Gee, two months now, since my last post to Substack – call me a “wannabe” journalist, but you can’t call me a quitter and here I am, back with some old thoughts, renewed as I am drawn to the importance of serving our young adult generations, including my five grandchildren.
For some years now I have been formulating this idea that no matter our line of endeavour, surely we need more leaders. The world, in fact, suffers from a serious dearth of leaders, and it’s not hard to see why. Scratch beneath the surface of claims that “I wish I were running this place” and you find few people ready and willing to assume the leader’s role, and for very good reason. People understand that leadership is tough; its struggles are many; its rewards are few!
Thirty-odd years in the business of studying the essential determinants of success in the global investment management community taught me that effective leadership stands alone as the key driver of success. But, what do we mean by effective leadership?
Three books I encountered back in the first years of the new millennium, Charlie Ellis’ book Capital, Jim Collins’ book Good to Great, and Jim Ware’s book Investment Leadership all deal in different ways with the leadership issue. Great books, all of them, but Collins’ book was most helpful for its work in drilling down to uncover the definition, the characteristics if you will, of effective leaders. For those who prefer a short version, an article, “Level 5 Leadership – The Triumph of Humility and Fierce Resolve”, in the January 2001 edition of Harvard Business Review, effectively summarizes Collins’ book and the advances that Collins and his team of 21 researchers made in defining the term “leadership”. This work teaches us that Level 5 Leadership – the kind of leadership that results in sustained greatness – is embodied in two character traits, namely, humility and resolve, a direct contradiction of conventional (media-driven) wisdom, which would have us believe that our best leaders are those who project ego and charisma.
At a personal level, I have found this idea so compelling that I have embraced these “character traits” – humility and resolve – as central to my personal “core values”, the guiding principles by which I conduct my life.
In all, Collins’ research cites six key concepts that work to propel a firm (the same applies to an individual) from good to great; all six, in one sense or another, are tied to the concept of core values.
Jim Ware’s book, Investment Leadership, builds on this idea by making the important point that to be effective, values need to be (1) stated, (2) defined, and (3) lived passionately. He concludes that identity, in a nutshell, is what core values are all about: “When you know who you are, you don’t sweat the small stuff. And you survive the big, hard stuff.”[1]
To be sure, core values are no silver bullet; in the best of times they serve as a guide that inspires and influences all decision-making and behaviour; in the worst of times, they may serve as a check against people’s worst behaviour by establishing ground rules that can be referenced when settling negotiations or ironing out disagreements. In real life, of course, there can be no guarantee that in the worst of times, people will adhere to even the most clearly documented and carefully communicated core values. But why not put the odds in our favour? Clearly, at the price, a documented, carefully communicated and passionately lived statement of core values is a very inexpensive hedge against the worst-case scenario, with virtually no downside!
To conclude:
So, what do we mean by effective leadership? We mean an attitude, grounded in core values stated, defined and lived passionately, of determination (resolve) to make the world a better place, and servitude (humility) toward others with whom we work and live, to be the best we all can be. The idea is nicely captured in what is known as “The Serenity Prayer” the first lines of which read as follows:
God grant me the serenity
To accept the things I cannot change;
Courage to change the things I can;
And wisdom to know the difference.
[1] Ware, Michaels and Primer, Investment Leadership, 40.