Serving Leadership

Common Leadership Challenge #1: Turning Vision into Reality

As leaders, we each bring value to the world in our own distinct way. The uniqueness of the start of our leadership journey is extraordinary as we are born into the world and then move out to engage it, seeking to have impact, hoping to make friends, longing to achieve results, and aspiring to make a difference.

 However, we can find profound similarities among us all in our calling to serve. Several fundamental challenges are consistent across our individual leadership journeys. One of these common leadership challenges is learning how to translate vision into reality. Or, as we more usually say it: How can we bridge our strategy-execution gap?

In the often-quoted Forbes research on this subject, it was found that “82% of Fortune 500 CEOs feel their organization did an effective job of strategic planning. Only 14% of the same CEOs indicated that their organization did an effective job of implementing the strategy.”

Crawling deeper into the data, the average achievement of successful execution hovers between 50% to 60% of what the plan was designed to achieve. This goes beyond, now, how the executives feel about their capacity to execute and captures how the organizations actually performed in relationship to their plans. And, as we begin to uncover what some of the top reasons are for this performance breakdown – or rather, this underperformance in strategy execution – the reasons all point back to underperformance in leadership.

True story: The leadership at a medical technology company asked me to help them with their skyrocketing legal bills. Wrongful termination lawsuits, which the company tended to lose, were creating significant drag on focus, not to mention resources. New employees were being terminated just 6-12 months after they were hired. The quickly removed employees would then sue the company, and they tended to win. It was happening a lot.

I asked the CEO what he wanted me to do for him, and he suggested that I design a system to train their managers to document performance infractions; failures to meet the standards of quality and speed the company required. In short, he asked that we put better paper into the files so that at the point of termination the company would be equipped to successfully defend the suits.

I asked the CEO to describe the training, the supervision, the management, and the review processes they had in place. He told me that they hired top candidates only – men and women who should know what they’re doing. They hired them, watched them for a while, and then fired them when they didn’t meet the grade.

I asked the CEO if I could, alternatively, train his managers how to train the workers effectively. To train his managers how to delegate tasks and responsibilities, and appropriately follow up in a constructive manner so their people could learn from them, do a better job, and grow and succeed. I noted that what I would teach his managers would also provide all the paper in the world so that non-performers could show themselves to be non-performers in clear black and white.

The CEO told me that he thought that sounded time-consuming – learning how to grow people so they could achieve and excel – and all he needed was better documentation skills to sort out the dullards. He was going to get the people he needed by continuing to hire.

I told the CEO that I would be unable to help him get better. I also told him that the moment his competitors figured out how to bring a product to the market that could go toe-to-toe with his patent-holding advantages – which in the grand scheme of things, would take about a New York minute – his company would be done. He blinked at me uncomprehendingly.

Another true story: Industrial Scientific Corporation was founded by Kent McElhattan, a man who believed that his company’s secret to success would be found in what he called their “people competitive advantage.” Kent, along with his son, Justin McElhattan (the current CEO), and their entire leadership team worldwide understand that the secret to bridging the strategy-execution gap is people. Growing people, including the input of people, valuing people, listening to people, and winning the trust and the full engagement of people.

Industrial Scientific has moved into first place in the world in the gas detection industry, and they did so by understanding that bridging the strategy-execution gap required mastering certain leadership behaviors and skills. Kent once told me, “If I had to choose between a people competitive advantage, a technology competitive advantage, or a strategy competitive advantage, that’d be easy. I’d pick the people competitive advantage every time.”

Getting from vision to reality demands great people, and great people must be developed and nurtured. Great people also must be earned as a product of our leadership. Let me say it differently: We must learn how to exhibit, with discipline, the right leadership behaviors if our objective is to grow and win great people. Only then will we have the capability and confidence to successfully execute our organization’s strategy and turn our greater vision into reality.

While the cliché, “It’s lonely at the top,” is well known, many leaders are still surprised when they encounter the truth of this in their own leadership journey. In its 2013 report, Stepping Up to CEO, the School for CEOs reports that loneliness and isolation were some of the biggest challenges leaders face.

When asked about leadership preparedness, one CEO responded, “I’m not sure that people are fully prepared for the loneliness of the role of being a CEO until they get there.”

