Those who lay claim to leadership abound everywhere. They are in politics, business, community, religion, education and many more. But many of these people would probably have a heart attack should they know what those they claim to lead actually think of them. The fact is that to their subordinates, many of the people in leadership positions are not worth the value of their door plaques to those they lead. So, they are merely tolerated not because of who they are but because of what they represent.
But in reality, leaders are to be honoured, respected and even venerated but that is hinged on living and leading right. So, what is the route to becoming a leader others honour?
Be hard on yourself
What followers cherish most in their leaders is what they lack. Most people are not disciplined; they hate to deny themselves of little indulgences, but they respect people who are able to hold themselves accountable to high ideals. This is why followers are very hard on leaders who drop the ball because their thinking is “If he is just like the rest of us why did he aspire to lead us?” So, for leaders to be honoured by others, they must be disciplined. For leaders to be honourable, there must not be any doubt about their high moral standards. Leaders must of necessity be hard on themselves and operate at a high moral pedestal. The calling of leaders is to be exemplary. So, they should be examples to others in discipline and morality. It is being a model of discipline and good character that confers honour on leaders.
Seek knowledge
For a leader to be honoured by others, he must be knowledgeable. Leaders are called to be solution providers. So to become a great leader, you must sign up to continuous learning. As said by John F. Kennedy, former American president, leadership and learning are indispensable to each other. A leader who is lacking in required knowledge will be derided behind his back by those he supervises even if they hail him in his presence. Knowledge is power. It catapults the knowledgeable above peers, distinguishes him from the crowd, and clothes him with honour. Wisdom for life and living is buried in books. Solutions to many of the challenges of humanity are embedded in pages of books and journals. The wisdom and solutions are revealed to those who never stop leafing through books and combing through journals.
It is calamitous for a leader to stop seeking knowledge because when a leader stops self improvement, not only does he put a cap on his own capacity to grow, he also seals the possibility of his organization experiencing growth. Every organisation is a reflection of its head, a company’s growth is directly proportional to the growth of its leader. So, if a leader does not expand his own knowledge base, he becomes an albatross to his organization because the company will be unable to grow. When the company fails to grow, the people do not get better and they will hold the leader responsible for this and their estimation of him will head south.
Respect those you lead
It is difficult to be respected without first being respectful. Respect is the adhesive that binds people together. To respect a person is to recognize the value of the person and do nothing to diminish it. Even when a good leader is displeased with his subordinate, he conveys the displeasure without making any attempt to reduce the worth of the subordinate. A leader who allows fury to get hold of him to the extent of ridiculing his subordinate has earned himself a life-long enemy. On the other hand, when a leader learns to treat his subordinates with respect, he earns in return, their unalloyed support, commitment and respect. As put by Maya Angelou, the late black American Pulitzer Prize winner, “I have learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
A survey by Harvard Business Review titled ‘The Leadership Behavior That’s Most Important to Employees’ shows that the most important thing to employees is being respected by those who superintend over them.
Christine Porath, who anchored the survey, wrote that “In a study of nearly 20,000 employees around the world (conducted with HBR), I found that when it comes to garnering commitment and engagement from employees, there’s one thing that leaders need to demonstrate: respect. No other leadership behavior had a bigger effect on employees across the outcomes we measured. Being treated with respect was more important to employees than recognition and appreciation, communicating an inspiring vision, providing useful feedback—or even opportunities for learning, growth, and development. However, even when leaders know that showing respect is critical, many struggle to demonstrate it.”
Be a creative problem solver
A leader’s honour goes up a notch when he is known to be a creative problem solver. Problems arise every time not to create a bulwark but to provide a stepping stone to higher heights. However, most people do not see problems as such and, consequently, they allow such problems to overwhelm them and stop them from achieving their aims.
That was the situation Richard Fosbury found himself. He wanted to be a high jumper but couldn’t get beyond a point due to his inability to use the western roll and the straddle techniques quite well. Thus, he decided to develop a new technique that would enable him jump higher than others. He came up with the “back-first” technique. With the technique, he would sprint diagonally towards the bar, then curve and leap backwards over the bar. This gave him a much lower center of mass in flight than traditional techniques. The technique was revolutionary. With it, he won a gold medal at the 1968 Olympics and set a new Olympics record.
