Archive for the ‘Qualities of a Quintessential Leader’ Category

Unquintessential Leadership News for Week Ending February 15, 2013

Posted: February 15, 2013 in Examples and Analyses of Lack of Leadership and Unquintessential Leadership, Examples and Analyses of Quintessential Leadership, General Things about Quintessential Leadership, Myths and Misconceptions About Management, Qualities of a Quintessential Leader, Quintessential Leadership, Quintessential Leadership is an Art, Team Building & Development
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I plan to make this a weekly feature on this blog, beginning with today’s post. I’ve done this type of post a couple of times already this year, breaking a story or two down in detail.

However, beginning with this post I will summarize the stories – some you’ve heard and some you probably missed – and give a big-picture statement about the the failure of quintessential leadership in each of them, and then invite you, as quintessential leaders, to do your own more in-depth analysis about the quintessential leadership failure aspects of each of them.

I do this because the heart and core of who I am is a coach. My role as a coach is to highlight and guide, but I firmly believe that each of us must actually put some effort into the analysis, the learning, and the application process to fully benefit from it. We’re on this journey to become fully quintessential leaders together. Therefore, we must all be engaged and participating in the process. I invite you to join me in meeting that goal.

The first story of unquintessential leadership that caught my attention this week was the FBI sting that left 10 Atlanta police officers facing corruption charges, when it became clear that they were accepting large sums of money from street gangs to provide protection during drug deals. Law enforcement is entrusted with protecting those of us who obey the laws – local, state, national – and removing those who don’t – street gangs and drug dealers certainly are among those – and this is yet another example of that trust and trustworthiness being broken.  That is unquintessential leadership.

For a detailed and in-depth discussion of the components and traits involved in building trust and being trustworthy, please purchase my eBook, Building Trust and Being Trustworthy. You can also purchase a paperback copy from Amazon or a Kindle version.

The second story also involves law enforcement – Chris Dorner, who was terminated by the Los Angeles Police Department in 2009, and took a resoundingly unquintessential leadership route to protest what he believed was an unfair and unmerited – which it could well have been – termination. It doesn’t take much, from a big-picture point of view, to see how this is unquintessential leadership. Any claims that Dorner had about bias, prejudice, and mistreatment during his tenure and in his termination from the LAPD (he laid this out in a very coherent, well-organized document that shows this was an intelligent, sane man talking) were erased by how he chose to force the issue: with threats, murders, and hostage-taking. Eventually it cost Chris Dorner his life – who didn’t know that would be how it ended? – but if there were any real problems that he wanted addressed and corrected, no one will listen or do anything about it because the last actions of his life seem to support his termination.

Beyond the obvious – I do hope the obvious is obvious – what can we learn from this about how we resolve issues and about how our methods need to be consistent with quintessential leadership? It’s important to remember that not every issue, dispute, or disagreement is win or lose, with no in between. Some are. But those involve moral foundations and principles and are non-negotiable under any circumstances.

But for the everyday issues, disputes, and disagreements we deal with, are we able to see that a draw is sometimes quintessential leadership in action? The “how” we do something matters as much as the “what” and “why.” Are you the kind of person who draws a line in the sand about absolutely everything? If so, you’re not a quintessential leader.

I urge you to take some time to think about this in your own lives. I have seen many people with legitimate whats and whys go down in flames because of how they tried to address and resolve them. On the other hand, I’ve seen just as many people who had absolutely no basis for their whats and whys – in in many cases, were completely on the wrong side of everything – prevail because of how they dealt with them. Both of these are the extremes, but it should be a lesson for us.

Another story of unquintessential leadership this week involves a company. Carnival Cruise Lines failed all leadership tests this week with their handling of the result of an engine room fire on Carnival Triumph earlier this week. The right – and quintessential leadership – action would have been to send some means of rescue (ferries, another ship with support to do the transfer, etc.) out immediately. Carnival Cruise Lines didn’t do that because of the cost involved. Their greed – as well as their belief that their industry is “bullet-proof” – underlines the lack of quintessential leadership at this company.

I read a statement from Carnival Cruise Line CEO Gerry Cahill this morning and if I were on the board of directors for this company, he would have been terminated right after this statement: “We pride ourselves on providing our guests with a great vacation experience, and clearly we failed in this particular case.”  Failure was simply a matter of not providing a great vacation experience? Mr. Cahill is an unquintessential leader in action.

