murray, 1900, p. 12).

Unfortunately, humility is far from being a universally shared leadership behavior. The contrary of it has gained popularity among leadership practitioners, to the detriment of shared well-being and success in communities and in companies. Bekker (nd) points to the fact that contemporary leadership authors have positioned self-promotion as a leadership quality. Only an intentional effort to create a climate of humility can overcome the natural human inclination toward preeminence. Such efforts include public rejection of arrogance, recognition and reward of humble behaviors, explicit inclusion of humility among organizational values, exemplification of humility by leaders, and hiring practices that look at prospects’ humility (Bekker, n d). Robertson (2007) also warns that God will allow “a messenger of satan” to persecute His servants whom he elevates, in order to keep them humble despite the great things God may do through them.

References

Bekker, C., J. (nd). Leading with the Head bowed down: Lessons in Leadership Humility from the Rule of St. Benedict of Nursia. Inner Resources for Leaders, 1(3).

Murray, A. (1900). Humility; the beauty of holiness. New York, Revell [n.d.].

Robertson, P. (2007). The greatest virtue. Virginia Beach, VA: Christian Broadcasting Netwrok.

Purity is an idea for successful business people

It is unfortunate that one of the most popular beliefs in the corporate world is that seeking others' interest is naive. A twin belief that I have found as popular yet false it that treachery is a necessary evil for success in business. World wisdom assumes that the only way to get ahead is to have dirty hands (Sartre 1948). These ideas are popularized and embraced by people everywhere. The best such convictions can do is to serve those who embrace them for a relatively short time. When their effects fire back, they cost a lot much more that whatever they could have benefited their followers. Khan (2006) gives eight values that are correlated with long lasting success in business according to research: (1) Treat others with uncompromising truth, (2) lavish trust on your associates (3), mentor unselfishly, (4) be receptive to new ideas regardless of their origin, (5) take personal risks for the organization's sake, (6) give credit where it is due, (7) do not touch dishonest dollars, and (8) putt the interests of others before your own.


Let us elaborate on truth, empathy, and honesty. These values build and maintain trust. They keep their followers free and happy. They facilitates followership and make business relationships less constrained and costly. Biblical wisdom instructs: "Speak the truth, each one to his neighbor, because we are members of one another" (Ephesians 4: 25, Holman Christian Standard Bible). The reason the Bible gives for speaking the truth is that if I hurt my neighbor, I hurt part of myself. It seems evident to me that that in business, a stakeholder (partner, client supplier, government, employee …) cannot be hurt while I remain totally safe. His or her stability is tightly linked with mine.


Even if we imagined a possibility of remaining safe while cheating on stakeholders, we know that liars are constantly worried that their lies can be exposed. And when this happens, it splashes the reputation and kills trust. And there is no bigger asset a company has than its reputation. Take Tradex for instance, an oil retailer in Cameroon. In about 10 years Tradex has risen to become the largest oil retailer after Total in Cameroon. I recently talked with a gas station manager in my neighborhood. This man was happy that a new Tradex gas station in the neighborhood was built on a different street that his. "If they had built it on this street, we would be in serious difficulty" he said. This is because in a country where some oil retailers mix petrol with cheaper kerosene, Tradex has a reputation of selling unaltered high quality petrol. Purity is certainly not an idea for a yogi or a monk (Sartre, 1948). It is a smart idea for successful business people.

References

Khan, S. (2006). It is not so much What as How. Consulting to Management, 17(2), 62-63.
Sartre, J. P. (1948). Les mains sales [Dirty Hands]. Paris: Gallimard.

What future are you called to create?

Futurology seeks insight about the future by creating future scenarios, scanning the organization's horizon for signals of change, and projecting current trends. Eschatology on the other hand studies the end times or the “last things” on a theological perspective. These two are linked because “last things” are in the future, and they only occur after all other “future things” have happened. How do people of the Jesus Movement embrace the future?

Jesus’ mandate “ to proclaim freedom to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind … [and] to set free the oppressed” (Luke 4: 18,19, Holman Christian Standard Bible) is timeless. He framed this mandate in his time by envisioning a creative future (Gary, 2008) that transcended both the oppressive conventional future pursued by the Roman Empire, and the counter future of revolt schemed by Jewish nationalists. This example calls every disciple to fully embrace their own future and to use the lenses of Biblical wisdom to shape society. How then should one take a sit at the table of civilization, and lead the future (Gary, 2014)?

