Entrepreneurial Leadership:
Why Should Anyone Follow You?
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By Edward D. Hess,
Distinguished Executive in Residence and
Adjunct Professor of Management, Goizueta Graduate School of Business
Emory University
Atlanta, Georgia
edward_hess@bus.emory.edu
My MBA students spent the Spring studying leadership. Their journey took them from Jack Welch to Sam Walton to Howard Shultz to The Ritz Carlton Corporation to Chick-fil-a Company to Presidents Nixon, Ford, Reagan, and Clinton and to General Harold Moore and the U.S. Army. Along the way, we talked about Greek philosophers, Hitler, Gandhi, and Machiavelli. We studied two movies - "We Were Soldiers" and "Changing Lanes" and debated at length whether the ends justify the means or whether how you play the game is more important. For those interested, you may view the detailed syllabus for Business 665 here. It was a fascinating trip for us.
We focused on several questions:
1) Why should anyone (employees or customers) follow you?
2) What are the roles of personality, charisma, timing, context, situation, and adversity in leadership development?
3) Why do some companies achieve consistent execution excellence?
4) What really motivates employees?
5) How can MBAs understand and lead hourly employees?
6) What is the relative importance of strategy, structure, people, and process in building a great business?
7) Why is execution so hard?
8) How do you make repetitive, boring jobs fun and meaningful for employees?
9) What is the relationship between an entrepreneur's personal values and the business culture?
I believe that principled or values-based leadership is the most important element in building a world-class sustainable business. Unless suppliers, customers, employees, and lenders trust and believe in you, you will fail. Leadership is a daily job - it is hard, fun, meaningful, and challenging.
What is leadership? There are over 200 definitions of leadership. Some people cannot define it but know it when they see it. Let us start with what leadership is not. We considered Leadership is not about perks, money, power, adulation and ego fulfillment. We concluded that:
1) Leadership is a Trust Relationship.
If operational excellence is your goal, if consistent high quality customer satisfaction is important, if employee loyalty and enthusiasm are important, employees have to trust you and believe in your goals. Trust is earned - not bought. Part of trust is respect. Trust is respect for your values - that you will act in the best interests of your followers and not solely in your self-interest. Trust is earned drop by drop but lost by the bucketful. The essence of a leadership relationship is trust between the leader and the followers and vice versa.
2) Leadership is Honest, Two-Way Communications.
The execution of leadership on a daily basis is through honest, direct two-way communications with employees and customers. Employees want to know what the objectives are; how what they are doing contributes to those objectives; how the business is doing; how they are doing; how they can improve. To be effective, communications need to be direct, concise, two-way and repetitive.
To be a good leader, you must be a good listener and understand people and their emotions and motivations. Two-way communication gives employees respect and sends the message that he or she is a valued member of the team.
3) Leadership is Teaching and Learning.
Fundamentally, to build a sustainable business you have to teach your employees and your managers what is important, what are acceptable standards, why what they are doing is meaningful, and how each person can develop to be all they can be.
Leaders lead by teaching, critiquing, and setting standards of conduct and performance. Leaders help people improve and learn. At the same time, leaders learn from their followers. They encourage different opinions and suggestions in order to instill a sense of ownership in the end result and to get the best results.
4) Leadership is Helping People Be All They Can Be.
A paycheck alone will not, in most cases, achieve operational excellence. Employees are human beings, too. Human beings thrive on recognition, thank yous, and pats on the back, if earned. Emotional rewards are as important as tangible rewards. As importantly, people want to be part of something bigger than themselves and something meaningful. They want their job to be important in some way. People want to belong to and be part of something that is viewed by others as good and meaningful.
It is a leader's job to create that meaning and to treat his followers with dignity and respect, to make them feel like they have a stake in building something special, and to help them advance and prosper.
5) Leadership is Courageous Acting.
Leaders act. Leaders never ask their followers to do anything they would not be willing to do themselves.
Leaders have the courage to make the tough decisions. Leaders confront reality. Leaders respect differences of opinion and debate. Leaders learn, adapt, adjust and most importantly, they make the tough decisions and act in the best interests of the whole enterprise - not just in their self-interest.
6) Leadership is Harmony Between What You Do and What You Say.
Gandhi stated, "Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony."
Or stated another way, leaders walk the talk. Leaders are loyal to their values and standards. Leaders understand that employees watch their actions, their moods, and how they treat others, in order to help determine a leader's consistency, reliability, and trustworthiness.
Hypocrisy, inconsistency, and dishonesty will kill your corporate culture and decrease your chances of operational excellence.
7) Leadership is "Washing the Dishes Often".
Leaders are not seduced by the perks of leadership. Good leaders do not forget they are only as good as their followers and they are there to serve their followers. Good leaders are humble, and understand the role of luck, education, opportunity, and birth in their success. Leadership is an attitude - an attitude of serving others. Good leaders never, never forget to honor and respect the menial, repetitive tasks done by others.
Good leaders eat with the troops. Good leaders wash the dishes. What do I mean by that?
When Dan Cathy, President of Chick-fil-a, came to talk to my class he shared with them his rule at operating at both the 80,000 foot level and at the 5 foot level and told them how at a new store opening recently in Florida, he washed dishes for two hours the night of the opening. That is a humble leader. Think of the message he sent to his employees. That is leadership.
Like many things in business, the concept of leadership is not difficult to understand. What is difficult is the execution - execution day-in and day-out.
Leaders must focus on their followers - not themselves. A leader's focus is not I or me but we. What have you done today to show respect for your followers? What have you done today to help them learn, be better, and grow? What have you done today to help them do their job better?
Leaders understand the most important five words in a customer or employee relationship are "HOW MAY I HELP YOU?"
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