There are several reasons why it’s lonely at the top:

• The ultimate responsibility of the company rests on your shoulders. Consequently, you must know things others don’t need to know, and carry things that they can’t.
• Some people will resent your role because they want it.
• Others will assume you have it easy, and push you away.
• Many people will blame you for the pains of their lives.
• You are afraid of the #2’s and #3’s in the organization, and you don’t want to lower your guard.
• Because you like to control your world and protect your autonomy, you inevitably push others back three paces.

The roots of leadership loneliness, therefore, are varied. Some of the roots are simply a part of the job. Others are a product of the sinfulness and frailty of human beings. Jealousy, resentment, accusation, fear, avarice, and greed can pull leaders toward isolation.

Why are loneliness and isolation dangerous for leaders?

Space doesn’t permit us to identify all the inventive ways leaders destroy themselves—as well as their loved ones, organizations, and the livelihood and savings of many—by mishandling their loneliness. If we’re honest, each one of us is an expert on this subject. We know the role that our own isolation plays in our failures.

Without anyone close enough to speak the truth, isolated leaders can tell themselves:

• They deserve special privileges—it’s easy to feel special when everybody says, “yes.”
• They’re above the law.
• They won’t get caught, they can walk on water, and they can negotiate around the law of gravity.

What is dangerous about untended leadership loneliness is the havoc an isolated leader can wreck. We can’t handle the pressures, temptations, and problems of leadership by ourselves. We require help.

What helps to bring a lonely and isolated leader back to life?

• Wise and loving friends—we can’t navigate life’s challenges without them.
• A coach or mentor—a trusted coach or mentor has valuable experience and is familiar with the kinds of pressures we bear.
• Physical exercise—we must work off our stress.
• Spiritual exercise—we must cultivate our heart and soul. Courage, integrity, kindness, and calm come from the inside of a life that is whole.
• The decision to not live for self—there’s no helping an isolated and lonely leader who is selfish. Deciding to live for others is much of the battle.

One of the hardest truths about leadership—and part of the reason that “it’s lonely at the top”—is that we leaders must lead ourselves. Whining that we don’t have trusted friends, or mentors, or any of the other resources we need, is a leadership disqualifier. Leaders take responsibility. We must lead ourselves to the people we need, reach out, ask for help, get a coach, crawl out of bed early to feed our soul, and remind ourselves that we don’t exist for ourselves.

Here are three ideas to get started if you’re facing leadership isolation:

1. Go through your most recent yearbooks, looking for people you were close to and trusted in school. Search for them using Google, Facebook, or LinkedIn, and identify any who are now leaders. You might ask, “What have you found that helps you handle the pressures?” If they respond with, “What pressures?” move on; they can’t help you. If they say something like, “I know what you mean; something I do that helps is…” then consider taking a second step. Ask them if they are available to sit down for an evening, over dinner, and compare notes—friend-to-friend.
2. Do an inventory of the leaders in your region who have 20+ years on you. Think about what you observe in them, and very carefully sort them out, putting the “Graceful, wise, good, kind, and thoughtful” ones onto a short list. Ask yourself, “Which one of these would I like to have a cup of coffee with?” Then reach out. “I’m growing in my leadership,” is a great way to start, “and I’m reaching out to a few people I look up to. May I have 45 minutes of your time to ask you a few questions?” Then prepare well, treat their time respectfully, and see how it goes. If it goes well, you might ask them if they would be willing to do it again, say in another few months.
3. Join a professional mentoring or coaching group. These are great places to connect with executive peers who share your same challenges. At the Center for Serving Leadership, our regional cohorts meet once a month for six months. Throughout this time, participants walk through the 5 Actions of a Serving LeaderSM, and are coached in how to embed each action into the culture of their business. Participants gain valuable insight, sharpen their leadership skills, and build valuable friendship with other leaders in the community.

There is no expectation that leaders are invincible and should not be well cared for. No expectation that a leader doesn’t have a need for true friends, or should only have one mentor. There is an expectation, however, that leaders must take the initiative to search for these things, to discern good from bad, and to find the friends, mentors, and coaches that we need.