Emile Zola depicted the 19^th century’s world of contrasts and contradictions where some had plenty while others lacked all. In his famous fiction, Germinal, a poor old man complains: “this will turn out badly, for God does not allow so many Christians to be thrown on the street. We don’t have meat every day. But if one had bread! True, if one only had bread.” (Zola, 2013) Zola’s future envisaged “bread” for all. But according to Grant, (2014) research suggests that happiness does not necessarily increase with wealth; it increases when the gap between what one has and what he or she wants narrows. Unfortunately, people tend to want much more and to feel desperate about not having what they want as their wealth increase. Therefore, I am inspired to create neither a future of rich people who never have enough, nor one of poor people who beat drums and dance day and night in an illusion of happiness. I am inspired to help lead society toward a future of people and companies that are wealthy yet “poor in the spirit” (Matthew 5:3, HCSB). What future are you called to create?

References

Gary, J. (2008). The future according to Jesus: A Galilean model of foresight. Futures, 40(7), 630–642.

Gary, J. (2014, October 5). Review of 20th Century Eschatology [Video file]. Retrieved from http://youtu.be/5Gp6FbCan5Q

Grant, M. (2014). Grant: 'inside out' coaching is the order of the day. Coaching at Work, 9(5), 7. Retrieved from http://0-search.ebscohost.com.library.regent.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bth&AN=97914040&site=ehost-live

Zola, E. (2013). Germinal: Start Publishing LLC. Retrieved from http://books.google.cm/books?id=ZubsAgAAQBAJ

There is good work and there is bad work

Jesus urges his disciples: "you are the salt of the earth… You are the light of the world (Matthew 5:13-14, Holman Christian Standard Bible). A Christian leader’s light must shine and show the way, and his or her salt must be tasty and make the organization an enjoyable place. To achieve this, he or she needs tap from global perspectives and use spiritual wisdom to sort and pick among the options available, the ultimate purpose being to serve the company and its stakeholders as Jesus himself would do. Pucik (2005) notes that the global competitive advantage of a firm is "the ability to tap global capabilities and skills to satisfy local customer needs" (p. 377). He goes on to posit that the real challenge might be to learn locally about the needs on the ground, then to coordinate the organization's global capacity to serve those needs. How can we be inspired to change "our world"?

Ellen Davis (2001) puts a challenging contrast before us by contending that there is bad work and good work, and there is the Sabbath. Bad work is portrayed by centuries of exploitation and slavery in Egypt. It destroys, devalues, and humiliates; it ruins and allows no rest. Good work is portrayed by the first "public work" Israel does, that of building God's tabernacle. Here we see talent and inspiration creating a place of reunion between humans, and between a people and their God. Good work liberates, rewards, unites and always leads to a Sabbath, a place and time of rest. We need to design organizations where people are engaged because they are given opportunity to contribute using their talent, to grow, and to enjoy life as they work.

It is a lack of understanding that makes some employers think they benefit from treating their employees poorly or being indifferent to their eventual struggles. When employees are not well treated or not protected, they become stressed and eventually unhealthy. Gallup (2012) argues that employees' wellbeing directly affects bottom line performance. And wellbeing encompasses all dimensions of the employee's life. Financial, physical, emotional, social, spiritual, etc. HR need to realize that it is the whole employee who comes to work. Once family, social life, health, finances, and other dimensions of wellbeing are out of balance, the whole company suffers: accidents increase, turnover increases, health costs and time off increase, production defects increase and productivity decreases.

References

Davis, E. F. (2001). Slaves or Sabbath-keepers? A biblical perspective on human work. Anglican theological review, 83(1), 25–39.

Gallup (2012, May). Unhealthy, Stressed Employees Are Hurting Your Business. Gallup Business Journal. Retrieved from http://businessjournal.gallup.com/content/154643/Unhealthy-Stressed-Employees-Hurting-Business.aspx

Pucik, V. (2005). Global hr as competitive advantage: Are we ready. In M. R. Losey, S. Meisinger, & D. Ulrich (Eds.), The future of human resource management. 64 thought leaders explore the critical HR issues of today and tomorrow (pp. 370–377). Hoboken, N.J: Wiley.