The technique, now known as Fosbury Flop, is the most popular one in high jumping.
For creatively solving a high jumping problem, Fosbury, who is now in his 70s, is celebrated globally and serves on the executive board of World Olympians Association.
Be fair to all
Followers love and respect leaders who are fair because fairness is actually a respect to all concerned. When a leader plays favouritism, he is showing disrespect to the people under him and they will eventually reciprocate. When a leader establishes different sets of rules for different categories of followers, not only does he create ill-will among the followers, he also destroys the basis for his leadership. A leader should be trusted by all and held in high esteem by everyone. The only way to enjoy this is to be fair to everyone and not regard some as sacred cows or untouchable. The truth is that when a leader is fair to all even those who veer off the line and are sanctioned by the leader will still respect and love him because they know that his actions are not borne out of any ill feeling but based on principles. However, when a leader is unfair, even those who he tries to favour will not respect him.
Pay attention to details
Andrew Carnegie, a self-made industrialist, who was the world’s wealthiest man in the early 20th century, mentioned paying attention to details as one of the traits that helped him and a few others become exceedingly successful. Carnegie said anyone who wishes to make a success of his endeavour must never fail to pay close attention to the details of every aspect of his business. Over a century later, Hugh Black, a Scottish-American writer, observed that paying attention to details is the secret of success in every sphere of life, adding that those who do not pay attention to details prime themselves for failure. Concurring with him, Charles R. Swindoll, an American preacher, said the difference between something good and something great is in the attention that is paid to the details surrounding the issue.
How a person handles his affair tells the person’s story. Every piece of work is a reflection of the person who did it. Paying attention to details closes the door to sloppiness and avoidable mistakes. When a leader conducts his business in a perfect or near perfect way, he earns the respect of others. But when a leader fails to pay attention to details, he opens the door to sloppiness; those who travel that route often jeopardize their reputation. Subordinates do not respect sloppy leaders. So, becoming a leader that others respect and honour requires paying attention to details.
Produce desirable results
Leadership is performance, nothing else, nothing less. The soul of leadership is accomplishing a mission or getting a task done. The proof of leadership is the result it produces. Leadership is nothing if it fails to produce tangible, verifiable and satisfactory results.
Everything a leader does should be targeted at producing results; every resource put at the disposal of a leader is to make him generate results. Those who put the leader forward look forward to the results he can turn out. Those who flock around him do so because of the results they expect. Those who observe from a distance anticipate result. Everyone is interested in the result a leader can come up with; everyone waits to see the changes he can effect with the position he occupies. Leaders are justified or crucified by the results they produce or fail to produce. Therefore, irrespective of what else a leader does, if he fails to produce desirable results, he has laboured in vain.
Why is everyone interested in the leader’s result? It is because the leader’s result improves or impairs their lives. So, to become someone honoured by others, a leader must ensure that he produces results that improve the lives of stakeholders.
Avoid scandals
The average human being is interested in salacious tales. He is not just interested in news about a company’s profit or the country’s gross domestic product or the budget, he is also interested in the unsavoury news that concerns the leader. He wants to know more about the leader than the average leader is willing to spare. That is why news about frauds overshadows that about good corporate performance. The average human being is wired to sniff out, revel in and spread gist about the underhand dealings of others. This is why a huge industry has emerged from peddling gossips and sensational news about the high and the mighty in society.
The undoing of many leaders is their warped belief that secrets could be kept forever. Goaded by this falsehood, they carry out certain activities either under the cloak of darkness or behind closed doors believing that these would never be known to the world. But the only secret that remains a secret is that which involves just one person. If a matter is between two or more persons, the tendency of this to get into the open is quite high. Once a dirty secret leaks, it becomes a scandal which is often beyond the control of the perpetrator and the dramatis personae become a subject of ridicule.
To become a leader others honour, steer clear of scandals.
Last line
Becoming a leader that others honour is a hard work, but the rewards is out of this world.
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