Leadership is a practice in the exercise of power. There are two sources of power:
–Conferred power
–Personal power
This article deals with the requirements of a professional practice in the exercise of power.
First, one must be competent to practice professionally. There is a large difference between being knowledgeable and being competent. To be competent, one must have up-to-date knowledge about his or her role. Think about doctors, dentists and lawyers. They have to read, study, attend education and training sessions in order to stay abreast of the latest technology and specific thinking about their discipline. The same requirement to stay up-to-date applies to anyone who chooses to lead in a professional manner.
Consider the role of president or chief executive officer in an organization — for profit or nonprofit — private or public — charity or an established church. He or she must remain competent in all facets of the senior leader’s role. He or she must remain up-to-date regarding planning and execution of plans. One must understand the process of moving an organization from vision to focused action through the careful integration of strategy, structure, systems and culture.
The leader’s challenge is to instill a desire throughout the organization to stay aware of current reality and to stay up-to-date by building and sustaining a learning organization. To do this, the organization should live in a world of questions. The essence of the questioning process at all levels in the organization includes three continuing questions:
–What are we doing that we should stop?
–What are we not doing that we should start?
–What are we doing that we should change the way we are doing it?
This questioning process should be done without acrimony, fingerpointing or second-guessing. The decisions made during this process should be straightforward and unambiguous. If something needs to be stopped, stop it. If something needs to be started, start it. If something needs to be changed, change it. This process of continuous improvement leads to transformation over time.
Up-to-date knowledge — competency — by definition includes knowledge of all constituent groups — for instance, customers, owners, employees, suppliers, communities, governments.
In order to promote leadership at all levels in an organization, the organizational culture must include a commitment to competency at all levels. This requires continual education and training at all levels, beginning at the top and continuing throughout the organization.
Second, to practice professionally, one must be motivated to serve others. This is based on a very pragmatic principle — profit follows service and he or she who serves best profits most. In order to practice leadership in a professional manner, the leader is always focused outward toward all constituent groups. The leader’s motivation is to work toward a win-win relationship with all constituencies. This is not easy to accomplish, but it is worth the effort to avoid win-lose, lose-win, or lose-lose situations, which must inexorably follow a breakdown in win-win relationships. Incidentally, the definition of a constituent group is any group that you have an ongoing relationship with. They cannot tell you what to do. However, they can create problems for you when they do not agree with what you do.
Motivation to serve is a behavior. Behavior is a choice. The challenge for leadership at all levels it to cultivate a culture that encourages and rewards the behavior of service first.
Third, to practice leadership professionally one must live by a code of ethics and morals. One must be able to see and understand that something can be legally right but morally wrong. A code of ethics requires a practitioner to commit to three basic standards:
–I will not lie.
–I will not cheat.
–I will not steal.
This raises a question concerning the difference between ethics and morals. I make no claim to understanding all of the shades of difference. It serves my purpose to recall that ethics refers to acceptable standards at a point in time by which men and women may evaluate their conduct and the conduct of others. Morals refers to absolute standards that exist beyond time. Our Western world’s transcendent standards came from Judeo-Christian theology, Greek and Roman philosophy, and the Western civilization belief in the dignity and worth of human life. One who practices the exercise of power in a professional manner will adhere to the code of ethics mentioned above while guiding his or her life journey by a moral order which each individual comes to know, believe in and live by.
Christ followers accept two basic commandments as moral guides:
–Love God.
–Love neighbors.
The implication of these two commandments is that one must have a vertical relationship with God that guides his or her horizontal relationship with others. A further implication is that one must learn to work effectively through others in order to strive for one’s personal potential. So, if a Christian chooses to practice the exercise of power in a professional manner, he or she must exercise power with others rather than over others. Consequently, if one accepts the Christian moral, love your neighbor, one could never exploit other people. Rather, the guiding moral would lead to serving all constituencies as a servant, constantly striving to establish and maintain win-win relationships.
Since ethics and morals guide behavior, one could say that anyone who practices ethical behavior has integrity. One whose behavior is unethical lacks integrity. Without integrity, one lacks the force of an integrated life. Unfortunately, some leaders try to compartmentalize their lives. They tend to behave in a way that indicated they left their ethics and morals at home, or at church or at Rotary. They choose not to take their ethics and morals to the corporate office, the plant or the marketing and sales office.