Another continuing story of unquintessential leadership this week are the Armed Services Committee confirmation hearings on Chuck Hagel as Secretary of Defense. The “politics-as-usual” circus surrounding this highlights how much of a lack of any quintessential leadership there is in American politics. But freshman senator Ted Cruz of Texas brought the unquintessential leadership spotlight on himself this week during the hearings. Read the story. This is not quintessential leadership. Period.

And the last story of unquintessential leadership that I’ll point out today is the story of Oscar Pistorius. You can read the story if you don’t know it already. Any time I hear of athletes involved in incidents like this, my first thought goes to overinflated egos – an unquintessential leadership trait. My second thought goes to the rampant use of performance-enhancing drugs among professional and Olympic athletes, which is illegal, unfair, and wrong – also unquintessential leadership traits – and the emotional and hormonal side-effects of those drugs, which can contribute to actions like these.

Ultimately, though, the full responsibility for this falls solely and completely on Oscar Pistorius. If he took performance-enhancing drugs, he knew the risks, and he made the choice. All the tears, shaking, and “strongest denials possible” won’t change the fact the he is responsible for every choice he made – including this one.

Kindle Version of Building Trust and Being Trustworthy Now Available

Posted: February 11, 2013 in About The Quintessential Leader Blog, Examples and Analyses of Lack of Leadership and Unquintessential Leadership, Examples and Analyses of Quintessential Leadership, General Things about Quintessential Leadership, Myths and Misconceptions About Management, Qualities of a Quintessential Leader, Quintessential Leadership, Quintessential Leadership is an Art, Team Building & Development
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The Kindle version of  Building Trust and Being Trustworthy is now available on Amazon. You can purchase it here.

Building Trust and Being Trustworthy eBook Available

Posted: February 11, 2013 in About The Quintessential Leader Blog, Examples and Analyses of Lack of Leadership and Unquintessential Leadership, Examples and Analyses of Quintessential Leadership, General Things about Quintessential Leadership, Myths and Misconceptions About Management, Qualities of a Quintessential Leader, Quintessential Leadership, Quintessential Leadership is an Art, Team Building & Development
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Want to know the heart, the core, the soul of what being a quintessential leader is? It is building trust and being trustworthy. Without this, you cannot be a quintessential leader. Without this, you cannot be a leader. Period.

Let’s get real. It doesn’t matter how many platitudes you give. It doesn’t matter how many buzz words you use. It doesn’t matter how many leadership seminars you conduct, how many leadership articles you write, how many leadership lectures you give. If you are not living and being these traits of building trust and being trustworthy, then you are not a quintessential leader and your example, your seminars, your writing, your lectures are perpetuating a fraud on your teams, your students, your readers, and your audiences.

As quintessential leaders, our responsibility is to build trust and be trustworthy. We say that is who we are, but do we really know how far that commitment takes us? It’s definitely the narrow path, but to be genuine, authentic, and quintessential leaders and not wannabe’s, which is what we see around us in most of the people in leadership positions, we must commit and adhere to that. Otherwise, there will be no real leadership.

Let’s make sure we’re not pretenders. Let’s make sure we’re not following the crowd. Let’s make sure we know what we need to do – from our families, because this is where quintessential leadership starts, for our neighbors, for our teams, for our business units, for our organizations, for our towns, for our states, for our countries, for our brothers and sisters in the human race.

You and I have a personal responsibility to do this. It doesn’t matter whether anyone else is doing it or not. You and I answer for ourselves alone, not for anyone else. Anything less than ensuring that you and I are fulfilling our responsibility to build trust and be trustworthy is an excuse.

Quintessential leadership doesn’t have excuses. It is action. Let’s take action today. None of us is guaranteed tomorrow.

New Series Coming: Quintessential Leadership Analyses of Historical Leaders

Posted: February 11, 2013 in Examples and Analyses of Lack of Leadership and Unquintessential Leadership, Examples and Analyses of Quintessential Leadership, General Things about Quintessential Leadership, Myths and Misconceptions About Management, Qualities of a Quintessential Leader, Quintessential Leadership, Quintessential Leadership is an Art, Team Building & Development
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Beginning this week, I will be starting a new series of posts that will evaluate how quintessential – or not – the leadership of well-known people in history that held leadership positions was.

