Jeff Grout - What You Need to Know about Leadership

INTRODUCTION

Congratulations. The fact that you have opened this book suggests that you have either been recently promoted to a leadership position, or expect to at some point in the future. Or, perhaps you are thinking of setting up your own business and want to know what to expect when you employ a team of workers. Either way, well done. You have ambition, but you are also wise enough to know that leadership is something you have to learn about, and not necessarily something that you are born knowing what to do.

People are called on to lead in all walks and at all stages of life in sport and games when we are children, at work, in politics, and at times of crisis and uncertainty. But at no point does someone sit us down and tell us what to do, and what leadership is all about. When an eight-year-old is made captain of his football team, or a teenager is elected head boy or girl of their school, they have no real idea that they will be and are being a leader. They just do it. Some do it well, and some do it badly, and most just muddle through. And exactly the same thing applies when we get older.

Almost all of us, in our working lives, will at some stage in our career, be asked to lead someone (or, even better, a group of someones). A few will reach the very top of the business tree, and lead a large company. But the chances are that none of us will ever have had anything that could be described as formal training on how to lead. So, when we first find ourselves in a leadership situation we wonder, what am I supposed to do? How am I supposed to behave? And how on earth can I be sure that these people will do what I say?

Few of us could explain exactly what a leader is, what leadership means in an everyday context, and what works (or doesnt). Almost all of us will have had bosses ourselves, though, and the chances are that a few of them were not very good. Perhaps some of these sound familiar:

• The scary boss he (or often she) is inapproachable, given to shouting and really quite intimidating. But people tend to do what they say, generally because to do otherwise would risk untold wrath.
• The distant boss who sits in an office behind a closed door, sometimes in a different office. If you met them in a lift, youd struggle to recognise them and they probably wouldnt have much of a clue about you, either.
• The inept but nice boss very friendly and great in social situations, but disorganised and frustrating to be around at work.
• The promoted-beyond boss great at the mechanics of what they do, but without much of a clue about people management.
• The watch-yourself boss pleasant and friendly on the outside but unlikely to protect you when things get tough, or prone to taking credit for someone elses ideas or work.

Our experiences should tell us that there are many potential minefields to being a leader. It might be difficult to pin down exactly what someone is doing wrong, but few of us ever forget being led by a poor leader. But, on the other hand, we all remember and respect our good bosses the ones who encouraged us to do our best, supported us, praised us quietly when we did well and accepted our mistakes with dignity. These are the people you want to emulate when you are a leader yourself.

This book is designed to help you become that boss. It covers all of the key issues that leaders have to face and deal with, and the key techniques that the best leaders use (and yes, they are techniques) to persuade people to follow them and to produce their best for them. The book is split into eight chapters:

What is Leadership?

Creating a Vision

Building a Team

Communication

Motivation and Inspiration

Performance Management

Leading Change

Leading in Turbulent Times

Because the business world is diverse, varied and unpredictable, and because every leader and every employee is different, weve used a lot of real-life examples from companies in range of industries, as well as the views and experiences of leaders in other disciplines, such as sport and the military, to explain some of the leadership theories we cover in the book. A leader is a leader in any field, and the best business leaders look well beyond their own horizons to learn whatever they can from others. Few people can claim to know more about leading men in stressful situations than military leaders, and they have important lessons to tell us.

Together, the material in the book should explain clearly to you how the best leaders gather talented people around them and persuade them to work to their limits in pursuit of a common goal, whatever that goal may be. And because no two organisations are the same and because life, particularly business life, is unpredictable, it will also tell you how to cope with the unexpected and how the unexpected can, in fact, be a good thing.