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Admiral Lord Nelson
Nelson was courageous, determined, a demanding task-master, a visionary and, of course, successful. For me though, the real skill he had was combining a focus on the task, management, visionary leadership and attention to the welfare of his men.

At Trafalgar, the British fleet was able to fire its guns twice as fast as the combined French and Spanish fleet, the result of months of practice. So lesson one is that he got the basics of the business right, and made sure that everyone did likewise.

What Nelson is not so well-known for is his management. He spent hours every day in correspondence, understood the pulse of his organisation and studied modern methods of warfare. He planned, thought, organised, communicated, delegated and controlled. Nelson was a micro-manager until he was sure his team (his “Band of Brothers” as he called them) was capable, and then he gave them great autonomy. lesson two – get your team right, develop them and then get out of their way!

Nelson is perhaps best known for his visionary leadership and his panache at sea. But a study of him reveals that he was not always so capable. It has been suggested by some that he only got into the Royal Navy because of patronage from his uncle, Captain Maurice Suckling, who took Nelson at 12 to sea. Captain Suckling also sat on Nelson’s Lieutenant’s examination panel. However, the one thing that Nelson did above all others in his early years was to learn. He constantly sought different experiences even spending a year on a merchant ship. He also constantly challenged perceived wisdom and himself. It was this early challenge that developed into the visionary and unorthodox approach for which he is so well known. Lesson three – put time and effort into your own learning. Challenge yourself to be and do better.

Nelson really did look after his men. Hard task-master he might have been but he spent considerable time and resources ensuring that they were well fed. In those days it was typical for some 10% of any ship’s crew to be ill. When Victory went into battle at Trafalgar, only one man out of the ship’s complement of 840 was ill. Fresh meat, lemons and vegetables had been brought from Sardinia to ensure that everyone was looked after. That after Trafalgar men who had never met him wrote home to say that they wished they had died rather than Nelson is testament to his status. So lesson four look after your staff. After all they produce the goods and services that make your business successful.

Mohondras Gandhi
While Nelson gained his reputation from war fighting, Gandhi gained his from peaceful protest. Shy, awkward and nervous as a boy, he failed at college, eventually took up law but then failed again as a lawyer in Bombay where the robust interactions were beyond him. Moving to South Africa he had a seminal experience that was to transform his life. On 7 June 1893 he was thrown off a train for sitting in the same carriage as a white lady despite having bought a first class ticket. That sense of injustice fuelled his life thereafter. But as a leader, Gandhi can be considered to be a failure. He set out with three objectives in mind: independence, a united sub-continent, and the removal of the caste system. Only the first has come about, and that’s not a success rate associated with leaders.

Gandhi was, however, a master of communication: he was prepared to talk to those who opposed him, and he was also prepared to lead by example. Recognising that the rulers (in South Africa and in the Indian Empire) had the upper hand when it came to guns and power, he sought an alternative weapon – Satyagraha – or steadfastness in truth that came to symbolise non-violent resistance. What he never fully took into account was that it relied upon a positive and continuous interaction between parties with the aim of reconciliation. He practised that – others didn’t. A great example of his approach was that even during the troubles in South Africa, when he was continually harassed and jailed by the authorities, he kept up a steady correspondence with Jan Smuts the Prime Minister and met him readily. He did not see Smuts as an opponent, just another player on the field. Lesson one – make sure you are playing on the same playing field as your partners.

Once Gandhi embarked on his Satyagraha movement, it became his answer to everything. He called several national strikes in India that failed (there was almost no disruption to normal life) and he regularly used fasts as a way of bringing pressure to bear. He became a politician but was unsuccessful in his attempts to sway Congress, so he reverted to living a simple life. What he failed to realise is that he could afford to do so because of the amount of support that he had and because of his back up team. Others were less fortunate. Gandhi was also horrified at what he saw as the moral degradation in Indian Society and really could not see what caused others to have less perseverance and vision than he did. Here was another example of being unable to put himself in others shoes. Lesson Two – put yourself in others shoes. Just because you are able to see the need doesn’t mean others can. What might be right from where you sit may be viewed in a very different light from elsewhere.