1 School For CEOs (2013). Stepping Up To CEO: Preparing For The Role Of Chief Executive. Retrieved from http://www.schoolforceos.com/assets/Managed/School-For-CEOs-Research-Report.pdf

In our early study of and writing about Serving Leaders, I often swapped stories with my co-author, Ken Jennings, on a finding that we both seemed to encounter, time and again, in our various workplace engagements. The finding was simply this: The first evidence of a great leader in the making was a company or organization full of great leaders surrounding them.

We liked – and still like – the paradoxes of life and leadership, and this one didn’t escape our notice. “You’re in charge principally to charge up others,” was how we said it then. Here’s a way I like to say it now: “The greatness of a great leader will often make its first appearance in an act of leadership demonstrated by someone else.”

I would suggest that the field of leadership still hasn’t nailed that which is the essence of leadership. This word – leadership – is a relatively young word, and the science and art of leadership is barely into its second century. (“Lead” is a very old word, of course; what I’m speaking of here is the word, “leadership,” and the discipline of its study and practice.)

Joseph C. Rost, whose untimely passing in 1988 left a huge hole in the field of leadership, did us all the favor of carving the field of leadership down to a more focused and sensible shape. “Leadership is an influence relationship,” a piece of Rost’s famous definition, now can be heard coming out of the mouths of every contemporary leadership guru. Leadership is not force, manipulation, mere achievement, or any number of often-laudable things. Leadership is influence, exercised inside a relationship that produces more leadership.

There have been many terrific business owners, entrepreneurs, chief executives, and general managers who got the job done, kept the train on schedule, met customer expectations, made money, and, quite frankly, kept the organization looking very good! But, on the day they stepped down or retired, the job stopped getting done, the train flew off the rails, and entropy settled in everywhere. Why? Because these owners and executives weren’t true leaders. They didn’t focus on bringing up more leaders, to take over once they were gone.

Essentially, “Leadership Job #1″ is identical to “Succession Planning 101.”

As a great leader today, you must concentrate on teaching and coaching your people to know, value, see, and do what you know, value, see, and do. This takes rigor and intentionality. Fortunately, the 12 – 18 months of focused work this requires will not only prepare your company to thrive without you, it will cause accelerated growth for your company as you bring others up into greater capacity. I would say this falls into the category of “win-win.”

Throw out whatever remains of the notion that “making stuff” and “making money” is what it’s all about. If you’ve been successful for a while, you’ve already thrown much of this notion out. What it’s all about is growing people, serving people, adding value, getting better, pursuing excellence. Build a people and leadership growth flywheel, and profit is maximally served, as is the preparation of future leaders to keep the organization’s growth at a high trajectory.

Find a leader for yourself. Hire a coach. Become a learner. Whatever path works, secure your ability to pour yourself into those who follow you by being a person who is poured into. At the Center for Serving Leadership, we have established cohorts of great leaders around the country who are ready to serve others, and to be served, when it comes to their own and others’ vital leadership development and growth.

Leadership is brought to life through flow. We can’t give if we aren’t receiving. We don’t grow leaders if leaders aren’t growing us. In leadership, like begets like, and that fact applies to the process of growing leaders.

Let’s simplify: We can’t give that which we don’t receive. If you want to grow great leaders, you need to be grown by great leaders.

When I was a boy, I was a dreamer. Starting this blog with that sentence makes it sound like I’m not a dreamer anymore. Nothing could be further from the truth, so allow me to write that first sentence more to my point:

When I was a boy, my mother worried that I was too much of a dreamer.

On many a perfect summer day, my mother noticed me sitting in a rocking chair. My eyes were closed, and I was (you guessed it) rocking—and for great lengths of time. While my memory is far from perfect, I do believe she used the word “lazy” with some regularity in her expressions of worry about me.

What my mom didn’t understand is that I was very busy in that rocker. I was dreaming. I was scheming. I was planning. And I was getting ready. In due course—granted, my boyhood “due-course” could be a solid two hours of rocking—I’d light out of that chair and go pull off a feat or two. Then, I’d step-back, plop down, lay back, and otherwise chill; needing to regroup, appreciate, think and wonder, and start the cycle all over again.

Today, if my mother would watch my day, she’d worry that I’m a workaholic. “Lazy” wouldn’t be part of the conversation. And, I must admit, any concern she might hold for the way I engage the world would likely be closer to the truth today than the concern she held when I was a boy.

