The Truth About Effective Leadership: 10 Lessons from Harvard
Gentleman, as a prime male specimen, it is essential for you to have leadership qualities. You see, as men, we are expected to be leaders and take charge in some way or another, whether you are at home or at the office. Developing effective leadership skills will take you far in life in more ways than one.
Why You Should Be a Better Leader:
Being a good leader allows you to better guide and inspire those around you, from your children to your coworkers and even those who may be in a higher position than you (in the corporate world). You will earn the respect of those around you for your ability to take control and manage things effectively, tackling any problem that comes your way.
In today’s rapidly changing world, it is more important than ever for men to cultivate these leadership qualities in order to navigate challenges and achieve their goals.
Why Harvard Business Review ?
Given the importance of this subject, needless to say I have done my fair share of reading, studying and even formal training on effective leadership, which has benefitted both my corporate and personal life.
One particular source that I found interesting and thought would be worth sharing is from Harvard Business Review (HBR). If you haven’t heard of HBR before, it’s a pretty reputable publication that covers a wide range of topics related to business and leadership. Their content is generally backed by research and expertise from industry leaders and academics. So naturally, when I came across their book, “HBR’s 10 Must Reads on Leadership”, I had to check it out. These are the 10 must-know lessons that they reveal.
DISCLAIMER:
This post contains excerpts from the book “10 Must Reads on Leadership” by Harvard Business Review for educational and informational purposes only. The content provided in this post is not intended to infringe upon any copyright laws or guidelines. All credit and rights for the content belong to Harvard Business Review.
Lesson #1: Emotional Intelligence is King
What You Should Know:
Many people think good leaders have to be exceptionally smart or skilled. What if I told you that isn’t true?
“What distinguishes great leaders from merely good ones? It isn’t IQ or technical skills, says Daniel Goleman. It’s emotional intelligence”, and no, it’s not all about making money (though if you are interested in making money, I suggest you check out The Secret to Financial Freedom). I know what you may be wondering right now. What the hell is that? Well, my leader reader, it is a set of skills associated with your ability to identify and manage emotions, namely 5 skills:
- Self-Awareness – Knowing one’s strengths, weaknesses, drives, values, and impact on others.
- Self-Regulation – Controlling or redirecting disruptive impulses and moods
- Empathy – Understanding other people’s emotional makeup
- Social skill – Building rapport with others to move them in desired directions
- Motivation – Have a drive to achieve beyond expectations
I think you can understand how this would affect your interactions with your coworkers, employees, partners and even children.
What You Should Do:
If you think emotional intelligence is not your strong suit, learn to develop and strengthen your emotional intelligence skills.
- Have a good understanding of your emotions, strengths, weaknesses, needs, and drives. What makes you tick? People who have a high degree of self-awareness recognize how their feelings affect them, other people, and their job performance. You will be able to make better decisions based on not only your, but other people’s emotional drivers as well.
- Biological impulses drive our emotions. We cannot do away with them—but we can do much to manage them. Control your feelings and impulses. You will become more reasonable, tolerant and approachable.
- Have empathy by thoughtfully considering others’ feelings in the process of making intelligent decisions (your wife will thank you for this). Learn to listen to and acknowledge people for what they may be feeling. Treat them accordingly.
Lesson #2: Get Things Done (In The Right Way)
What You Should Know:
“Worried that you’re not a born leader? That you lack charisma, the right talents, or some other secret ingredient? No need. Leadership isn’t about personality or talent. In fact, the best leaders exhibit wildly different personalities, attitudes, values, and strengths”.
However, what they do have in common is they generally follow the same practices in order to get things done.
What You Should Do:
- Ask what needs to be done, NOT what you want to do
- Ask what is right for the enterprise (or “what’s right for your life” if you want to take it in a personal context)
- Develop action plans
- Take responsibility for your decisions
- Focus on opportunities, rather than problems
The first two practices give you insight on what you need to do, while the rest help you convert this knowledge into effective action.
“Don’t wait for motivation. Get it done.”
Lesson #3: Be a Leader, Not a Manager
What You Should Know:
Leadership if different from management.
Management brings order and consistency to processes, while managing the complexities of everything that needs to be, well, managed.
