Leaders need to be seen to be heard

In The Leadership Challenge, Max De Pree, former chairman and CEO of Herman Miller told a story about his infant granddaughter being born premature. The nurse told him and his wife to make sure every single day to lovingly rub and interact with baby Zoe to help nurture her and give her the love and support that she needed to overcome the difficulties ahead of her. De Pree found from this experience that "at the core of becoming a leader is the need to always connect one's voice to one's touch". I think there is something to be said about leaders making sure to still have personal interactions with people in the company every single day. Leaders need to clarify their values and express themselves, and sometimes that’s hard to do via a memo, email, or teleconference. We as a society need to get back to having personal discussions and relaying our passions to an audience, not an email chain.

The reading in The Leadership Challenge talks about how important it is for a leader to find their own voice in the first place. Leaders using canned phrases, boring jargon, or words that aren’t theirs but someone else’s can cause them to lose all credibility. It’s hard to inspire people with your own words without having a personal interaction with them. You can’t see the passion and dedication of certain non-verbal’s over an office email.

After the recent passing of Senator Ted Kennedy (by the way, how does the birth name Edward Moore become shortened to ‘Ted’?) I was reminded of this speech given by his older brother, John, at his presidential inauguration. This speech was delivered 21 years before I was born, yet when I watch it, I see a man who knows it is his time to be a leader, and he’s putting his stamp on the exact way he plans to carry out being an inspiring leader. You can see the importance of the message that he is delivering by the passion he has.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VB6hLg3PRbY

It's important to incorporate leadership traits of famous people we admire, but to many of us these are larger than life type of people. In my opinion it's more vital to take the strengths and weaknesses of leaders we know on a personal level more. While we are intrigued with people like MLK and Ghandi, to many of us they are just people we see archive clips of or read about....we can gain more insight on leadership from people we really know and work with all of our lives - teachers, principals, clergy, bosses, family, etc. This goes back to the interactions that are needed to truly lead. We see these people in our lives. We get to see with our own eyes the things they do that make them truly great and inspirational leaders to us.

One more thing brought up in the reading that I found interesting was this quote: "It's not enough for leaders to deliver a rousing speech or talk about lofty ideals or a promising future. Constituents are more deeply moved by deeds.” Leaders can't say that they need to have workers fully committed to their jobs, but then skip out on Friday afternoon for a round of golf. They can't say belt tightening needs to be done - and then take a private jet or stay in a fancy hotel. People see these action too, and react based on what they see their leaders doing. Leaders need to have action back up their words. Employees want leaders with strong character. They want to know the people that they work for are upstanding and noble. Gordon Gecko said greed is good -and for some people that might be the way they live their lives - but most people want to work for people that they know have their best intentions at heart.

"The leaders we personally admire are rich sources of information about our own values and beliefs". This was a final thought from the reading that I found interesting. I'm personally not in a true leadership position right now. I have oversight over some workers, but I don't truly have any leadership responsibilities. However, I know what I've learned and liked from leaders that I would like to implement when I am a leader...conversely, I also know what I don't like about some of the leaders I've encountered, and hope to do some things differently than they do.

The one thing more than anything that I will make sure to do when I am a leader is to interact with my employees all the time. If something can be done in person instead of over an email, I will go that extra mile. I want them to see me put on my workout clothes and move a large piece of furniture if it needs to be done. I want to shake their hands and slap them on the back after a job well done. Little things like that inspire people, and make them see they have a leader who is truly there for them, and understands the value of hard work and daily interactions.