I do love to work, and I do work a lot. But it isn’t that I love to work for work’s sake. It’s the completion of things that I love—the creating, building, writing, making, serving, and moving chains that brings me such fulfillment. It isn’t the “do”-ing per se, that I love so much as it’s the “done”-ing. I love to see an idea—a dream, a plan—brought to realization. For me, work is simply an extension of the dream.

Over the years, I’ve been asked with some regularity how I get so much done. I know what works for me, so the following suggestions need to be taken with a grain of salt. Work might happen differently for you, but here are 5 rules I try to follow to help me get stuff done:

1. Master Single-Tasking—Dr. Henry Cloud points out that brain science is clear on the subject of multi-tasking, which, in short, we can’t do. Our brain functions optimally by processing one thing at a time. As we focus on a particular task, our brain is contributing great amounts of background data, all of which is outside our conscious awareness. This background data enables us to focus more clearly and creatively. Every time we flit from project to project—single-tasking in rapid succession and calling it multi-tasking—our brain’s background work gets scrapped. With every skip! Single-tasking allows our brain to bring forward its larger contribution and add it to our task at hand. This vastly improves our productivity and quality of work. Pretending to multi-task is akin to hitting the delete button on great amounts of this “value added work.” It’s a terrible stewardship of time and talent.
2. Break Big Goals Down—When, in the summer of 1999, I turned my attention to the writing phase of my dissertation, I was working very full time at Pittsburgh Leadership Foundation. I took the immense volume of requirements that my dissertation committee gave me and made a colossal spreadsheet out of it, breaking the entire project down into very small bites. Then, I got to work on the small bites. I did them, one step at a time. A great deal of time is squandered staring at an impossible job. I turn big jobs into small jobs, and then I do small jobs.
3. Finish Something, Then Check it Off—I mentioned earlier that I like the word, “done.” Completing a task is energizing to me. I heard a retired military officer tell a graduating class that the reason the soldier always makes his or her bed, first thing, is that it provides an immediate “mission accomplished” for the day. One job done more readily leads to another.
4. Work in Focused Bursts—Here, I am least confident that my way of getting stuff done can be universalized. It works for me to jump full in, take a task to some benchmark of progress, and then step away. I think there may be people who prefer the long, steady pull, so accept this rule for what it’s worth. Yet, I recently had my 120-year-old slate roof replaced. I had already babied it a quarter century past its decrepitude, and could coax nothing else out of it. My contractor hired an extraordinary crew of skilled roofers who removed the old slate, meticulously cleaned my yard, and put on the new roof in just three days! How did they do it? The 14 men worked in 45-minute bursts—45-minutes of full engagement, full attention, full watchfulness for safety, full care for quality. And then they all sat or laid down in my yard for 15 minutes. 45 on, 15 off. And the sustained productivity, safety, and quality were nothing short of stunning!
5. Stop, Step Back, Look Around, Appreciate, Re-Engage—As a boy, I did this in a rocking chair. I find it necessary to step away very regularly, stand up, look out the window, take a breath, and review what I’ve done. A walk, nap, cup of coffee, or break—whatever works. Winston Churchill recommended painting. Yes, the indefatigable Prime Minister of Great Britain picked up his paintbrush, right in the middle of his endless day, and worked on a flower petal. He said it was as worthwhile to his refreshment as a proper nap, which he also took religiously, every single day (Churchill made it clear that a nap was worthless unless you took your clothes off and crawled into bed). What a slacker, Churchill!

What are your productivity hacks? What have you found works for you? When we take a step back and stay true to ourselves before getting down to work, we can bring personal insight (and even a few learned tricks) to help us get stuff done better and faster.

In my nearly 57 years, I’ve walked many long pathways alongside discouraged, depressed, or despairing friends and loved ones. I’ve sat by their bedsides. I’ve listened to the laments and the outcries of dear souls who feel utterly separated from life’s meaning and joy.

The leaders I serve are not immune from this kind of struggle, either. While others would assume their lives are going swimmingly, leaders, too, can descend into deep discouragement and malaise, even right in the midst of apparent triumph.

Milonica, my beloved wife of 35 years, has encountered long seasons of abject darkness; She who is—hands down—the brightest, most colorful, most deeply alive, and courageous human being I have ever known. And beautiful. Just saying.