This idea came as an outgrowth of a request from a very good friend of mine to consider writing a “real” history book – an idea that I’m researching and considering seriously – to counter all the mostly skewed, angled, and sometimes outright untrue information that passes for history these days – in education, in non-fiction writing, and on the internet. 

It seems that we, as humans, have become lazy enough to believe just about anything without proving or disproving it and we like “smooth words” more than the truth.

The history of humanity is ugly. If we, as quintessential leaders, look honestly and closely at ourselves, we’ll admit that some of our personal history is ugly too. It seems, though, that a lot of people would rather just lie about it or doctor it up, instead of facing it and doing something about it to clean it up and make our future histories not ugly.

Once lies and deception become part of our histories and established histories, then we’ve lost the battle for change, for betterment, and, in fact, to become quintessential leaders. Let’s be sure that we’re not afraid to be honest, with ourselves, with our histories, with the world’s history. Only when we face the truth about all of these are we ever in a position it to change it and do something better and different.

Quintessential Leadership Traits of Hillary Rodham Clinton

Posted: January 25, 2013 in Examples and Analyses of Quintessential Leadership, General Things about Quintessential Leadership, Qualities of a Quintessential Leader, Quintessential Leadership, Quintessential Leadership is an Art, Team Building & Development
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I am a close observer of people who are in leadership positions. I look for quintessential leadership traits in them, as part of who they are as people. I don’t always agree with their positions on things nor do I wholeheartedly support and approve of everything they are associated with.

I strip all that stuff away however when I’m looking at people to determine whether they have quintessential leadership traits or not. Because quintessential leadership traits are what should be important to all of us who are in leadership positions.

So when I write about someone here, I’m pointing out where they do – or don’t – possess quintessential leadership traits. Period. Because that’s what this blog is about.

Hillary Rodham Clinton has proven over time that she has many quintessential Secretary of State Hillary Clintonleadership traits and that she continues to hone those and grow in maturity in them. We can learn a lot from briefly reviewing them.

One quintessential leadership trait that Hillary Clinton has is resiliency. When she first emerged on the national scene during President Bill Clinton’s first presidential run, she made a lot of comments that made her unpopular with older Americans, it seemed. When she emerged as a working First Lady, Hillary Clinton seemed to lose even more popularity. At that time, it seemed that a lot of the American public despised her.

She resoundingly failed to change national public health care, which was the cause she took on in President Clinton’s first term in office, and that failure brought more condemnation and dismissal from a large segment of the population and elected officials. 

During President Clinton’s second term in office, Hillary Clinton endured personal humiliation and condemnation because of President Clinton’s infidelity.

However, because of the quintessential leadership trait of resiliency, Hillary Clinton never quit, and shortly after the second Clinton presidential term, successfully ran for a senate seat to represent New York in Congress.

In 2008, Senator Hillary Clinton ran an unsuccessful primary campaign against Senator Barack Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination. It went badly for a lot of reasons and Senator Barack Obama won the nomination.

Once again, Senator Clinton did not quit, and by this time had, through her work in the Senate, shown her knowledge, skill, and ability to be the obvious choice to lead the State Department and easily won confirmation as Secretary of State during President Obama’s first term in office.

It has been in this role as Secretary of State that the other quintessential leadership traits of Secretary Clinton have really come to light.

One of those quintessential leadership traits that Secretary Clinton has shown is a thorough knowledge of her job. While all quintessential leaders will sometimes let things slip through the cracks, even with thorough knowledge, given the opportunity to explain the circumstances and complexity of their work, it becomes clear that, as much as humanly possible, they are on top of everything.

Such is the case with  the Benghazi attack in Libya on September 11, 2012 that left Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans dead. Secretary Clinton was aware of the danger – generally, not specifically to Ambassador Chris Stevens’ situation in Libya – and was continually and exhaustively dealing with several different countries at the same time in trying to keep everyone out of harm’s way. A cable from Ambassador Stevens requesting more security did not get to Secretary Clinton personally and American lives were lost.

Secretary Clinton’s immediate responses within the State Department and publicly show two other quintessential leadership traits she has.