Leadership is about coping with the change effectively while leading people so that they are motivated and empowered to get things done. It’s a combination of charisma and vision.
What You Should Do:
Both, management and leadership qualities can be learnt. At the end of the day, they are a set of skills and qualities that you can develop to be a more effective leader.
Think of these examples to make it clearer for yourself:
- Management involves things like planning and budgeting, but leadership involves setting direction.
- Management involves organizing and staffing, but leadership involves aligning people.
- Management provides control and solves problems, but leadership provides motivation.
Know the difference between the two and while you should definitely be able to manage all the things life throws at you, make sure you develop your leadership capabilities as well so that you can lead people as well as yourself to something even greater.
Lesson #4: Adapt to Challenges
What You Should Know:
Needless to say, we live in a time where things are always evolving. You blink and something is different.
Any good leader should know how to adapt to changes and difficulties around him. This is called adaptive work.
What You Should Do:
What are your challenges? Do you struggle with competition at work? Or do you have a hard time finding the best side-hustle to do for your life in this rapidly developing world. Well, you may need to re-evaluate your plans and strategies in order to be successful.
There are a few things you can do to better adapt to challenges and changes:
- Get on the balcony. Don’t get caught up in the chaos. Take a step back and get a high-level view of things. Try to spot overall patterns/trends.
- Identify your challenges. Take the time to check in all areas and talk to all people involved. Really identify where your challenges are.
- Regulate distress. When challenges arise and people are stressed, help them regulate. Let them voice their issues, provide them direction and try to control the rate of change for them.
- Give work back to people. To instill self-confidence, as opposed to dependence on you, support rather than control people. Encourage risk-taking and responsibility, then back people up if they err. Help them recognize they contain the solutions.
Lesson #5: Ask Yourself a Question
You can’t be a leader without people to lead, where collectively, you work together to achieve a greater goal. But that begs the question you should ask yourself. Why should anyone be led by you?
A good leader should know what it takes to lead effectively and engage people. Unfortunately, most don’t know how.
What You Should Do:
Ask yourself the question and learn what you can do to inspire people – to capture their hearts and minds. If you’re not sure, don’t worry. There are 4 things you can work on to develop this.
- Selectively Show Your Weaknesses. No one likes a bossy leader who thinks he’s better than everyone. Humility is a quality unlike any other. Casually make it known when you have a weakness with something. This helps establish trust and makes you come off as more approachable.
- Become a Situation Sensor. Learn to sniff out the signals with people and in the environment. Read subtle cues and sense underlying opinions that elude less perceptive people. This can come with experience around a certain environment and with knowledge of the job and its associated elements.
- Practice Tough Empathy. Empathize with your followers. Care about their work, but you do not need to be soft. Tough empathy means giving people what they need, not what they want. It balances respect for the individual and for the task at hand. “People do not commit to executives who merely live up to the obligations of their jobs. They want more. They want someone who cares passionately about the people and the work— just as they do”.
- Dare to be Different. Capitalizing on what’s unique about yourself lets you signal your separateness as a leader, and motivates others to perform better. Often, a leader will show his differences by having a distinctly different dress style or physical appearance, but typically he will move on to distinguish himself through qualities like imagination, loyalty, expertise, or even a handshake.
“People do not commit to executives who merely live up to the obligations of their jobs. They want more. They want someone who cares passionately about the people and the work— just as they do“
The challenge here is to be yourself, but with more skill. By making yourself increasingly aware of the four leadership qualities we describe and by manipulating these qualities to come up with a personal style that works for you.
Lesson #6: Embrace Adversity
What You Should Know:
What enables one leader to inspire confidence, loyalty, and hard work, while others—with equal vision and intelligence, stumble?
There is something to be said about the different ways that people deal with adversity. One of the most reliable indicators and predictors of true leadership is an individual’s ability to find meaning in negative events.
What You Should Do:
Don’t run away from difficult situations. These situations (we can call them crucibles) force leaders into deep self-reflection, where they examine their values, question their assumptions, and hone their judgment.
Lesson #7: Authenticity Breeds Trust
What You Should Know:
It should be no surprise that people trust you when you are genuine and authentic, not a replica of someone else. “Leadership has many voices. You need to be who you are, not try to emulate somebody else.”
