Learn to Lead
Much of The Apprentice focused
on Leadership. We saw many good
examples of leading, and we saw bad leadership, which often resulted in the
individual hearing the words, “You’re fired.”
This chapter will address various aspects of leadership to allow you to
learn to lead. Yes, leadership can
be learned. There may be certain
traits, skills and abilities that a person is born with that enable them to lead
more readily. We have all
encountered those that appear to be “born leaders.”
Regardless of this perception, everyone can learn and develop their
leadership abilities to a higher level. Even
a “born” leader must learn and work to improve leadership skills.
Selecting a Leader
Each week, the teams chose a project manager to lead the team, and each week, the leader of the losing team was held partially responsible for the team’s loss. The leader was important, because someone had to be in charge. Democracy does not work in the workplace. There needs to be a designated leader. There needs to be someone to make the difficult decisions and someone to take the blame when things go wrong. During week two of the first season, an interesting lesson was how the two teams chose the project manager.
The women of Protégé Corporation argued over several ways to select their next Project Manager. Selecting a name out of a bowl was suggested, however others wanted to nominate and vote for someone. The latter ruled, and Amy was appointed Project Manager. The men of Versacorp quickly selected Jason as their project manager, because he used to work in advertising.
Living in the United States, a democracy that elects its leaders, it is easy to understand why Protégé Corporation wanted to elect a project manager by nomination and voting, but is that really the best way to select a leader in all occasions? Versacorp’s quick selection of Jason because of his background in advertising makes a lot of sense too, but is that really the best criteria for selecting a leader?
There really is no “best” way for selecting a leader, and in many situations the circumstances will do the selecting, or a person will hold the leadership position, and followers will not have a say in who their leader is. In the business world, this is most often the case. When you are hired, you know the organizational chart and who supervises who. Many positions in middle management are a combination of leader and follower. So, while we usually do not get to choose our leaders in business settings, the various ways the teams chose their leaders in all three seasons point out issues for us to consider when choosing leaders or assuming leadership roles.
A person’s background does not necessarily mean he will be a competent leader, even in his area of expertise. Sometimes, someone with a clear view and outside opinion can more effectively lead than the insider with all the knowledge and unfortunately preconceived notions and baggage that sometimes come with it. This just illustrates that there are many facets to be looked at when choosing someone to lead.
For The Apprentice, there was
not much time to select a leader, and all of the qualified individuals were
fairly equal for the various tasks. The
show did not teach us how to select a leader, but it did raise the topic and
give us something to think about and consider when facing similar dilemmas.
Do we follow the person with experience?
Do we follow the majority elected individual?
Do we place someone in the leadership position to make them step up or
shut up as was suggested in the some episodes, such as episode three of the
first season when the men selected Sam as Project Manager.
Even Donald Trump asked Sam if the men selected him to see him fail and
thus be fired. So the next time you
are in a position to select a leader, whether its voting for the President of
the United States, or picking a president for your local civic group, consider
the process and attempt to make the wisest choice based on the information you
have available.
Four Elements of
Leadership
Leadership is powerful, and it can make the difference between success and failure for yourself and any group you belong to. Regardless of your own abilities, many goals cannot be obtained without the help of others. Leadership involves accomplishing goals through others. Successful individuals do not become successful strictly by themselves. Successful individuals become successful with the help of others. The only way to reach the most difficult and important goals is through the help of others. Therefore, you will only be truly successful through exercising good leadership and helping others reach their goals. General George S. Patton defined leadership as the art of getting your subordinates to do the impossible. That is exactly what leadership is about, because it is impossible to accomplish the greatest goals without others, and for a group to be focused on a specific objective it takes leadership to motivate and guide the group toward its goals. In The Art of the Leader, William A. Cohen provides a definition of leadership as, “Leadership is the art of influencing others to their maximum performance to accomplish any task, objective, or project.