When I was a young man, I was terrified of such despair, and I didn’t want to let it come close to me. But over the years, I’ve learned to be a companion to my friends and loved ones in their times of suffering. I’ve learned to be present, to walk alongside, and to be, simply, with. I’ve also learned to listen; really listen, beyond the noise of my own answers and my need to fix (which Milonica credits to my XY chromosome pattern).

One of the simplest and most frequently asked questions I’ve heard over the decades is, “What’s it all for?” This question is asked in a variety of ways: “What’s the use?” “What does any of this mean?” “What’s the point?” Or, when really stripped bare, the question comes out more simply as, “Why?” “Why am I even alive?”

We should be deeply curious about the fact that these questions—and this kind of despair—can strike anybody, visit every kind of circumstance, and torment all types of people. We human beings require meaning, is the short of it, and this fact should raise the hairs on the back of our necks. People who have every advantage, privilege, and perk of life can be brought to their knees with questions about life’s meaning. As can people suffering the worst of human privation. Equally astonishing is the availability of hope, which is no more a respecter of persons than despair. The privileged can live in hope, as can the poor.

A human person needs meaning and purpose, just as a daisy needs sun. We are more than the sum of our material parts; that is for sure. There is a life force – a law of our nature – that is at work within us, beyond survival and material want, and this life force cries out for purpose.

Listening closely over the years to the people I love and serve, I have learned that in our “search for meaning,” money, fame, power, and pleasure do not bring us satisfaction. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with money, fame, power, or pleasure. But men and women who believe that these things are the ultimate goal of life often report, when they gain them, that their despair only worsens.

So, what does answer the heart’s cry for purpose? Thus far in my listening and in my paying attention, I have identified six answers to this question. The human person cries out:

1. To be known. We have, within us, an unassailable conviction that we are somebody, uniquely so, with a one-of-a-kind identity. In order to be known, we must go on a journey of learning about who we are, reflecting on our own life, and opening ourselves to feedback and discovery. We, ourselves, need to know who we are, just as we need others to know who we are.
2. To be needed. Darwinian survival of the fittest misses the point. Human beings perish when they aren’t needed, useful, valued, or put to service. The retiree who doesn’t have anybody to get out of bed for doesn’t have long to live. Fitness is useful to our survival, but only in the way that coffee beans are useful to a barista; fitness (and coffee beans) can’t explain what gets a human being out of bed in the morning—to make coffee or to do anything else. That somebody needs us can explain our desire to live.
3. To make a difference. Beyond being needed, we want to have a real impact in the world. We want to leave an imprint, to be effectual, to be heard and seen and felt. We long to know that the world is different—better—because we lived.
4. To create. I have never met a human being that didn’t have an idea, a vision, a plan, or a scheme to bring something into existence. Parents create, as well as painters, entrepreneurs, gardeners, and pianists. Integral to our humanness is the inclination to take a notion, and then to bring into existence that thing we conceived.
5. To love and to be loved. The truth about our requirements for love—both to love and to be loved—is manifest everywhere on earth. Suffice it to say that, arguably, the human person is the only creature on earth who cannot survive, let alone thrive, without love. Love is a human requirement, as is food, air, and water.
6. To have purpose. Taken together, our cry to be known, to be needed, to make a difference, to create, and to have loving relationships constitutes our experience of purpose. And purpose is required. Life is simply impossible without it.

Recently, late-night talk show host Jimmy Fallon fell in his apartment and nearly lost his finger when he caught his wedding ring on the corner of a table as he was going down. The entire ordeal landed him in the ICU for 10 days, which gave him time to think about his life and his purpose. During his hospitalization, Fallon read Victor Frankl’s classic, Man’s Search for Meaning, which he “absolutely loved.” “I know the meaning of life,” Fallon recently said to his audience. “If anyone’s suffering at all, this is my job … this is why I’m here, I want to spread the love.”

Fallon gets it. What’s it all for? We’re here for others. Frankl says it this way:

A man who becomes conscious of the responsibility he bears toward a human being who affectionately waits for him, or to an unfinished work, will never be able to throw away his life. He knows the “why” for his existence, and will be able to bear almost any “how.”

