How to be an Extraordinary Leader
A new book explains the core principles that define the "Organizational Champions" who will successfully guide their companies through today's complex marketplace.
By Mike Thompson, SVI
Jul. 27, 2009
What does leadership mean today? It's a term used often, in many contexts, to imply many qualities, that it's tough to say what it means and who truly merits the distinction of being called a leader.
For example, what separates leaders most of us acknowledge as great such as Jack Welch, Mother Teresa, Winston Churchill, John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., Mohammad, or Moses from my adventure guide in Costa Rica or from my wife's tennis team captain? They're also considered leaders.
Everyone, it seems, qualifies.
We see leadership in everything-every competency, every project, every relationship. Behind every problem, there seems to be a leadership scapegoat. Leadership has become the abyss of all issues and is used to describe the progress made by any individual. The term continues to evolve in application and dissolve in impact. It no longer distinguishes, and yet we distinguish the term.
The consequence of lacking a clear definition of leadership, of course, is that without one we cannot recognize, train, cultivate, manage, or effectively follow the leaders we desperately need to guide our businesses in the most complex marketplace in world history. Without these leaders, businesses quite simply will fail to meet the unprecedented challenges they face. We need organizational champions to survive and to thrive today and tomorrow.
Leadership Is Baseless
To move successfully into the future of vast complexity and abundant change, we need consistent and core principles exhibited by today's most extraordinary leaders. My new book, The Organizational Champion: How to Develop Passionate Change Agents at Every Level, explains why leadership is baseless without core principles.
If someone asked me today, "How do I become a leader?" I would be a fool to try to answer. No single prescription exists. I'd have to ask, "What do you want to lead?" One's circumstance has as much to do with leadership development as any character or skill pursuit. Leadership has no foundation to rest upon. In fact, more than 600 definitions exist for leadership and all of its derivatives. It's hard to agree on a definition, so everyone contributes.
We often define leadership from an existing or anticipated need. The problem is that the needs continue to change and grow-therefore, so does leadership. The solution is not simply to add new aspects to the definition. Instead, we must conceive a whole new way of looking at leadership-through core principles lived out by the organizational champion.
To better understand the need for such principles, let's look at the complex challenges we face today. We're in unique times as businesses are faced with new and enormous economic challenges that have never been experienced before. Consider escalating energy and food costs, plummeting business value, a housing market in crisis, government bailouts, and questionable ethical behavior, and it's no wonder that President Obama's campaign promise for "change" is the forefront communication by successful politicians.
New Core Principles for Leadership
We need capable and trusted leaders to navigate these murky waters, and successful businesspeople know it. Over 75 percent of all CEOs around the world consider leadership development their highest concern. Our postmodern world calls for a postmodern approach to leadership development. We need core principles that keep extraordinary leaders grounded, steady, and equipped to succeed in a world of constant change. Old and evolving leadership models simply cannot handle the myriad circumstances that will now and forever emerge.
Almost every interview and survey we've conducted and conversation we've had during the past three years at SVI has been a journey to establish these core principles for leadership to grow from.
In my business career I've been called on to be a leader who energizes a deenergized culture, a leader who brings innovation to a stagnant business, and a leader who builds accountability within an unproductive team. Other leaders face different situations and need to be a different type of leader-a healer, a producer, a networker, an analyzer, a mediator, a visionary.
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For example, what separates leaders most of us acknowledge as great such as Jack Welch, Mother Teresa, Winston Churchill, John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., Mohammad, or Moses from my adventure guide in Costa Rica or from my wife's tennis team captain? They're also considered leaders.
Everyone, it seems, qualifies.
We see leadership in everything-every competency, every project, every relationship. Behind every problem, there seems to be a leadership scapegoat. Leadership has become the abyss of all issues and is used to describe the progress made by any individual. The term continues to evolve in application and dissolve in impact. It no longer distinguishes, and yet we distinguish the term.
The consequence of lacking a clear definition of leadership, of course, is that without one we cannot recognize, train, cultivate, manage, or effectively follow the leaders we desperately need to guide our businesses in the most complex marketplace in world history. Without these leaders, businesses quite simply will fail to meet the unprecedented challenges they face. We need organizational champions to survive and to thrive today and tomorrow.
Leadership Is Baseless
To move successfully into the future of vast complexity and abundant change, we need consistent and core principles exhibited by today's most extraordinary leaders. My new book, The Organizational Champion: How to Develop Passionate Change Agents at Every Level, explains why leadership is baseless without core principles.
If someone asked me today, "How do I become a leader?" I would be a fool to try to answer. No single prescription exists. I'd have to ask, "What do you want to lead?" One's circumstance has as much to do with leadership development as any character or skill pursuit. Leadership has no foundation to rest upon. In fact, more than 600 definitions exist for leadership and all of its derivatives. It's hard to agree on a definition, so everyone contributes.
We often define leadership from an existing or anticipated need. The problem is that the needs continue to change and grow-therefore, so does leadership. The solution is not simply to add new aspects to the definition. Instead, we must conceive a whole new way of looking at leadership-through core principles lived out by the organizational champion.
To better understand the need for such principles, let's look at the complex challenges we face today. We're in unique times as businesses are faced with new and enormous economic challenges that have never been experienced before. Consider escalating energy and food costs, plummeting business value, a housing market in crisis, government bailouts, and questionable ethical behavior, and it's no wonder that President Obama's campaign promise for "change" is the forefront communication by successful politicians.
New Core Principles for Leadership
We need capable and trusted leaders to navigate these murky waters, and successful businesspeople know it. Over 75 percent of all CEOs around the world consider leadership development their highest concern. Our postmodern world calls for a postmodern approach to leadership development. We need core principles that keep extraordinary leaders grounded, steady, and equipped to succeed in a world of constant change. Old and evolving leadership models simply cannot handle the myriad circumstances that will now and forever emerge.
Almost every interview and survey we've conducted and conversation we've had during the past three years at SVI has been a journey to establish these core principles for leadership to grow from.
- Because we are tested. Organizational champions must be grounded, self-realized, and enlightened before they can make the biggest impacts through competency or skill.
- Because we are a complex planet of diverse people. Organizational champions must value mutual or global benefit before they can build trust.
- Because people are behind progress. Organizational champions must engage personally and emotionally before they can inspire others to do the same.
- Because progress demands change. Organizational champions must cast a worthy and transformational vision in order for others to embrace change.
- Because change is constant and is today's identity. Organizational champions must enable organizational agility.
In my business career I've been called on to be a leader who energizes a deenergized culture, a leader who brings innovation to a stagnant business, and a leader who builds accountability within an unproductive team. Other leaders face different situations and need to be a different type of leader-a healer, a producer, a networker, an analyzer, a mediator, a visionary.
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