People are born with certain characteristics that give them the potential to excel in certain areas. Some like to say leaders are born, not made. This is nonsense. Anyone can work hard to develop their abilities and this hard work is more important than what you were born with. Leadership can be learned. A “born” leader must still work to become a true leader. The person born without certain characteristics that aid in leadership may have to work a bit harder, but everyone has the ability to become a leader through hard work. If you want to be a leader, you can learn the skills the same way you learn other skills. Once learned, you must then apply these learned skills to the situations you are in to lead others toward the group’s goals and objectives. There are many elements to effective leadership, and countless books, models and theories on the topic. In this short section, we will look at four elements of leadership. These will be:
Focus on the Vision
and
To be an effective leader, one must have an unclouded vision about the goals and objectives ahead. It is important to set priorities and keep them clear while leading. The leader must have the ability to see all ramifications of his or her action or inaction. The leader’s effectiveness will be in direct proportion to the amount of focus applied to the most important goals and objectives.
One of the duties of a leader is to clearly define the group or organization’s vision and mission. With these defined, goals and objectives that are in alignment with the vision can be set and worked toward. With these clearly defined and in focus, you and your people’s initiative, power, innovation and imagination can be released to accomplish everything the organization desires and more.
It is imperative that a leader have total conviction in his ideas.
It is then up to the leader to convince the remainder of the organization
to follow. During the eighth episode
of season two,
As a leader, you must focus your efforts on matters of the highest concern. You must not lose sight of your primary mission and the vision of your organization. Keep the vision in focus and you are guaranteed to have the first step toward effective leadership behind you.
Develop and
Communicate Beliefs
Great leaders are known for their ideas. Ideology is an important factor when leading. A leader must know where he or she stands. To know this, strong beliefs must be developed. Leaders must be clear about their guiding principles. Once developed, the leader must communicate them to others, both those the leader is leading and those outside the organization or group looking in.
Ideas that form the basis of leadership are developed in many ways. Parents, friends, teachers, heroes, clergy, and countless other influences help shape beliefs. You goal as a leader is to recognize and develop the ideas and beliefs that will assist you in leading your organization toward its goals. If your beliefs and philosophy are not consistent and congruent with your vision and mission, you will not be an effective leader. This is why developing beliefs and creating a vision go hand-in-hand. You should apply your beliefs and philosophy toward your vision and mission and have them clearly developed and defined.
Don’t be afraid to change your beliefs if you come to realize that an idea you had was mistaken. If evidence makes you change your mind about an issue, it’s an indication of intellectual honesty. There is nothing wrong with this, and one should not stick to an old opinion for fear of being considered weak for changing one’s mind. At the same time, one should not change ideas and opinions to try and be popular and please various groups. Stick to beliefs you believe in and can articulate the reasons for the belief, no matter how popular or unpopular if you believe it is right.
Once a leader develops strong beliefs and sets a direction for the
organization to follow, the direction must be communicated to others.
Expressing ideology is a powerful tool a leader possesses.
In Leadership, author Rudy
Giuliani explained how he expressed his ideology in the days following the
An example of a leader not communicating his ideas well came from the ninth episode of season three. Craig was the Project Manager for the Home Depot do-it-yourself clinic task. Early on, in an interview, Alex claimed that Craig did not speak clearly and he didn’t communicate his ideas effectively. Craig’s entire team did not like his idea of building a “box.” Fortunately for Craig, the team rallied behind him and decided that even though they did not like the idea, they would make their clinic the best it could be. After the task became successful because they got entire families involved with making the project, Kendra admitted they did not give their leader the respect his ideas deserved. She thought it was a great idea incorporating entire families. In an interview, Bren stated, “Craig is very brilliant, but Craig has great difficulty getting those brilliant thoughts from inside of his head out through the mouth.”
While Craig’s team won the task, despite his inability to communicate his belief and vision to the team, this same difficulty most likely was the reason the top executives interviewing Craig later in the season felt he did not have substance. An effective leader must be able to communicate beliefs, visions and ideas.