Values are the foundation of an organization’s culture. Where Great Purpose addresses why we work, values guide how we work. This guidance will be intentional, or it will be unintentional, because every organization has values. The question is: “Will we choose the values that will guide us, or will we allow ourselves to be pushed around by the riptides of opportunity and crisis?”

Identify and Define Your Values

The enterprise that says – “We don’t waste our time on things like values. We’ve got a business to run!” – is, in reality, showing their underlying values. Examine the pattern of decisions and you’ll know what their “values statement” would say.

The business that says it values integrity, but rewards the salesperson bringing in the most business while cutting ethical corners, is displaying its true values. The stated values are not real, of course, but the company still has values. By their fruit, you will know!

Question: Why do identifying and defining a company’s core values, and then intentionally guiding the enterprise accordingly, attract and keep extraordinary people?

Answer: Human beings won’t give their discretionary effort – their imagination, heart, conviction, or honor – to a company that doesn’t mean what it says. Human beings might decide that they need to stick with a bad company in order to keep a paycheck coming, but human beings won’t go the second or third or fourth or fifth (or tenth) mile for such an enterprise.

Question: What makes great companies great?

Answer: Human beings who go the second or third or fourth or fifth (or tenth) mile, without having to be told or asked.

Question: How do you get human beings like that?

Answer: You identify and define your values. Then you do two additional things, which we’ll dive into next.

Hire, Manage and Reward Based on Values

When Paul O’Neill became Chairman and CEO of Alcoa in 1987, he informed his board and upper management that worker safety was his number one priority. But for O’Neill, a declared value had to be translated into action, into how money got spent and how managers made decisions day by day. “In every organization, written values statements all say the same thing,” he remarked later to a group of Harvard University business students. “‘Our most important asset is our people.’ There’s [very] little evidence that it’s true in most organizations.”

Making values operational was O’Neill’s preoccupation, and for him that included planning, decision-making, hiring, and firing. It also included organization, supervision, employee evaluation, and rewarding success. In fact, the world’s breakaway companies hire for values. They look for the integrity, drive, humility, respect, honesty, capacity to accept feedback, humor, courage, etc. that the company values. “Really smart” does not cut it if ego runs roughshod over everyone. “Highly competent” is always replaceable.

When O’Neill took over the reins at Alcoa, revenue was $1.5 billion. When he retired 13 years later, revenue was $23 billion. In this same period, O’Neill improved the safety record within Alcoa’s workforce of 140,000 employees from 1.86 lost workday incidents per 100 employees per year, to 0.2 lost workday incidents per 100 employees per year. His goal throughout that period was to drive that number all the way to zero.

Hold Self and Others Accountable for the Values

People and organizations are judged based on their behavior, not their words. Trust is established and sustained based on actions not promises. Therefore, making sure that values matter starts with the actions of the leader. Leaders must walk the talk and they must ask those around them to also be held accountable for modeling the values.

In Managing By Values, by Ken Blanchard and Michael O’Connor, an organizational chart is depicted, looking very typical in many respects. The line-level workers are depicted at the bottom. Above them are mid-level managers and above them, the executive team, then the CEO. Above the CEO is a final box on the chart, occupied by “The Company’s Values.” In other words, everyone answers to the values.

One of the CEO’s I work with told his story: “When I took over, morale was terrible, there was no standard of behavior from team to team, and the culture was Darwinian. Fear ruled. When I first introduced the importance of values, everyone was skeptical, but I stuck to my guns. In time, I won believers, and the culture began to shift. People began to test me by doing what our values said. I praised them, including when it cost us money. Naturally, I began to win more and more believers.

“One day, I was on the plant floor talking to a maintenance man, and I made a little joke – a criticism, to be honest – at the expense of one of my managers. The maintenance man became very quiet, scuffed his feet on the floor, took a deep breath, and then looked me in the eye. ‘Boss,’ he said, ‘You’ve been talking about how we should respect each other. I beg your pardon, but I don’t think that was respectful.’

“That was the day I knew that we had broken through!” the CEO concluded. “A maintenance worker called me out on a values violation! It was one of the best days of my life!”

Again, I ask the question: What makes great companies great? If you take the time and steps necessary to identify and define your values, then hire, manage, and reward based upon those values, and ultimately hold yourself and others accountable for those values, you will have created a great company full of great people who will always go the extra mile for you.

