Jonathan Gifford - 100 Great Leadership Ideas: From successful leaders and managers around the world

FROM LEADING COMPANIES
AROUND THE WORLD

Jonathan Gifford

Copyright 2010 Jonathan Gifford

Cover art: Opal Works Co. Ltd.

First published in 2010 by Marshall Cavendish Business

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ISBN 978-981-4312-75-2

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ALL OF THE ideas in this book are illustrated by direct quotations from leaderscollected from books, articles, published interviews and websites. I would like to thank every leader whose thoughts and comments have been used to bring life to theoretical notions and to offer practical illustrations as to how these leadership ideas might be put into practice.

Some leaders feature on more occasions than otherstypically because they have written valuable autobiographies or accounts of their business experience that offer a wealth of material. Jack Welch of General Electric, Lee Iacocca of Chrysler, Richard Branson of Virgin Group, David Packard of Hewlett-Packard and Louis Gerstner of IBM all fit into this category, as does a figure from an earlier generationand a firm favourite of mineSir John Harvey-Jones of ICI.

The ideas of several distinguished business academics also feature hereparticularly those of John P. Kotter, Gary Hamel and Michael Beers, all from Harvard Business School.

The mentor, business coach and writer, Marshall Goldsmith, is so insightful about the elements of personal behavior that can so easily hamper (or encourage) the effectiveness of senior executives that it is almost impossible not to quote Goldsmith on matters of personal behavior.

Alan Leighton must be singled out for special acknowledgement. His book On Leadership not only offers typically pragmatic and insightful advice based on Leightons own management style, it also provides useful and pertinent comment from a wide range of contemporary leaders, several of whom are quoted here from Leighton.

I would like, again, to thank all of the 133 leaders whose comments were used in the writing of this book. References to all books, articles and websites from which quotes were obtained can be found in Sources.

Finally, I would like to thank Martin Liu, of Marshall Cavendish International, for his support, encouragement and advice; also Martins colleagues in London and Singapore.

IT IS VERY easy to be a successful leader. All you need is the charisma of a hero; the wisdom of a philosopher; the vision of a seer; the interpersonal skills of a diplomat; the memory of an elephant; the stamina and fitness of an athlete; the integrity of a judge; the presentation skills of an actor; the humility of a saint; the confidence of a politician ...

Drawing up a list of all the skills, attributes and characteristics that a modern leader needs was an easy task. I have a list of at least a further one hundred attributes that were not included in this book. So much is required of the ideal leaderso many ideal personal qualities; so many behavioral skills!

Nevertheless, selecting which leadership ideas should actually feature in the book was also, in the end, a relatively simple task. I began to build a database of quotations from real leaders, illustrating real leadership issues, and to file them under headings like the ones featured in this book: Have a Vision; Make it Happen; Seek out Change; Allow Choice to Drive Decisions; Be demanding; Be Fair; Set reasonable Goals ... so far, so simple.

As the database began to grow, noteworthy quotations from real leaders began to cluster around certain topics. In a very real sense, the ideas featured in this book have been dictated by the real observations of well over one hundred leaders. If few leaders had anything of real interest to say about a particular topic that had seemed relevant, it fell off the list. If leader after leader had something valuable to say about a particular area, it not only stayed in, but was also on occasions subdivided into more specific ideas.

One of the most fundamental ideas featured in this book is one that is perhaps best set out by Harvard Business School Professor, John Kotter. It is the deceptively simple notion that leadership is all about change, whereas management, in sharp contrast, is all about stasis. Management is about perfecting a known process; it hates surprises; it aims for perfection. Leadership is about change and riskabout uncertainty and leaps into the unknown. Management can motivate people by the usual rewards and censures. Leadership can only succeed by inspiring people. Nobody undertakes significant upheaval until they have been persuaded of the need for change at some quite fundamental, emotional level. Leaders have to persuade. Nobody can lead without followers.

It cannot be a coincidence that the most heavily populated areas of my database of quotations have to do with innovation; with change; with creativity. This is the very stuff of leadership.

It is also no coincidence that the other major theme to emerge was one that might be put under the heading of market forces or natural selectionor, perhaps, of democracy.

Leaders are leaders of teams. Leaders themselves, despite their apparently astonishing abilities, are still only one person, with one brain and one set of ideas. The organization has many people, with many brains and many more ideas. All of these people are focused on the same ends; they work in the same field; they know the same markets and share the same knowledge-base. They share common objectives and significant comradeship. They have new ideas and untapped funds of creativity; they are keen to contribute.