Why Should Anyone Be Led By You?
Co-Authors Rob Goffee and Gareth Jones
PwC Asian Business Forum was host to Vijay Patel of Waymade Healthcare plc and Professor Gareth Jones, visiting professor at INSEAD and Fellow of the Centre of Management Development at
I found Prof Gareth Jones talk particularly interesting and thought it would be useful to share my learning's. I first came across Gareth's work when I was studying at Economics at the London School of Economics and a friend of mine had a copy of an article from the Harvard Business Review entitled "Why should anyone be led by you?" (pdf). I took a photocopy of this and managed to learn the key points, using it to my advantage in many interviews. Hence, it was an absolute pleasure to meet the man who came up with this thinking. What follows is a collection of notes I jotted down during the talk.
- First born children have a monopoly in the world of CEO's – they seem to develop natural leadership due to having so much attention as a children (guess what – I'm first born!)
- Important questions: What do followers want? What do the people you aspire to lead want? From the survey conducted, this is what followers wanted:
- COMMUNITY – they want to feel part of something greater, some type of clan. E.g. PwC laptop bags can be seen all over
- SIGNIFICANCE – a leader will recognise you, he will participate at all levels including the lowest (e.g. janitors) and make you feel special. E.g. when Bill Clinton meets people, he shakes hands for an extra second and has a way to make you feel like the only person in the room.
- EXCITEMENT – followers want to be excited. Leaders can often excite others through their passionate commitment to clearly articulated personal values and to a vision.
- AUTHENTICITY – followers want at leader who is a real person, doing real things – someone who brings their 'real self' to work, rather than saving for evenings and weekends.
- You spend most of your adult waking life at work – it had therefore better be meaningful!
- Definition of Leadership – "effective leadership excites people to exceptional performance"
- Leadership is:
- Contextual
- Relational
- Non-hierarchal
- What do Authentic Leaders do?
- Sensory to people – "smell the gravy" – know what's going on before someone has to tell them. This is a skill you can get better at.
- Sense situations – know and show enough. (e.g. walk around more)
- social distance – appropriate levels of intimacy
- Compelling communication – e.g. Barack Obama – capacity to energise a room with compelling communication is electric.
- Uses emotions (need to know them first) to energise and liberate others
- Authentic Leadership has the power to transform organisations and enrich lives.
- Important to have honest leadership discussions – someone to feedback to you, be it a life long partner, friend or trusted advisors.
- Vijay Patel said one comment that had impact on me – "always live outside of your comfort zone".
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