It all starts with leaders and managers who translate their “good intentions” to be people of ethical standards into people who live out those values in their organizations every day.

Robert Greenleaf catalyzed a modern “servant leadership movement” in management philosophy over the last 40 years. His famous quote on the subject was this: “Do those served grow as persons; do they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants?”

This is the right question to ask. Do the people you lead – do the people you serve – become stronger, gain sharpness, grow in excellence and initiative, and deepen their sense of worth and purpose as a result of your leadership? And just why is this the right question? It’s the right question, simply because the people you serve do all the work. The more awesome they become, the more awesome their work.

When Jim Collins, author of Good to Great, went searching for the secret to company greatness, he told his researchers to not come back and tell him it was leadership. He believed that greatness had to be the result of many people doing great things. There weren’t enough leaders in an enterprise to account for all the great stuff going on. Collins was right that the leaders weren’t doing all the great stuff. However, he discovered that he was wrong in telling his researchers to discount leadership from the equation.

Simply, leaders create the conditions that equip, inspire, support, guide, and encourage people to reach for greatness. Leaders create those conditions, or they create the opposite. Depending on your leadership, people will choose to give their all or they will choose to be utterly miserly in what they do on the job.

A new research study on the impact of servant leadership by the University of Illinois at Chicago backs this up. Published in the Academy of Management Journal, the study revealed that when managers put the needs of their employees over their own – in essence, create a serving leader culture – measurable improvements in job performance and customer satisfaction resulted. In other words, serving leadership is not just a nice thing to do. When leaders authentically serve their employees, the conditions for organizational greatness are created.

When I work with leaders, I teach 15 simple behaviors essential in creating those conditions. These behaviors address leaders’ responsibilities across five strategic facets of their work. Sometimes I’m asked if these 15 behaviors are sequential, or if they have a hierarchy of priority or value. This question is born from a desire to know where to start the work of getting better as a leader.

The truth is that any leader who has some track record and some success is already doing many right things. In other words, you’ve already started. The best thing to do is to (a.) get clear on what “right” looks like, (b.) assess where you’re already strong, and where the low-hanging fruit is to get better, and (c.) work on the next thing that you know you can improve.

That said, let me offer the most elementary behavior that we teach: “Serve Others First.” This is the foundation stone of any business – we serve a customer, or we don’t have a business. It is also the foundation stone of leadership.

Ask yourself this question: “In my leadership, do I want to serve others?” If the answer is “no,” there isn’t much I can do to help, other than to encourage you toward a deep self-examination of what you want out of life. Serving yourself as the chief aim in life cannot lead to good things.

But if the answer is “yes”—that is, you choose to become the kind of leader who will serve others first—I can help in very concrete and practical ways.

Here’s a simple self-assessment that will guide you into an important action plan:

1. Do I know the people I am serving? What do they value? What are their goals? What do they like and dislike about their job? As leaders, we must explore these areas if we are to know our people well enough to serve them!
2. Am I genuinely interested in the success of the people I serve?
3. Am I providing the coaching and the feedback my people need to grow?
4. Am I sharing the information that my people want and need in order to do their job effectively?

If you answered “no” to any of these, try this out: First, make a list of three people you serve—people that you lead. Second, honestly commit yourself to learn as much as possible about them. Third, make a small list of questions you need to ask them. Finally, make a plan—with a deadline—of when you will take them to lunch or for coffee, and really begin to learn what you need to know.

Make it your business to discover what they are seeking, how they are doing, and what they need to succeed. Write it down, put follow-ups in your planner, and take action to serve them in their pursuits. Their progress is your progress.

When I give an executive this assignment, I am frequently told, “This is just common sense.” And, I agree. It is common sense, but unfortunately, it is not common practice.

A bank CEO once sorted through the array of training and coaching offerings I had given him and then selected this exact point of focus – Serve Others First. He set up meetings with his executive assistant, his Chief Operating Officer, and on through his list of direct reports. He discovered he knew close to nothing about what got these people out of bed in the morning. It shamed him, and he took action to correct this leadership gap. Today, that CEO reports that this “common sense” behavior transformed his bank, the lives of many who work for him, and their collective capacity to bring extraordinary service to their customers.

Serving others is the foundation stone of business, and it is the foundation stone of leadership. Who will you serve today?