For the last 12 months, we have witnessed daily reports of business malfeasance. There has been plenty of blame to spread around. Blame has come to rest on senior executives, boards of directors, auditors and others throughout industry. Along the way some leaders lose their bearings. They can no longer see the difference between legal, ethical and moral. Consequently, if their behavior is within the law, they begin to think it is permissible to treat others such as customers, owners, employees, suppliers, regulators and the general public with indifference at best and with contempt at worst. However the picture is painted, the bottom line remains — the unethical behavior can be traced to an individual or individuals that lost themselves in the poisonous mist of arrogance and greed.
In 1907, President Theodore Roosevelt told a group in Iowa, “Never forget that law and the administration of law, important though they are, must always occupy a wholly secondary place as compared with the character of the citizen himself.”
Think about Roosevelt’s statement in the Context of Enron, Worldcom, Quest, Adelphia. Laws, regulations, corporate policies and procedures are very important. In fact, they are absolutely necessary and should be constantly strengthened in order to secure and maintain public confidence in our democratic form of government operating in a free-market economy. However, all laws, rules, standards of conduct are powerless to control the behavior of unethical men and women.
Today, like 95 years ago, our nation is concerned about the lack of ethics and morality in corporations, charitable organizations, politics, even churches. But, when we think through lying, cheating and stealing, we come face to face with the blunt reality that organization wrongdoing — whether in business or other types of organizations, always leads to an individual or individuals who tried to operate one way in their personal lives and another way in their business or professional lives. Christ’s followers who use the Bible as their source of faith and guide for ethical and moral behavior know that the Bible does not equivocate regarding business, professions and personal life. There is righteousness, aka right living, and unrighteousness, aka wrong living. The individual leader at all levels must take responsibility and stand accountable for results. There is a forceful statement in the Book of books that says a person cannot serve two masters.
Philosophy and religious traditions indicate that human beings are always in the process of becoming. The implication is that we are either becoming better or we are becoming worse. The point is that over time our ethical and moral behavior produces a person. And individual is shaped by behavior that becomes habit that becomes character. In my opinion, the individual who suddenly finds himself or herself in an unwanted and unexpected spotlight of fraud, corruptions or malfeasance in office, did not plan to be in that position. He or she most likely eased into it one small step at a time. The sequence of events that led to destruction was imperceptible as the individual lost contact with what he or she was becoming.
Michael Novak wrote an outstanding book, “Business as a Calling.” The publisher is The Free Press. I recommend it highly to anyone interested in the professional practice of exercising conferred and personal power.
It has been my great, good fortune to have worked for and with some outstanding leaders in the Army, in industry and in civic activities. Each of them had developed a unique leadership style.
Yet, all shared some common characteristics. Here are a few:
–Highly competent with a sincere passion for their role. Out of their competence and passion, they were able to generate the desire for achievement throughout their organizations.
–Keen sense of humor. They were fun to work with, to socialize with. They could laugh at themselves.
–Sincere listener. They knew the difference between listening to understand and listening to respond. They knew that listening to understand requires patience, energy and a willingness to hear and understand differences of opinion.
–Absolute integrity in all facets of their lives. They were an integrated unity.
–Ruthlessly managed self and their personal time. They understood the difference between management and leadership and the importance of both. They understood the importance of managing self, budgets, rolling stock, inventory, things while leading people.
They were aware that the only resource fall people have exactly alike is time — 24 hours per day. They did not waste time.
They knew that the requirements of a role creates more work than one can finish in a given workday. They used a system that prioritizes time use in a manner that focuses effort on first things first. They were comfortable with the notion that if one is always working on first things first, it does not matter if they do not get everything done. What is left over will fit in the new priority for the next day, which also will be built around first things first.
–They practiced double vision. They saw their organization and the people in it as they were — warts and all. But, they also saw the organization and individuals as they could be. Consequently, they were great encouragers — always nudging the organization and individuals toward their potential.
There is only one requirement to become a leader. One becomes a leader when he or she has a follower. When that happens, the leader must answer two important questions:
–How shall I lead?
–For what purpose?
I am an advocate for practicing leadership in a professional manner which demands competence, motivation to serve and a commitment to a code of ethics and morality.
Thomas L. Merrill is a consultant to management; retired vice chairman of Altec Industries, Inc.; retired major general United States Army and member of Mountain Brook Baptist Church, Birmingham.
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