Perhaps the most revealing insight into Gandhi comes from a study of his aims. While he was able, eventually – and with the assistance of a World War that transformed the old world order – to see the day when British rule gave way, he had set his sights on two other aims that were well beyond his control. He wanted desperately to get rid of the caste system but that remains a deeply ingrained aspect of Indian Society. The same is true of his desire to keep India whole. Both aims were outside his area of influence. Lesson Three – make sure your aims are achievable. Don’t set out to limit yourself but at the same time make sure your goals are attainable. In Gandhi’s case, he simply wasn’t able to influence the millions needed to achieve his aims.

J F Kennedy
The death of JFK is one of those events that I remember vividly – I was standing in our front garden at the time and my elder brother told me that he’d been shot. Even at the age of 11, I was shocked. A war hero, modest, charming, intelligent, determined and an optimist, he was the first young leader of modern history and was in stark contrast to his counterparts: MacMillan, De Gaulle and Khrushchev – who were leaders from the age of war.

Kennedy had studied assiduously the dilemmas of democratic leaders who often had to choose between right and right and he had significant self- awareness. A study of his campaign plans first to get elected to congress and then to win the presidency is a fascinating study of strategy. As a white, liberal, northern Catholic, there were significant barriers for him to overcome, but overcome them he did. Choosing the southern Lyndon Johnson as his running mate he put together a pairing that, together with his stance on civil liberties, unified votes across the political spectrum. So Lesson One – be self aware. Don’t pretend that you can be all things to all men, but instead form a team that together covers all your bases, and Lesson Two – if you want to institute great change or tackle a great project, plan your campaign carefully.

If there was one thing that JFK was a master at, it was the long game. What is often forgotten when looking at US politics is the balance of power. Unlike the UK where the Prime Minister comes from the party with the most MPs, power is shared by the President and the two houses. While the Democrats held power in the Senate that did not mean that JFK had an easy ride. Many would say that his greatest skill was influencing Congress and in 1963 he was finally confident enough to say that his major reforms – tax, civil rights and medical care for the aged – would finally be enacted in 1964 and 1965. Lesson Three – change takes time. Make sure you know what you want, why you want it, work out how to get it, and then be prepared to play the long game to get it.

JFK was a leader who was courageous. Nowhere is this more ably demonstrated than during his handling of the Cuba Missile Crisis. At the height of the Cold War, with nuclear missiles on America’s doorstep, there was considerable pressure from the US Joint Chiefs of Staff for military action, and the expectation was that this young war hero would bow to pressure from his senior and older military advisers. Instead he listened carefully to arguments from both sides, spent a great deal of time considering options and looking for ways to avoid escalation. The temptation to go for the apparently easy route – a Cuban invasion – was immense, but he stuck to his beliefs and diplomacy won the day. Lesson Four – make sure you know what you stand for as a leader and don’t compromise on that no matter what the pressures. It is your values that will mark you out as a leader so don’t play fast and loose with them!

Finally (although there is much more to JFK’s leadership than can be covered in this short note) I ought to point out that JFK was no paragon of virtues. Much has been made since his death of his affairs and he did have failings as a leader. JFK had considerable intellect and was widely read – a legacy from his time laid up with a bad back throughout his life. As a result he had a tendency to look down and dismiss those who were not as quick as he was. He relied heavily on his brother Bobby and some would say that his team – good though it was – was too incestuous. So Lesson Five beware of having too close a team. Be prepared to have people in it that aren’t your natural first choice. Naysayers (as Shakespeare called them) are a great strength to you – provided you listen to them. They present an opposite view that can balance your own bias.

We shall of course never know whether these leaders would have stood the test of time had their lives not been cut short. History is replete with leaders who did not manage to maintain their status over time. Studies of past leaders provide a fascinating insight into the past but we must remember that decisions taken and lessons learned are based on the situation at the time. What every aspiring leader must do is to translate them into their own situation and use the principles that underlie the history. That, above all, is what we can learn from the great and the good of the past.