Empower Others
We recognized above that Leadership involves accomplishing goals through others, and successful individuals do not become successful strictly by themselves. When researching leadership as a team effort for their book The Leadership Challenge, James Kouzes and Barry Posner reviewed over 2,500 personal-best cases and developed a simple test to detect whether someone is on the road to becoming a leader. The test they developed was the frequency of the use of the word we. Kouzes and Posner state, “Exemplary leaders enlist the support and assistance of all those who must make the project work.” This means everyone, including peers, managers, customers and clients, suppliers, and anyone else who has a stake in the vision and goals of the organization.
The leader must involve all those who are impacted by the results, and they must make it possible for those involved to perform their tasks and accomplish their portion of the goals. The leader must enable others to act. For a person to work toward a specific goal, they need to feel as though they are a part of it. They must have a sense of ownership in the goal. A strong leader will work to make those he or she leads feel capable and committed toward the vision and goals of the group. Leaders must give power to those they lead. In The Leadership Challenge, Kouzes and Posner describe this as, “When people have more discretion, more authority, and more information, they’re much more likely to use their energies to produce extraordinary results.” The true leader empowers others. It is the collective empowered team that will succeed and climb to the highest heights.
Show the Way and Do
What You Say
Eloquent speeches about values, vision and achieving goals are not enough. To be a leader, one must actually perform to those standards. A leader’s actions are more important than his or her words. The actions must be consistent and congruent with the spoken values and vision, otherwise all the rhetoric will be for naught. It only takes one negative action to destroy volumes of great words.
The most important way leaders can set an example is to do what they say they will do. This is a fundamental truth for leadership, and the leader who breaks this will not lead for long. Credibility is crucial to leadership. Kouzes and Posner did extensive research on leader credibility and reported these questions and answers in The Leadership Challenge:
· How do you know if someone is credible?
· How would you define credibility in behavioral terms?
· How would you recognize credible leaders?
Here are some of the phrases they used in reply:
· “They practice what they Preach.”
· “They walk the talk.”
· “Their actions are consistent with their words.”
· “They put their money where their mouth is.”
· And the most frequent response: “They do what they say they will do.”
The responses to Kouzes and Posner’s questions illustrate how essential example setting is to a leader’s credibility.
Actions speak louder than words, but your actions must be consistent with your words or you will be considered either not serious or a hypocrite. Lead by example and model the behaviors and values you expect from those on your team or in your organization. Show the way and do what you say.
80/20 Principle
Episode twelve of season one featured a task at the Trump Taj Mahal in
The Pareto Principle, also called the 80/20 Principle states that about 80 percent of results flow from 20 percent of causes. This principle is illustrated in many ways. Examples include police investigations that show 80% of accidents are caused by roughly 20% of drivers, and 80% of crime is committed by 20% of criminals. At home, 80% of the meals you cook probably consist of your favorite 20% of foods. In business, this principle relates to 80% of profits coming from 20% of customers. It also works out that 80% of profits come from 20% of products.
The successful leader recognizes this principle and conducts business accordingly. A business can improve enormously by concentrating on the top 20% of activities. Implementing this principle consists of nothing more than what was discussed in Part One of this book under Focus. That is the key to this principle. The leader must recognize those areas where focused attention will deliver the most results. Unfortunately, many things that are in the 80% of activities that produce 20% of results are things that beg for our attention. These are things that seem urgent and steal time, but in the end do not produce as much as that smaller percentage of things we know we should focus on. The difficult part can be identifying what 20% will produce the greatest results.
Using Resources
At the beginning of the fifth week of season one, it was time for a change. The men had lost four straight, and Trump called for a corporate reshuffle. Nick was the Project Manager for Versacorp, and after the reshuffle, he was leading Amy, Bill, Katrina, Ereka, and Tammy. The teams were given a thousand dollars to purchase whatever items they wanted, and then they would have to resell those items at a flea market.
Nick’s team decided to sell women’s clothing and jewelry that they made themselves. It paid off, and Nick was finally on a winning team. The team had a net profit of over $600.00, while Protégé had a net loss of $75.78.
In addition to producing products to sell from the materials they purchased, Nick used every resource he could muster in helping his team win. He relied on the women to help with decisions and went dumpster diving for a wardrobe rack the team used to display the custom t-shirts they produced.
