Gene Klann, Senior Program Associate at the Center for Creative Leadership, believes that the most important value that effective leader should share in life is to know how to care about his people and be patient and, also, to be able to let his people be creative, so that they could take advantage of every good opportunity that may appear.
1. What values do you share in life?
Well, I think if we are talking about leadership here whether it's in normal situation or in crisis, well, the nature of leadership - you are leading people. So, I think to lead people, one of the most important things that leader needs to emphasize is how important people are. I use the word "caring" - you have to care about people. You just can't be like "ok, I got a big office and I got a nice salary, and I got lots of big cars". The reality is that all these things result of how you are providing leadership for these people. In the US the latest survey that I read about American workers is that they are 60% productive, in other words that means that half of them is less than 60% productive and that a lot of productivity is being lost because people are not motivated.
2. How you can show to people that you care about them?
You know, there are some things that show that I care about you and one of the things is being ready to communicate, to be present and make sure they've got safe place to work and make sure their compensation is good and that they have appropriate benefits, that people are informed as to where their part is in your organization. I was in the military I did everything I could when we were going to a combat situation that my soldiers were prepared, they were trained, they had all the equipment they needed, they had the right mental attitude, and it was my responsibility. And so that when we would go in to these difficult situations my soldiers would work very hard for me because they knew I was taking care of them. It is a direct correlation between how people feel they are being treated by the leaders as to how hard they will work for those people, and if they don't feel that they are being treated very well or they are not being treated fairly, the amount of effort and work that they are going to put in to their job will be reduced and that's where you get this 60% productivity number. But if the leader does things to show people that he as a leader and the organization cares about people they'll be motivated to work hard for the leader. In a military in US army we used to say, we would have missions, that's what the army does - you have this mission or this mission, so if you want to make sure you achieve your mission - take care of your people because if you take care of your people you will never have to worry about accomplishing the mission because people will take care of the mission for you. I think that's a key point.
3. What else is important?
You have to like people, you know, if you are a leader because people can be difficult, they can be a real challenge. I think the last virtue of leadership is patience and when you're dealing with other people, think about if you are married or have kids, you know, working with your spouse or your kids - it takes patience. So, you translate that into an organization of a thousand or five thousands people. To be patient, I think, it's very seldom emphasized in all leadership books, but I think it's a last virtue. I think if you want to be an effective leader you really need to be patient because you're dealing with people and because you lead people and you manage things: you manage budget and infrastructure and motor pools, but you actually lead people, you are leading human beings.
4. Can you give an example?
I live outside the US for fifteen year and I lived in seven different countries and you know everyone talks about diversity and differences and leveraging diversities and appreciating differences, and I think it's all great. But I also saw that among humans regardless of the culture there is a consistency - people want to be treated with dignity and respect, they have emotions, they like to be treated with friendship. You know, the universal symbol is the smile. They want to be treated like if they are special, like if they are important. If you carry that attitude with people that is working for you they will actually work pretty hard for you. I am a corporate trainer, I do executive training and that's how I treat the participants in my class, like if you all are as important, you're special, you're valuable, you all matter and I'm here to help you become better leaders. You're not here to help me get my salary, I'm here to make you a better leader, to help you reach your potential, you're the focus, and you are my customer kind of thing.
5. Do you think it is possible to become a leader without caring for people?
When I was in the army there were some officers that didn't want to become commanders because they didn't want to deal with the people, they just wanted to have a little staff job in the corner somewhere. I find it extraordinary because to me being a leader involves - you lead people, otherwise, managers are not leaders, it's two completely different ideas. There is a school of though called Relational Theory of Leadership, and what that says is that people with the best relational skills, human skills, people skills, social skills are going to be the best leaders. Even these people may not have the most technical expertise in their job but because they are able to treat other people well and than to get a positive response from them, the people actually work hard for them and maybe even make up for some of the areas that leader may not be as strong in because people will be filling those gaps.
6. Many people say in military you shouldn't think - you should just obey orders.
I'm not sure about other countries but I know my experience in US is that officers are always trained and encouraged to be very creative, and innovative, and imaginative because the thought is that, General Patton said this, he said that all plans are good until the first shot is fired. When the first shot is fired all the plans just go out of the window because the situation automatically changes. But of course you have to have a plan in order to begin your operation. When the first difficulty arrives than your plan goes out of the window. You're under fire, you have people that you are a leader for; you're responsible for these peoples' lives, so you cant say, "Ok this is my plan and I'm going to stick to my plan" - because the situation has changed from where the plan was written - you have to be creative and innovative in that moment. There is a stereotype of the military officers that they are single minded, can't think, but the reality is it has to be just the opposite. In war time you have to make life and death decisions on the fly and there has to be some creativity that involved in that.
7. Can you illustrate it with an example?
I am a student of military history and the German army in World War II as many people write about how they were very disciplined and had to follow orders. But the reality is they had a lot of latitude; their commanders had a lot of latitude, if they were making an attack and they saw an opportunity, they had a latitude to take advantage of that opportunity, and I think that you can take that principle when transfer to corporate leaders - ok, this is the vision, this is the mission, this is what we are going to do, but if you see this opportunity here, take advantage of it because that, maybe, have more advantage than instructions and the vision that you were giving in the first place. I think that there is an element that really good leaders create flexibility and adaptability, spontaneity among their junior leaders, so that when opportunities are seen that they are taking advantage of them not just reject them because "ok, I'm supposed to do this because that's my instruction even though the opportunity exists here". So I think that leadership involves, ok, I'm being in the process of developing leaders - ok, I'm a leader, so I have to deal with junior leaders, so, the idea of telling them to look at all options is good, as there is always more than one right answer. In other words, ok, I can do this but how else can you do that? Can you do it other ways that may be more creative, may be more cost effective, may actually bring a bigger return on investment - thing like that. So, I think creativity goes hand in hand with being an effective leader.
8. Do you think that it's hard to be patient with your employees?
To be patient is painful because, suppose you're a leader and suppose you have people that are working for you have a very good potential, junior leaders. So, you're working with them and you're mentoring them, you're coaching them, you're giving them advice in terms of how to do certain things and they do it and fail. Well, you don't want to destroy their morality or attitude, so you kind of help them and show them where they went wrong and maybe let them do it again the next time. Alright, they tried again and maybe still don't reach on 100% - and that's painful because, generally, when people make mistakes it costs the company money. Not all the time of course. So, you want them to perform better and that's your expectation of them but you see their potential, so you have to wait until that potential develops. For some people it's next to impossible because some people no matter how senior they still want to do the work themselves because they don't trust people, it's hard for them to delegate - they know, if I did it, I could get this done and get it done well, if I get someone else the chance to do it, he might take too long and than he might not do it right and I have to get involved anyway.
9. Is it important for a good leader to be patient?
That kind of a mind set of patience is really important for an effective leader but it's really hard and many people based on their personality type, have a real tough time with patience. I worked for a number of people that had no patience and those were tough people to work with and for. It's a last virtue because we are in the world where everything has to get done now and the expectation is that I don't want to wait until next quarter; I want to make my big money this quarter, make my profits this quarter, I don't want to wait. In Asia it's part of their culture, they are more patient. So, they have project that may be a ten-year project and ok, the first few years it doesn't make any money but the point is - they are patient. I think in the western countries patience is not as popular idea as it is, maybe, in some other cultures.
Prepared by Katia Barzova, Good2Work Intern, on December 25, 2008