About the author: Simon Hollington is Chairman of Values Based Leadership Ltd, a company that works with organisations from all sectors to create and run development programmes that improve business performance.

Energy: Extraordinary people have loads of energy and as such they are infectious to be around.

Positive: For them the glass is always half full. Where others see difficulty they see opportunity. They understand that adversity makes you stronger.
Futurists: Vision is such a core component of leadership and yet is still remains the most under used tool of the self leader. Visions are not the sole responsibility of the board room, but are a key component for us all. Extraordinary people look to the future and set themselves powerful, scary goals.
State Management: Extraordinary people spend time developing their emotional intelligence allowing them to access their best, more of the time.

Authentic: People who excel tend to have a strong vein of authenticity running through all their actions. You know where you stand with them, there is no role playing going on and they are thus able to communicate in a powerful, authentic manner.

Personal Development: “Leaders are readers” is a phrase from the past but still tends the test of time. Extraordinary people are constantly looking at ways in which they can “sharpen the saw” (to quote Covey). They understand the need for constant improvement in all they do.

This list is obviously not exhaustive, but it is the basis of an exciting nesw programme Votive Leadership is developing, simply entitled ….

ExtraOrdinary

Of course the opposite is true. Develop an individual’s weakness you end up with a demotivated average employee with nothing to distinguish them to potential followers.

Authenticity is summed up in the phrase:

Be yourself – more – with skill

This phrase was coined by two Insead lecturers, Goffee and Jones in their study of leadership. My programme draws upon their work and the work completed by Professors Zenger and Folkman in America.

Authentic leaders
• Display consistency between their words and their deeds
• Have a capacity to display clear coherence in their various role performances
• Display a comfort with self; i.e. their behaviour has undisputed origins

Be Yourself is about looking at the individual and getting them to identify their “role holder” identities. Some of these are necessary, but others are driven by emotions such as fear and ego. It is about being yourself and not a role holder and allowing your own true qualities to come through. We ask a very powerful question: “What is so special about you that means I should follow you?” It is these special qualities that an individual should really develop. They could be such qualities as “I really care about people succeeding”. We explore Trait Theory and look at the concept of Knowing – Being – Doing and ask the question who are you being when you are doing what you know?

More - is about the leader taking personal risks. It means that you will have to show to your team your weaknesses, but having the ability to use the power of perception to minimise their effect. It is about having an unbending sense of purpose which acts as a guiding star to all your behaviour as a leader and being able to communicate this to the team. It is also about being able to display active listening; listening with the intent to listen and not with the intent to reply.

With Skill – is about a leaders ability to “situationally sense” the moment and choose the appropriate response at any given time. It is about the ability to handle conversations which are going wrong and to influence others through your own ability to state manage and choose the most appropriate behaviour. It is about having the ability to use questions in a most powerful manner. It is also about ethics, followership and vision.

Below you will find a list of questions which we pose to the delegates as we progress through the workshop:

1. Which personal differences could form the basis of your leadership capability?
2. Which personal weaknesses do you reveal to those you are leading?
3. Are you able to read different contexts?
4. Do you conform enough?
5. How well do you manage social distance?
6. Do you have a good sense of organisational time?
7. How well do you communicate?

The answers to these will answer the final question posed by Goffee and Jones:

Why should I be led by you?

At Votive Leadership we believe that engagement is part of each of us learning how to Self-Lead. Self-leadership is something that we believe is a key element of a happy and successful work life and yet is a topic that is rarely taught. From our experience of working in many different organisations, in different sectors, we find many unhappy, disgruntled, disengaged, disenfranchised employees. These tend to be those who are not yet in leadership positions – the “followers” in an organisation; those who are carrying out immensely valuable pieces of work for their organisation.