The creative leader utilizes all of the resources at hand, and improvises or creates new resources if adequate ones to get the job done are not available. One must never let the lack of something stand in the way of accomplishing greatness. If a leader’s people need something to accomplish a task or achieve a goal, the leader must support them with the needed resources or inspire them to be creative in attaining the desired objective.
Leaders depend on people to use provided resources efficiently and with discretion. However, many times management fails to give people the authority needed to procure and use allocated resources. The bottom line is trust, and many leaders restrict their people needlessly due to a lack of it. Effective leaders must allow people fiduciary guardianship of allocated resources.
Learn to Delegate
Another lesson that arose during
the boardroom talks involved delegation. During
the first episode of season one, George pointed out that
It was also pointed out in the boardroom that a leader must be careful what he or she delegates. The eighth episode of season three had the teams negotiating with music artists for events to auction off for charity. Chris was the Project Manager, and he delegated the task of negotiating with the musicians to members of his team while he focused on production. In the boardroom, George was disturbed that Chris delegated the one thing that would win the task, and that was negotiating with the artists. George told Chris, “I don’t think as a team leader you can give that up.” Delegation is a must for a leader to be effective. One person cannot do it all. However, leaders should be careful in delegating key tasks. There are some things that just cannot be delegated, that is why the leader is in the position in the first place.
Military Leadership
It is important to recognize that season two Apprentice winner, Kelly credited his military background as an important ingredient to his success. During the live grand finale of season three, Trump asked, “Kelly, how has your Army experience helped in the world of business, or has it?”
Kelly responded, “Oh, it has helped tremendously. The discipline, the teamwork, the passion, all also present in the Trump Organization, have really helped me fit in and take a leadership role.” Trump and Kelly’s television commercial supporting the United States Military first ran during the live grand finale as well. The two obviously were getting a plug in for the armed forces, and justly so. The military has a long history of producing leaders.
One should not believe the military is only a rigid, top-down hierarchical organization either. According to General Peter Schoomaker, commander in chief of the U.S. Special Operations Command, that is an outmoded, inaccurate, and dangerous model for leadership. In the September, 1999, issue of Fast Company Magazine, Eli Cohen and Noel Tichy quote Schoomaker as saying, “Organizations that will wage successful campaigns of any kind, whether they’re commercial, military, or otherwise – will be those that marshal creative solutions in ambiguous circumstances. Everybody’s got to know how to be a leader.”
Many of our countries top political and business leaders have served in the military. And while it is not for everyone, it is a place to learn leadership skills and gain experience applying such skills in real life situations. It was nice to see Trump and Kelly recognizing the military for the education serving provided to the second season’s Apprentice. At the Today’s Military website, it states that Kelly gained principles that guide his everyday life and have helped him thrive personally, professionally, and even on reality TV. Kelly believes success will come to anyone who adheres to these ten military principles:
Integrity:
Take the harder right over the easier wrong.
Duty:
Do what you’re supposed to do, when you’re supposed to do it.
Passion:
Be passionate about what you do, or do what you’re passionate about.
Impeccability:
If it is worth doing, it is worth doing right.
Teamwork:
There is no “I” in TEAM.
Selfless Services:
Give back.
Planning:
Fail to plan, plan to fail.
Loyalty:
Up, down, and across your organization.
Perseverance:
It’s not the size of the dog in the fight; it’s the size of the fight in the dog.
Flexibility:
The person with the most varied responses wins.
Conclusion
Anyone who desires to be successful, in any field, must learn to lead. There are ample resources to study leadership, but the most important ingredient is to practice the principles. There is an abundance of opportunities for those that are willing to step up and take on leadership roles. Each time you lead, you build your skills. Leading small committees and civic groups gives the experience to move to leading a branch or division. The more leadership responsibilities you take on, the more you will learn, and the more skills you will develop. To succeed, learn to lead.
Trump
Time Out – Lead With Authority
“I’ve rarely seen a leader that’s been able to lead by consensus.
A leader is somebody that often times will go against everybody.
That’s what a leader is. Generally
speaking, a leader has to think independently.”
- Donald Trump from The Apprentice,
season three episode three.