What You Should Do:
Humility and authenticity are some of the best ways to get people to follow you. Together with a good ability to manage and other soft skills, you’re practically unstoppable.
Authentic leaders realize that they have to be willing to listen to feedback – especially the kind they don’t want to hear. It will help you stay grounded.
Practice your values and principles to develop authenticity in your leadership. However, you will not know what your true values are until they are tested under pressure. It is relatively easy to list your values and live by them when things are going well, but when your success or career hangs in the balance, you learn what is most important, what you are prepared to sacrifice, and what trade-offs you are willing to make. This will help you develop the principles you will use in leading.
Lesson #8: Level 5 Leadership
What You Should Know:
If you want to transform a company from good to great, you need level 5 leadership.
Level 5 (Executive) – Builds enduring greatness through a paradoxical combination of personal humility plus professional will.
Level 4 (Effective Leader) – Catalyzes commitment to and vigorous pursuit of a clear and compelling vision; stimulates the group to high performance standards.
Level 3 (Competent Manager) – Organizes people and resources toward the effective and efficient pursuit of predetermined objectives.
Level 2 (Contributing Team Member) – Contributes to the achievement of group objectives; works effectively with others in a group setting.
Level 1 (Highly Capable Individual) – Makes productive contributions through talent, knowledge, skills, and good work habits.
What You Should Do:
“How do Level 5 leaders manifest humility? They routinely credit others, external factors, and good luck for their companies’ success. But when results are poor, they blame themselves. They also act quietly, calmly, and determinedly – relying on inspired standards, not inspiring charisma, to motivate”.
Inspired standards demonstrate Level 5 leaders’ unwavering will. Utterly intolerant of mediocrity, they are stoic in their resolve to do whatever it takes to produce great results.
Lesson #9: Transformation by Action Logic
What You Should Know:
Transformational leaders are those who spearhead changes and set the rules of the game, but few people really understand the unique strengths needed and miss out by not developing these.
Great leaders can be differentiated with their action logic – how they interpret behaviours and take action to protect against threat. There are 7 common action logics:
- Opportunist – Wins by any way possible. Self-oriented.
- Diplomat – Avoids conflict. Follows group norms.
- Expert – Follows logic and expertise. Uses data to gain consensus.
- Achiever – Meets goals. Promotes teamwork and juggles managerial duties.
- Individualist – Operates in unconventional ways. Ignores rules he/she think is irrelevant.
- Strategist – Generates transformations. Collaborative, sets initiatives and challenges existing assumptions.
- Alchemist – Generates social transformations to lead society-wide change.
What You Should Do:
Identify where you stand amongst the seven action logics and try to work towards the one most suitable for your needs, while falling in line with your personality traits. You cannot expect to become a master of something that’s completely opposite to your personality style.
By consciously being aware of your action logic, you will be a better position to make decisions. Needless to say, this will benefit those around you.
Lesson #10: The Incomplete Leader
What You Should Know:
It’s time to end the myth of the complete leader: the flawless person at the top who’s got it all figured out.
It’s not all about command and control, but more so about coordinating the actions of others. As a leader, you have strengths and weaknesses; and that’s perfectly fine. You can now rely on others to be more involved to make up for your weaknesses. Everyone grows together.
What You Should Do:
Tying in with many of the points mentioned above, some effective leadership capabilities include:
- Sensemaking – Understand your environment to make better decisions
- Relating – Build trusting relationships with others
- Vision – Create a compelling vision of the desired future for people to work towards together
- Inventing – Find new ways to approach tasks and overcome problems
Conclusion
There you have it. Ten of the top lessons on how you can develop effective leadership skills from Harvard. Whether you’re already a big-shot leader or you’re aspiring to be one, you’ll definitely learn a thing or two from these well-researched methods.
The truth is, it’s not all about your intelligence and skills. Through essentials like emotional intelligence, adaptability, and authenticity, you can cultivate meaningful relationships, inspire a shared vision, and foster an environment where individuals can thrive. It largely comes down to the people at the end of the day, whether that’s your wife, kids or work colleagues.
If you’re interested in reading the full book on Leadership by HBR, i’ll link to it below so you can check it out.
Stay Skilled Gentleman
