Michael McKinney’s post highlights a 2007 leadership book, Measure of a Leader, wherein “the premise is a new model of leadership that focuses on the behavior of followers,” and he includes five leadership lessons from it that I agree make a lot of sense. However…

Duh! I find the idea that leaders aren’t savvy enough to realize for themselves the need to focus on those they lead, i.e., followers, to be as ridiculous as the need to tell business to focus on what their customers’ desires.

It should be a no-brainer that companies are in business so supply their customers with the specific goods and/or services that they want or need, but it’s rocket science based on the number of companies that get it wrong.

Likewise, it should be a no-brainer that a leader is there to get people to a place or outcome that they want, or have been convinced they want, as opposed to the self-aggrandizement of the leader.

Once again, I’ll quote what is to me the finest leadership ethos around, and probably the oldest.

As for the best leaders,
the people do not notice their existence.
The next best,
the people honor and praise.
The next, the people fear;
and the next, the people hate…
When the best leader’s work is done,
the people say, “We did it ourselves!”
To lead the people, walk behind them.
Lao Tzu

Considering the intense focus on corporate values, ethics, and social responsibility, I found the interview with Lynn Sharp Paine, the John G. McLean Professor at Harvard Business School, along with the excerpt from her new book, both timely and thought provoking.Accounting scandals, stock option backdating and the increasing demands of a highly educated workforce for more social responsibility are driving the trend, but it’s not a new idea.

“Noting a seeming shift in public opinion, a leading U.S. legal theorist speculated in 1932, “…a sense of social responsibility toward employees, consumers, and the general public [might someday] come to be regarded as the appropriate attitude to be adopted by those who are engaged in business.”

According to the Millennium Poll on Corporate Social Responsibility, a 1999 survey of more than 25,000 individuals across twenty-three countries on six continents, two in three people say that companies should go beyond their traditional functions of making a profit, paying taxes, creating jobs, and obeying the law. In addition, respondents said, companies should also try to set a higher ethical standard and contribute to broader societal goals. In other words, companies should achieve profitability in ways that help build a better society. In all but three of the countries surveyed, 50 percent or more of those surveyed took this position…August 2000 survey in the United States. 2 Some 95 percent of these respondents said that companies should sometimes forgo some profit for the sake of making things better for their workers and communities.

Indeed, as the size and importance of corporations have increased, so has the general propensity to view their activities through a moral lens.

Excerpt from Value Shift: Why Companies Must Merge Social and Financial Imperatives to Achieve Superior Performance, McGraw-Hill, 2002

For those in, or who aspire to, leadership roles, this is about more than keeping your legal department happy or even focusing on the spirit, not just the letter, of the law,

“More managers are waking up to the ways in which positive values contribute to a company’s effective day-to-day functioning, as well as its reputation and long-term sustainability.”

Q: Having a positive value system in place can help contain costs by heading off trouble. But can improved values also add to the bottom line?

A: I’ve alluded to some of the ways positive values can add to the bottom line. And research points to others that I discuss in the book-better access to talent, enhanced employee commitment, better information sharing, greater creativity, enhanced reputation, and so on…But I caution managers against focusing only on the financial case for values…

What’s important to recognize, as I argue in the book, is that today’s companies are being held to a higher standard. Financial results are a must, but in addition, leading companies are expected to achieve those results by acting in an ethically acceptable manner. This represents a dramatic departure from centuries of tradition holding that corporations are by nature amoral and thus incapable of assuming responsibility, adhering to ethical standards, or exercising moral judgment. But abundant evidence shows that companies today are expected to do all these things…

This shift in our understanding of the corporate personality has profound implications for management. Among other things, it means that managers must develop more robust ethical reasoning skills and increasingly subject their decisions to ethical as well as financial analysis…

You should also be awake to the fact that this is the path to your own career success—whether continued or to come. Just as business is being held to a higher standard, so are its leaders.

If you want to be the person that people look up to, listen to and follow; whose suggestions carry weight and who comes to mind when a promotion or career-making project is being staffed, then remember that people aren’t stupid, so you need to embrace, walk and work by the values you talk.

Read the full interview by Carla Tishler.

According to Nestle SA Chief Executive Officer Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, “[Conductor] Claudio Abbado is an artist, but he’s also a good leader. And one thing that leaders have in common — whether in art, business, or politics — is an ability to be sensitive toward people. You have to have the ability to motivate people to do more. A good conductor can change the sound of a whole orchestra with a glance or a gesture.”“I had given a talk in which I compared the role of CEO to that of an orchestral conductor. I invited all the [Nestle] managers to sit next to the musicians of a French orchestra during a rehearsal. The orchestra also tried to play for a while without a conductor, so that they could see the difference, and it wasn’t long before the whole thing went astray. The quality of a performance depends on what the conductor does. There was a lot of discussion after that, they saw that if it is to work, the musicians also have to assume responsibility.”

The Lucerne Festival Orchestra, Abbado’s brainchild, is a hand-picked ensemble with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra at its core. Key positions are filled by leading orchestral musicians and soloists from around the world.

As with all-star soccer teams, an orchestra made up of top musicians is not necessarily a top orchestra.

There are two main lessons you want to take away from this. Leaders need to retain a strong sensitivity to people, all people, not just the stars; and that hiring all stars (even if it was possible) won’t guarantee your company’s success.

