Being a "good" organisation is nothing special any more. To flourish in a rapidly changing world it is essential that the organisation be able to break through the "good" bracket, which is now nothing more than mediocrity. Foremost amongst the tools required to become sustainedly magnificent, is magnificent leadership.
Magnificent leadership stands at the top of a leadership scale that looks like this:
- Magnificent leadership
- Dynamic leadership
- Competent leadership and management
- Worthy and committed team member
- Capable self-leadership
The bulk of history's famed leaders like Napoleon, Julius Caesar, and General George Patton were of the second order. Why? Because a key characteristic of magnificent leadership is humility and non-ego centred, steadfast focus. That doesn't mean they don't have an ego, but that their ego is satisfied by focusing on achieving the organisation's vision above all else.
Examples of magnificent leaders are Nelson Mandela, Abraham Lincoln and Mahatma Gandhi. Sometimes magnificent leaders can fall from grace. Alexander the Great, a magnificent leader who would ride up and down columns of his followers all day, helping and encouraging them to march on, was murdered after he decided to become a living god and ignore the needs of his followers!
Magnificent leaders ensure they groom a similarly focused successor before they leave. The second order leader more often leaves a leadership vacuum.
Magnificent leaders are resolute in pursuing the organisation's vision with humility and perseverance. Consequently, the organisation receives the most attention, not the leader, and the magnificent leader prefers that.
Consistent with their humility, when things go wrong, magnificent leaders seek the cause, take responsibility and ask themselves what they can do to ensure the matter is rectified. When things work out, they seek people other than themselves to give the credit to.
Magnificent leaders do not need or seek accolades or attention for themselves, but seek to earn the loyalty and respect of their team, by dogged focus on achieving the shared vision.
Magnificent leaders are always learning, able to adapt, yet remaining true to their values and purpose.
Magnificent leaders acquire the following competencies:
- Attitudinal competence - The ability to select, generate, sustain and adapt the most appropriate attitude right here, right now.
- Self acceptance - The ability to accept themselves fully and the wisdom to improve themselves in line with their values and abilities.
- Ego management - The ability to be aware of the present state of their ego and adapt it so that their best leadership values are in operation, not just their ego.
- Empowerment competence - The ability to share values, vision and information, and ask questions that encourage effective thinking, problem solving and ownership of the outcomes.
- Practical leadership competencies - The ability to choose timely and effective balance and distinctions between:
| Leadership |
Magnificent leadership |
| Demanding one's own answers to be accepted |
Accepting answers from others |
| Being tell-oriented |
Being listen-oriented |
| Making all decisions personally |
Empowering others to make decisions |
| Pushing people for results |
Pulling people towards a vision |
| Analysing always |
Listening to intuition |
| Creating sporadic motivation |
Generating lasting commitment |
| Highly opinionated |
Open-minded |
| Teaching subordinates to expect direction |
Teaching self-responsibility |
| Self-protecting |
Modeling self-responsibility |
| Afraid of losing control |
Relaxing control to allow results |
| Focus on finding and fixing problems |
Focusing on building on strengths |
| Quick to denounce failure |
Teaching how to learn from mistakes |
Ultimately, the magnificent leader can only be effective if they also ensure the following occurs, in order, which are the remainder of what's required to achieve a magnificent organisation:
- Ensuring they have the right people in the right places
- Involving all the people to obtain the absolute truth about where the organisation is right now
- Involving all the people in determining the common ground between what the organisation loves doing; what they can be the best at; and what generates optimum viability
- Developing a culture of self-discipline
- Using functional systems and technology to gain leverage
- Continuously developing trust and respect amongst each other
Author Credits
David Deane-Spread is an executive performance and behavioural coach, educator, strategic facilitator and author. His special interests are Attitudinal Competence, Leadership Development, Corporate Improvement and Resolving Human Dysfunction in the workplace and community, by helping them develop methods they can use themselves. 'Great Attitudes and Great Leadership - Two Most Important Learnable Skills.' For further information, visit the web site: www.daviddeane-spread.com/index.html