During October and November 2007, we ran a series of self-leadership programmes for the operations/clerical function of a FTSE top 100 financial institution. Up to 15 people per time were invited to a 3-hour session and overall we worked with around 200 people. Comments that we heard at the start of each of these sessions are typical of those we hear in many organisations:

“We’re just a number these days”
“Management only care about costs”
“It never used to be like this”
“We’re understaffed”

Over each of the 3-hour sessions we listened, empathised, coached and also delivered some hard-hitting messages – but all done in the context of a fun, and dynamic learning experience. At the end of every session we asked attendees to agree or disagree with six key statements. All the answers were collated and the results are shown below:

Attendees were asked – “As a direct result of this programme, I fee more able to:”

*Of those who expressed a choice. A handful of people neither agreed nor disagreedDelivering the above feedback to the leaders at the organisation, the comment that best sums up the power of the above is one leader saying “We would KILL for results like that in our employee satisfaction survey!”

How did we achieve such amazing results? Without giving away too much about our unique proposition, we work with attendees on “correcting” some of the thoughts that they have in their head and also sometimes just tell them how it is. As an example, many of the people we work with have been in an organisation many years and in their head they compare the current state of the organisation, its values and their own job with “how it used to be.” By the end of our sessions they realise that all the time any of us compare our current situation to the past it can lead to feeling disappointed, upset and even angry. We also work with attendees on helping them REALLY understand what, for example, “providing shareholder value” means to them and how it affects them directly.

If you would like to learn more about this specific project or how we can help you increase employee engagement, please contact Votive Leadership.

keith@votiveleadership.com | 07977 519773

Leadership is apparent at different levels within an organisation, but key to the release of potential is the effectiveness of “Personal Leadership”. This is ensuring that you as an individual are able to self lead in a variety of situations. For example, consider you’re coming in to work and you discover that a report you have asked for has not been completed. Although there is a huge temptation in letting the individual know, in no uncertain terms how you are feeling about their lack of respect, would this be the most effective way of dealing with the situation? Successfully coaching the individual (raising their awareness and creating ownership) may generate a better response from them, especially over the longer term. In order to do this you have to keep very tight control over your own emotions and choose your response carefully; self lead. Another example may be you find yourself in the canteen having lunch when a colleague sits with you and begins to complain bitterly about the process found within the company. The easy approach is to join in the moaning and get a few of your own complaints off your chest. Of course this may not be the most resourceful thing to do. The resourceful response needs self leadership.

This article aims to briefly explain the five different categories of “Followership” and to highlight some of the core traits found therein.

Sheep

Not wishing to offend the lovely woolly creatures themselves, sheep are not renowned for their free thinking and independence. However all too often in the corporate world we find followers who fall into the sheep category. They rarely challenge anything and will blindly follow those around them. They add little to the team, except the ability to carry out simple instructions, like “hit your sales target!” They keep themselves to themselves and rarely offer any challenge. Nor do they work against the company however.

Poor leaders love these people, especially leaders who require feeling the power of authority. They enjoy the fact that the team does what he or she has told them and thoroughly enjoys the way the team constantly look towards them for guidance. You can often identify the manager who has populated his team with these individuals, because with their peers they appear disloyal to the team members, complaining about their ability and often complain about how little time they have to do their own work. They also talk as if they are indispensable, doing such things as phoning into the office whilst they are on holiday and micro managing the team and its members.

Of course this is a dangerous state of affairs, as sheep can behave lemming like when faced with a crisis. They offer little input and therefore the team’s ability to generate high quality innovative solutions to today’s challenges will be limited to the expertise of the individual leader and of course there is little growth within the team. Turnover tends to be high within these teams, or alternatively underperformance becomes a constant factor (which of course the leader blames on the team).

Yes Men

Forgive the gender specific title, but this obviously refers to team members of either sex. Yes men are active members of the team in that they will readily join in the discussions that abound, however the quality of their input is questionable due to their passive nature. These characters will tell you what you want to hear. They are eager to please, and constantly seek approval from the leader. They can be quite jokey and fun to be with, and the weak leader loves them for their support and willingness to please. They will do all that is asked of them, but rarely exceed expectations except in areas where there is no potential for controversy or areas of routine process. An example of this is that they will get their expense claim in on time however when asked to write a challenging report, their views will be bland and manager supportive.

