The benefits of leadership, especially at the corporate or political level, are out of this world. Corporate and political leaders have everything at their beck and call; they enjoy affluence and influence, they receive first class treatment wherever they go, their activities get a mention in the news, their actions determine the course of their organizations or nations and they rub shoulders with the top echelon of the society. Leaders live on top of their world. This is why many people will pull out all the stops to get to leadership positions. This also explains why some people want to perpetuate themselves in offices. But the glamorous part of leadership is just one of the sides to it. The flipside is hard work and great sacrifice. Leadership that gets results comes at a huge price. Leadership that makes the difference is not a walk in the park. Leadership that will make positive impact will cost the leader a number of things. The inability or unwillingness of some people to put in the hard work and make the sacrifice is responsible for their flop in leadership.
Leadership and responsibility
The price of leadership is the price of responsibility. As observed by John Maxwell, one of the leading lights in leadership, everything rises and falls on leadership. Also speaking along that line, Bernie Banks, a professor at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, said “Leadership might as well be a law of physics. Show me a negative team and I will show you a negative leader.” The import of these is that leaders determine the success, culture and temperature of their organisations. It also means that the wellness of an organisation is tied to the soundness of its leaders. Consequently, leaders are always at pains to ensure that their organizations get better on a daily basis. Thus, they have to pay a huge price to see the emergence of their dream organisation.
Price of leadership
Here are some of the prices leaders have to pay.
Leaders don’t claim credit for success
Great leaders deflect praises for their success from them and allow same to go to others even when they are the ones responsible for it. Rather than hugging the limelight, they allow others to bask in the glory. This is based on their understanding that they are not in competition with their subordinates and that the subordinates need the credit more than they do. So, they pass on the credit to those whose essence is dependent on it.
According to Jack Welch, the former Chairman of General Electric, “Before becoming a leader, success is all about growing yourself but when you become a leader success is about growing others.” Leaders who understand this do what Jim Collins says in Good to Great, that when things are going well, successful leaders “look out the window”. This means that when an organisation is making progress the leaders allow others to take the credit rather than claiming responsibility for the success.
Giving credit to others is not without its reward. When a leader deliberately allows his subordinates to take credit, the subordinates are motivated. A motivated workforce will do anything to ensure the continued growth of the company. Apart from being motivated, the workforce will become both loyal and committed. They will see themselves as being stakeholders in the business. So, by allowing his subordinates to have the credit for the success of his organisation, the leader sets the stage for more success for the company.
Leaders don’t pass the buck
When things go awry, leaders don’t look for who to blame. Instead, they opt to carry the can even when they are not directly responsible for what went wrong. Part of the price of leadership is taking the bullet for others, instead of throwing them under the bus. So, rather than focus on the person responsible for the ugly situation, great leaders accept the blame and focus on correcting what went wrong.
Great leaders don’t focus on others’ fault for three major reasons. One, they know that whatever happens on their watch is their responsibility. So, instead of looking for a scapegoat, they focus on righting what went wrong so that the organisation can continue on its growth path.
Then, leaders understand that when they play the victim, they lose their power; they lose the momentum. If a leader goes about blaming someone for what happens on his watch, what he is inadvertently saying is that he is not in charge. The effect of that is more devastating than what went wrong. This is because when a leader insinuates that he is not in charge, he is invariably saying that he is not worthy of the position he occupies.
Then, leaders see mistakes as learning opportunities for everyone. When the baby is not thrown away with the bathwater, the person primarily responsible for the mistake is able to learn from the situation with the organisation poised to profit from his experience.
In 1963, Jack Welch, then a newly employed staff at General Electric, blew up a plant where he was carrying out an experiment on a new formula for the Plastic Division of the company. When his immediate boss got to know about it, he got so upset with him that he sent the young man to the company’s head office in New York to explain himself. With trepidation, Welch left for New York, expecting to be fired.
But according to him, when he got to the head office, he was surprised at the reception he got. He said the boss at the head office “took the Socratic Method with me and did an incredible job of engaging me in learning about what I did wrong in the process. And I learned never to kick anybody when they’re down. No one would ever say that I was soft by any means. But they would never say that I beat on anybody when they were down.”
By refraining from sacrificing Welch for his mistake, General Electric kept a man who would later play a vital role in preserving the company for future generations. But it is of interest that Welch’s immediate boss, who left him to stew in his juice, didn’t last long in the company.
Leaders can’t be complacent
Leaders have to always be on their toes. They can’t afford to slow down despite their accomplishments because a leader is only as good as his last performance. When a leader is gong-ho, his company soars, but when he chooses to relax, the fortune of his company plummets. If a leader opts to engage in chest-thumping after a major business success, he will wake up the following morning to find out that others have made smithereens of his accomplishments. While this is not suggestive of leaders not taking time to rest, the fact is that for a company to enjoy continued relevance, it has to continually deliver above the par value to customers. This means the organisation has to be on the go all year round.
Leaders can’t make excuses
Although excuses are the commonest things available, leaders are not allowed to make excuses. This is because nothing great is ever built on excuses. If a leader keeps making excuses, he will entrench a culture of failure in his organisation due to the fact that everyone will come up with excuses for failing to deliver on the organisation’s expectations.
Excuses are disastrous. Those who make excuses have already put a ceiling on what they can accomplish because every excuse they permit takes them farther from their goal and drives them deeper into the pit of failure. The more excuses a leader makes for not doing what he ought to do, the more complacent he gets and the more uninspired he becomes. Unfortunately, this is transferred to his organisation. This is one of the factors that separate successful companies from those that end up at the other end because while failures make excuses for not doing what they ought to do, those with success mindset look for a reason to do what they have to do. At the end, those who fail are stopped by the excuses they make, while the successful are fired up by the reasons they find.
Between Multichoice and HItv
Toyin Subair’s indigenous pay television company, HItv, stormed the nation with a big bang when it was launched. It appeared poised to give DStv a run for its money. It actually almost edged the South African competitor out of the market, especially after getting the licence to broadcast EPL matches. But the company ran into a hitch after a while because of the difficulty it had with raising funds from banks to pay for the renewal of the EPL licence. The licence to broadcast EPL matches was eventually given to DStv, its competitor. With the loss of the licence, HItv went down. Subair’s excuse? The company had racked up debts and there were infightings among the shareholders. As a result of that, a promising company was allowed to go under.
But when DStv lost the EPL licence to HItv a few years earlier, rather than allow the company to die, what the management did was to introduce indigenous films and programmes to woo its Nigerian audience. That gave rise to Nollywood movies being broadcast for 24 hours daily on a DStv channel. But that one channel has now grown to almost 10 channels. Multichoice did not allow its failure to get the EPL licence to destroy its operation. Unlike the HItv leadership, the management thought out of the box to rescue the company.
Leaders can’t hoard power
Leadership is equated with power but great leaders don’t amass power, instead they empower others with their power so that they can also grow. When a leader hoards power, he raises followers, but a leader who empowers others raises leaders. When a leader empowers others, he unleashes their potential and sets them up for greatness. When a leader empowers others, he frees himself from the shackles of non-core tasks so that he can have ample time for those responsibilities that can only be discharged by him. When a leader hoards power, he serves as a stumbling block to the progress of his organisation because nothing gets done without his involvement but when a leader empowers others, creativity and innovation become commonplace because those empowered are challenged to deploy their talent and skills for the good of the organisation.
Last line
Leadership is about serving and giving. Those who cannot do these cannot lead successfully.
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