First, Secretary Clinton took responsibility for the problems that led to the death of four Americans in Libya. She acknowledged, among other things, the procedural problem in the State Department that made this cable from Ambassador Stevens not get bumped up to her attention.

Second, Secretary Clinton took action to right the wrongs that existed by completely accepting and working immediately on making all 24 recommendations for change within the State Department made by an independent report on the Benghazi attack released in December 2012.

Another less-touted and harder-to-accomplish quintessential leadership trait that Secretary Clinton – unlike the majority of her government colleagues – showed was humility. Instead of denying, rejecting, blaming, and refusing to change, Secretary Clinton listened to and took the recommendations of others, even though it meant admitting her own failure. It takes a big person to do that and that is a huge quintessential leadership trait.

After reading through excerpts of the January, 23, 2013 U.S. congressional hearings where Secretary Clinton gave testimony about the Benghazi attacks, it is clear that Secretary Clinton has developed and matured the quintessential leadership traits she has. She was pretty viciously attacked and disrespected by some of those on the congressional side of the hearings, but she didn’t attack back.

Another quintessential leadership trait that came out in the excerpts I read was Secretary Clinton’s ability to stay focused on the big picture – vision. And, perhaps, that is the underlying quintessential leadership trait that has sustained Secretary Clinton during many years on a crazy roller-coaster ride in a very public venue. Secretary Clinton didn’t let all the derailment attempts take over – the “would have, should have, could have” statements that focused on a past she had no control over and couldn’t change. Instead Secretary Clinton focused on the present and the future and how to change and improve things.

And the interesting thing about the congressional attacks of and outright disrespect toward Secretary Clinton and her response was it seems like the only adult – and the only quintessential leader – in the whole bunch that showed up that day was Secretary Clinton.

As not-so-public human beings, it’s very easy to jump in and become part of the peanut gallery and Monday morning quarterbacks. But as quintessential leaders, it’s a good exercise sometimes to put ourselves in the shoes of people like Secretary Clinton and see how many of our quintessential leadership traits would be as obvious and apparent in the same situation and circumstances.

When’s the last time you yelled at an employee in front of someone else? When’s the last time you attacked someone who was pointing out that something you are responsible for needed to change? When’s the last time somebody really made a nasty comment to you and you made a nastier one back to them? When’s the last time you did absolutely everything right with no mistakes?

Being quintessential leaders is a 24/7 job. In fact, it’s not job. It’s who we are and becoming better at being. Everything matters. Let’s never forget that!

Quintessential Leadership Traits of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Posted: January 21, 2013 in About The Quintessential Leader Blog, Examples and Analyses of Quintessential Leadership, General Things about Quintessential Leadership, Qualities of a Quintessential Leader, Quintessential Leadership, Quintessential Leadership is an Art, Team Building & Development
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As today – January 21, 2013 – marks the United States’ federal observance of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday (Dr. King’s actual birth date was January 15, 1929), it is a good time to review some of the quintessential leadership traits that Dr. King possessed and that we should be looking for and developing in our own quintessential leadership journeys.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.As always, having quintessential leadership traits does not make any of us perfect or without the flaws of human nature, so I urge each of us, as Dr. King undoubtedly did, to also examine ourselves to see where we are unquintessential in leadership and in life and endeavor and persevere to change or eliminate those things and traits that prevent us from being thoroughly quintessential in every aspect of who we are, what we do, how we live, and how we lead. This is our life-long quest.

One of the premier quintessential leadership traits that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. possessed was the ability to see the big picture – vision – and communicate that vision. To learn in-depth and to gain application insight into how Dr. King and three other leaders who shared this rare quintessential leadership trait, you can purchase Communicating Vision from The Quintessential Leader online store.

Dr. King also had the quintessential leadership traits of undeterred focus and commitment. His goal was the next substantial effort undertaken after President Abraham Lincoln’s two momentous achievements – the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 and ensuring the passage of the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1865 – toward making the phrase “all men are created equal,” as declared by Thomas Jefferson in the U.S. Declaration of Independence in 1776 true, not just in words, but in fact.