These people can also be two faced in their dealings with others. As they do not seek any conflict they will tend to agree with the majority in any given situation, seeking to keep their own head well below the proverbial parapet at all times. As a consequence they can blow with the wind. Their opinions can be dangerous.

Weak leaders tend to like these individuals, because they are constantly having their egos supported. Conversations can often collapse into mutual moaning sessions as the leader finds a “companion mind”. Teams made up of these people are weak and lacking in innovation, but more importantly the amount of learning which goes on in the team is considerably stunted due to the lack of risk taking.

Alienates

These people abound in many organisations. Something or someone has generated a negative emotion within the individual, and as a consequence they spend a considerable amount of time moaning to others about their plight. However they rarely take this up directly with the leaders they support. They will ensure they get an audience, the junior the better, and will be extremely active in recruiting the sympathetic. They will moan constantly about the company processes, the way remuneration is apportioned, meetings, and work life balance and of course about individuals, especially senior management. They will blame everyone and everything else for their own relatively poor performance. If they have performed well this will be despite the efforts of others and the company as a whole and they will portray themselves as heroes. They certainly believe they could do a better job themselves than the management who support them.

Weak managers suffer these individuals. They are aware they exist, however are unwilling to take them on as they are often strong characters. As the manager is seen as part of the problem, they wish to avoid conflict with these individuals and either court their favour or hide from them. The manager becomes bullied in some way and they allow the individual to spread the doom and gloom. Alternatively the manager has no idea that this behaviour is going on. He or she is so removed from the real workings of the team, allowing them to become detached through position; they are unaware of the behaviour being exhibited behind closed doors and as a consequence take no action. Result is a reduction in performance due to a considerable increase in interference.

Effective

Effective followers are wonderful for the team. They are strongly connected to their own values which will generally mirror the corporate base values. They fully understand that their leader / manager is the there to guide them, but that this individual will not have all the answers. They understand that their manager needs their support in all they do, but support does not mean blind following (Yes Men). These individuals are willing to challenge the manger about decisions made. They question on what basis policy is being made and will have a goods grasp of strategic concepts. They are very willing to look well beyond their own boundaries and generate solutions, which may have no direct benefit to them, but will support the wider team. Their willingness to question and challenge however, comes from the intent to build. They will criticise openly with the manager, and not with others behind closed doors, in order to provide the manager with alternatives. They however have a thorough understanding of the concept of loyalty, and having challenged, they will support whatever decision the manager decides to go with wholeheartedly.

The weak manager sees these people as a threat and a challenge to their authority. They tend to manage these people by either avoiding them wherever possible or by complaining about them to others. Effective followers can hurt the manager’s ego. The weak manager finds this difficult to cope with. These individuals are often moved away from the team or isolated. The weak manager will look for weaknesses in these individuals and will exploit them to the full. For example this individual may be poor at getting their expenses in on time and the weak manager will highlight this for all to see.

Obviously these people ideally need nurturing, delegating to but most importantly these people need to be listened to.

Survivors

This group tends to span all four major groups, choosing to wear the hat of the majority at anytime. They are chameleon like in their nature which means that their values based leadership is weak. They offer a poor mirror to the leader, as on the face of it they are good team members, but will have a tendency to fall into the trait of the majority. This means they are inconsistent in their behaviour. They are average performers who are unwilling to challenge the majority. However if they are pressed by the manager to become active and to challenge they have the capacity to do well. They do have opinions, do think things through and do have a huge amount to offer the team as a whole, but their desire to please and have an easy life means their potential is capped.

These individuals do not live to their values, although if pressed and forced to consider their values, they will mirror the team basics. They are fundamentally good people, but are all too easily distracted. They often feel that they have a lack of support from their management and are fearful of consequences, so they keep to the easy way of life.

Summary

The reason for this article is that it is the leader’s responsibility to create an environment which is suitable for effective followership. This means they have to be proactive in allowing information to flow two ways and deal with poor followership issues immediately.

But before you can expect great followership of others you must look in the mirror and question your own behaviour. In which category do you spend most of your time? And what actions are you going to take to ensure you become a more effective follower?