Over the past five years, the subject of leadership has been of greater interest to managers and management writers. In 1999, Richard Donkins of The Financial Times described the U.S. business attitude as “a fixation bordering on obsession [with] the qualities needed for corporate leadership.” Now, in 2001, with a fragile economy, leadership is even more of a buzzword.

Leadership matters because the vision you have for your company, along with the passion and effort that you’ve invested, must be transferred to those who are responsible for seeing it become reality.

It is up to you to make that passion contagious. As Warren Buffet, president of the highly prosperous Berkshire Hathaway Inc., based out of Omaha, Neb., has said, “People are voting for the artist, not the painting.”

John J. Brennan, chairman and CEO of The Vanguard Group, recently gave a speech to other CEOs in Philadelphia about the art of managing people as a business leader. “We recognize that what our people do every day has the potential to increase our net worth or destroy it,” said Brennan.

Distributors are sometimes slow to see the value of their relationships with employees, because they are so focused on concrete results such as bottom line.

An old Chinese proverb conveys the importance of investing in employees:

“If you want one year of prosperity, grow grain. If you want ten years of prosperity, grow trees. If you want 100 years of prosperity, grow people.”

The first step to leading, however, is not just being familiar with the people you lead, but understanding the leadership style you are most comfortable with. While there are probably hundreds of personalities that people associate with leadership, there are three that jump to the forefront for distributors.

The Lion
The first leadership style, is that of the natural-born leader. This is the kind of business person who has always been a leader, by personality, and probably always will be. Ted Turner, for example, of Turner Broadcasting in Atlanta, has been known for having great self-motivation, despite the criticism of others. On his desk, Turner has a plaque with the old U.S. Army phrase, “Lead, follow or get out of the way.”
It is not just business sense or a certain strategy that has inspired people to follow Turner, but seemingly his overall desire to move forward and take no prisoners. The Lion leader is not afraid to take risks and is always at the front of the pack.

At Boston University’s school of business management many resources have been invested in The Leadership Institute. One of the faculty there, Horst Abraham is an instructor and also a nationally ranked competitive sailor. He is president and founder of Paragon Consulting, providers of organizational business development, and is an avid mountain climber. He is also on retainer with the Sony Corp. of Japan as a quality consultant. Obviously, Abraham is a Lion leader whom others want to follow because of his passion and zest for life.

This kind of leader is associated with great victory, but also with great defeat – an all-or-nothing attitude.

Many distributors who have started their own businesses can relate to the great risk of stepping out into the unknown without much (if any) security. Winston Churchill could also be characterized as a Lion leader, having said, “History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it.”

The Comrade
While the Lion leadership style invokes images of grandeur and greatness, it also comes with a significant price. Often, it is not realistic to be a leader who gives everything for the sake of success. More often, leadership means expanding your personality to meet the needs of your workers – without sacrificing everything.

Therefore, the Comrade, or friend, is a common leadership style. Employees, especially those in sales, need to know that you are on their side and that they will not be in trouble because of one bad sale. Often it is an encourager who is needed, someone who can inspire those who are dragging behind to pick up the pace and continue to motivate those who are doing well.

The distance between employee and employer must be kept, but Comrade leaders walk that line well. They are good at making it known that the entire company, managers included, are “in this together.” And when things go well, they often reflect praise onto the workers, rather than basking in the light of prosperity alone.

The Comrade leader is different than the Lion-Hearted in that the leadership style is usually cloaked in humility. Such a leader might share about personal shortcomings with employees at a meeting, conveying a feeling of trust and loyalty that employees will hopefully return.

The Innovator
In Brennan’s experience as CEO of The Vanguard, a mutual fund company with $580 billion in assets, he might not agree with the Comrade leadership style of showing employees your humanity despite your position. “We all know that anyone who is human experiences times when things aren’t going well in their personal lives,” says Brennan.

He says that running a business comes with many challenges: personally, financially and corporately. But he says that when things are bad, a real leader will stay positive and keep the ship afloat. “It’s the leaders’ responsibility to make work challenging, enjoyable and rewarding for their people. And in my opinion, you cannot do that except by creating a positive environment.”

A manager who is always thinking, learning and adjusting to the most current situations is just as powerful as the dynamic personality. Author Victor Hugo once wrote, “There is one thing stronger than the armies of this world, and that is an idea whose time has come.”

General Electric’s Jack Welch once said that he had three jobs as CEO: selecting the right people, allocating the capital resources, and spreading ideas quickly. Those ideas are what make the Innovator a valuable leader.

Understanding how you can best lead your employees is a large part of successful management. Some managers will say that because employees are motivated by their own financial gain, a manager’s leadership style is irrelevant.

The more you understand which leadership style you are most comfortable with, the better you can lead.

Remember, it is best for employees to follow you and to buy into the vision of the company, not just work for a paycheck. “It is a terrible thing,” said President Franklin D. Roosevelt, “to look over your shoulder when you are trying to lead and find no one there.”




POSTED ON: 9/1/2001