Additional leadership guidance comes from Steve Harrison, author of The Manager’s Book of Decencies: How Small Gestures Build Great Companies., who says “that decent leaders all have one common trait: humility. Unlike star CEOs who seek the limelight, these low-key leaders are ambitious for their companies, not for themselves. They avoid executive pomposity like the plague. All that stuff about pretentious perks and rank having its privileges – for them, that’s not what leadership is about,” and cites Colgate-Palmolive Co. chairman Reuben Mark; Nucor Corp.’s former CEO Kenneth Iverson (who died in 2002); Campbell Soup Co. president and CEO Douglas R. Conant; Southwest Airlines Co. chairman Herbert Kelleher; and Dial Corp.’s former president and CEO, Herbert Baum as leaders who get it.

This is really simple for those of you who want to develop strong leadership skills. Think about it. All you have to do is be considerate and respectful of others and practice the kind of manners and politeness that seem to be out of date.

In other words, learn to think them, them, them, instead of me, me, me.

A couple of years ago KG Charles-Harris, a talented leader/CEO I work with, sent me an article from HBS Working Knowledge, a free online publication from Harvard Business School geared to the interests of business leaders and I strongly recommend subscribing to it.My favorite contributor is James Heskett, the Baker Foundation Professor, who fosters superb discussions in a forum framework that usually generates in excess of 100 intelligent, well thought-out comments, then analyzes and sums up the public input.

I received the summation of How Much of Leadership Is About Control, Delegation, or Theater?, yesterday and I thought it would provide food for thought to my readers.

Dr Heskett opens the forum this way, “The flood of writing about leadership continues. It reflects our fascination with what many believe to be the most important influence on organizational performance. In a thought-provoking book published last year, Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert I. Sutton suggest that the overriding impact of leadership on performance is a myth, or at least only a half-truth. 30 years ago, in reviewing research on leadership, Pfeffer concluded at that time that actions of leaders most often explain no more than 10 percent of performance. Such things as a company’s operating environment, the economy in general, or its long-run success or failure account for more of its current performance.

Findings published since then have done nothing to change Pfeffer’s mind. But he also concludes that it may be quite important for leaders to perpetuate the myth of having significant control over performance. As employees, we expect it of our leaders. In our behavior, we defer to leaders. And that reinforces their tendency to act like what we expect of leaders. According to this line of thinking, it may require that a leader act out the role, concealing real feelings in the process. In short, it suggests that some part of leadership is theater that perpetuates the half-truth that leaders are indeed in control. … It may be important for us to believe that our leaders have control over performance, whether or not it is true, particularly in times of turmoil or concern about the future. So to what degree should leaders become thespians, creating an impression that fits expectations? How does one do this and still maintain some sense of modesty and perspective that Jim Collins, in his research, has identified with the most effective leaders? Is some part of leadership about creating the myth of being in control while subtly transferring it to others in the organization? Or, as Pfeffer and Sutton ask, “Should leaders be in more complete control of their organizations?” What do your personal experiences lead you to believe about these issues? What do you think?”

I loved Andy Grove’s description of leadership, “Well, part of it is self-discipline and part of it is deception-deception in the sense that you pump yourself up and put a better face on things than you start off feeling. But after a while, if you act confident, you become more confident. So the deception becomes less of a deception,” especially since I’ve always believed that so much of who we are and what we do is a function of how we think.

I realize it’s asking a lot, but for those of you really interested in a world-view of leadership it’s worth reading all 127 comments, not just the summation, although it’s excellent.

Like all of you, I dearly love compliments, and I received a great one this week. After just 17 months writing MAPpingCompanySuccess I was invited to write Leadership Turn for b5media. Too cool!

All coaches/consultants/mentors bring their own philosophy/approach/spin to a subject and I’m no different. My focus has always been on what I call MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy)™, because we are what we think.

I believe that how you think sets the stage for what you do. In other words, if the thought and the action aren’t in sync then you lose authenticity—and you can’t be a successful leader if you’re not perceived as authentic.

The best example I’ve seen of this was a district sales manager we’ll call “Jim.” Jim’s office was known for its individualistic salespeople and somewhat erratic production. It never won high office sales awards in spite of having several of the company’s top producers, while “Brad’s” office won top honors year after year without individual stars.

On one hand, Jim craved an office like Brad’s, but on the other, he belittled the “rah-rah” tactics that Brad believed in and used to motivate his team.

Jim tended to hire people like himself (a common managerial tendency)—gregarious loners who also didn’t respond to team tactics and motivation. When Jim paid for a professional, day long, team-building program it fell flat. His people thought it was corny and knew that Jim didn’t believe in it either; beyond that, Jim didn’t change his own leadership style of benign neglect.

Simply stated, Jim had no interest in changing his MAP, so there was no authenticity in his actions.

People aren’t stupid! Assuming they are and proceeding accordingly is a recipe for disaster, whatever size group you’re leading.

The greatest insight on leadership and my all time favorite description dates to somewhere around the fourth or fifth century BC and doesn’t drip ego.

As for the best leaders,
the people do not notice their existence.
The next best,
the people honor and praise.
The next, the people fear;
and the next, the people hate…
When the best leader’s work is done,
the people say, “We did it ourselves!”
To lead the people, walk behind them.
Lao Tzu

I’m looking forward to presenting ideas and information on leadership, but I especially look forward to your thoughts and comments. They’re what will make this a more valuable resource for all of us, since one person never knows it all.