No matter what Dr. King had to endure personally, including prison, overt hatred, ominous threats, and ultimately, untimely death by assassination on April 4, 1968 at the hands of James Earl Ray at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, or what he and the civil rights movement collectively endured, including the deadly bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963, the deadly and strong backlash of the resurgent Ku Klux Klan, and overt local and state-sanctioned law enforcement brutality, Dr. King never wavered in focus or commitment to making racial equality a reality.

He didn’t see problems, only opportunities, even in the face of daunting odds and a lot of pain and suffering for a lot of people along the way. That is a rare quintessential leader trait that we could and should all make sure is part of how we lead and who we are.

Another quintessential leadership trait that Dr. King had was part of what made him a trusted and a trustworthy leader: he set and he adhered to a higher standard for what the road to achieving racial equality would look like. Dr. King was adamant about not using violence in the cause (this was a big difference between the civil rights movement of the 1950’s and most of the 1960’s and the more radical Baby Boomer civil rights activism of the late 1960’s that took center stage in the fight for racial equality, promoting violence as the great equalizer). Dr. King knew that returning violence for the violence being perpetrated against the African-American community would only create more violence. He knew that was not the solution. 

He set the higher standard for the moving of winning hearts and mind, through eloquence, persuasion, passion, reason, and practicality. A good example of this was the very successful bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama in 1955 to end segregation on buses that was initiated because of what had happened to Rosa Parks.

Although the white community in Montgomery largely acted shamefully and, sometimes violently, the African-American community followed the example set by Dr. King, meeting that higher standard of non-violence – even when they were the victims of violence – and their perseverance paid off.

Another quintessential leadership that that Dr. King had was the ability to admit fear and then face and overcome it. Just because we’re in leadership positions doesn’t mean that we won’t come up against things bigger than ourselves – often! – and things that can seem scary or can create anxiety. Those are all part of our normal human emotional makeup. But how we manage fear and anxiety is the difference between a quintessential leader and an unquintessential leader.

Dr. King had an interesting statement about fear and anxiety: “If you’re not anxious, then you’re not engaged.” He didn’t live or lead with overriding fears and anxiety, which unquintessential leaders do, but he recognized the relationship between being wholeheartedly invested in something and the range of emotions that can evoke.

Knowing that Dr. King was a pastor, undoubtedly he spent a lot of time in prayer asking God for the help to overcome the fears and the anxieties. King David talks with God about this very thing as well in Psalm 139:23. This is the verse that always comes to my mind and is part of my prayers to God when I am dealing with fears and anxieties.

Quintessential leaders are not ruled by their emotions and they know what resources they have available to them to help them manage and neutralize them so that they don’t cause hasty and poor decision-making.

If you find yourself as a leader being led by your emotions, then you’re not exercising this quintessential leadership trait. A good rule of thumb when you’re dealing with an emotionally-charged situation is to put a little time and distance between you and it before doing anything. The phrases “let me sleep on it” or “let me think about it” should become part of your decision-making process because that time and distance can neutralize the emotional aspect and give you clarity to make the right decisions for the right reasons.

While this is not a comprehensive discussion of all the quintessential leadership traits that Dr. King had, I would be remiss if I left out the trait of team-building from this discussion. Dr. King understood how vital building and growing teams – and individuals on those teams (look how many people from the civil rights movement went on to take leadership positions later in their lives) – was to accomplishing the goal of racial equality.

He understood that consensus across a diverse and large group of the American nation was the only way to achieve the goal. He knew it was critical to and how to motivate, engage, encourage, support, and sustain the ever-burgeoning team. Dr. King was, like President Abraham Lincoln, a very gifted team builder. As quintessential leaders, it benefits us greatly to go back and learn in detail how they did it. The eBook, Teams & Performance, available from The Quintessential Leader online store, provides an in-depth analysis and application of what quintessential team-building looks like.

Quintessential leaders are, at heart, historians, because they study the successes and failures of people in leadership positions before them, with an eye to learning to become even more quintessential leaders and removing or avoiding the mistakes of unquintessential leadership that are equally a part of our education.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is one of those leaders we should go back and spend some time with. You’ll find that, like you and like me, he made his share of mistakes, he had human flaws and weaknesses, but the thrust, intent, and purpose of his life was, as ours should be, not to be the sum of those, but to be the sum of his victories. His legacy tells us he achieved that goal. We should expect no less of ourselves.

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