What It Takes to Learn to Be
a Leader
NEW BOOK: In What You Really Need To Lead, Robert Steven Kaplan argues that training to be a leader is as necessary as training
to be an athlete.
·
Leadership is Not Genetic
Interview by Roberta
Holland
After a decade of
teaching leadership courses at Harvard Business School, Robert Steven
Kaplan has fielded the question of whether leadership can be taught more often
than he can count.
Kaplan addresses the
question again in his new book, What
You Really Need to Lead. His answer: an emphatic yes. Leadership is a skill, not
some genetic trait inherited by a lucky few, Kaplan says. In the book he
provides practical suggestions, exercises, and anecdotes of executives facing
different challenges to illustrate what makes a good leader and how to become
one.
The first step, Kaplan says, is ditching the
idea that you’re either born a leader or not.
“I feel strongly that it doesn’t work that
way,” says Kaplan, who left HBS this month to take over as president and CEO of
the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. “This would be like you’re either fat or
you’re thin. You’re either in shape or you’re not in shape. Well, you’d never
say that. You’ve got to work at it.”
Like getting in shape, becoming a stronger
leader requires doing things that might make you uncomfortable. That includes
taking inventory of your strengths and weaknesses, seeking feedback from
subordinates, and asking questions. Executives seeking Kaplan’s advice find
themselves on the receiving end of his rapid-fire questioning, ranging from
what’s distinct about their company to who holds what particular job and why.
If they don’t know the answers, they need to ask, he says.
“They’ll say OK, I didn’t know I was supposed
to do that, or they’ll say, gee, if I do that, I’m going to look like a
weakling,” Kaplan recounts. “I say, I hate to break it to you, I think your
people probably think right now you’re a weakling. If you don’t know the
answers to these questions, I’m not impressed myself.”
An Owner Mind-set
While the executives coming to him for counsel
face unique challenges, ultimately all the issues connect to the subject of
leadership, Kaplan says.
Part of the difficulty is that people often
can’t articulate what leadership is. Academics don’t agree on a common
definition either. Rather than try to move people toward a specific definition,
Kaplan lays out what he calls a “framing” for the leadership journey.
At the heart is taking on an ownership
mind-set—thinking and acting like an owner regardless of your job title and
maintaining an unwavering focus on adding value to others, whether it’s to
customers or the community. That ownership mentality also includes being
willing to take responsibility for good and bad outcomes, acting on your
beliefs, and creating an environment in which employees adopt an ownership
mind-set themselves. Leaders need to communicate their priorities and then get
their employees in alignment.
“What is the vision, how do you add value
that’s distinctive, and what are your top three or four priorities,” Kaplan
explains. “That is the prism through which you judge every action you take—who
you hire, how you sit, where you spend money, what markets. Everything flows
from that.”
Who I Am
The other key, which ties in with Kaplan’s two
previous books, is understanding who you are. That includes knowing your
strengths and weaknesses, passions, and boundaries.
Kaplan recounts the story of a founder and CEO
of a multimillion-dollar tech company who was concerned about his firm’s market
position eroding and frustrated by a lack of input from senior executives. When
Kaplan interviewed the CEO’s business partner, he learned the CEO had a habit
of cutting people off and criticizing suggestions to the point that people no
longer bothered. These situations, Kaplan says, happen all the time.
“Everybody has blind spots. People who work
with you know what your blind spots are. They just can’t believe you don’t see
it,” Kaplan says.
Bosses need to be aware of the power asymmetry
between themselves and subordinates—it causes people to hold back from
mentioning things they think their superior doesn’t want to hear. As a result,
bosses need to ask questions to elicit feedback—and listen.
Tweak Towards Success
The path to becoming a strong leader is not a
one-shot deal, Kaplan adds. Would-be leaders need to continually analyze
situations, themselves, and their organizations and tweak their approach as
needed to fit their new reality.
“Businesses fail because they can’t make
transitions. The paper every day is about businesses that were once effective
that are no longer,” Kaplan says. “That isn’t a story about apparatus. That’s a
story about people. And yet there are other businesses that have adapted
incredibly well, it’s amazing what they’ve done—and that’s about people. They
went out there and they tried to figure out what’s going on, and then they
tried to adapt to it.”
Kaplan, who before joining HBS in 2005 was
vice chairman of the Goldman Sachs Group, acknowledges it’s possible for
executives or companies to have success without this approach, but he doesn’t
believe they would reach their full potential without it.
In his book, Kaplan stresses that leadership
is not limited to the boardroom or the upper echelons of an organization.
Anyone, regardless of position, can be a leader, but people often think they’ll
wait for a promotion or another opportunity to try it. Not a wise move.
“If you want to be a leader, you need to act
like it today. If you don’t want to or you’re not game to, then stop dreaming
about it because you can forget it,” Kaplan says. “It would be the same way if
[I said] I’d like to be a world-class athlete, but I don’t want to train. Well,
you’d laugh. That’s stupid. It’s exactly the same.”
http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/what-it-takes-to-learn-to-be-a-leader
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