Page 252 - The extraordinary leader

What Individuals Do to Become Great Leaders • 229

What more valuable process could occur than identifying someone with a
job that is a close counterpart to your own and whose performance is recog-
nized as being outstanding? Through observation and interrogation, find out
what that person is doing that makes him or her so effective. See which ele-
ments of what that person does could be integrated into your own activities.
23. Volunteer in your community
The ideal leader is one who is complete. Stewart Friedman wrote, “We at Ford
are pioneering a new dimension of leadership that seeks to integrate all aspects
of a person’s life. We call it ‘total leadership.’ It’s different from many prior
leadership models because it starts with your life as a whole: your life at work,
your life at home, and your life in the community. Total leadership is about
being a leader in all aspects of life.” 10
It is clear that people’s work life, home life, religious activity, and com-
munity service are not as separate as they once were. The formerly sharp lines
are now murky. People are striving for work-life balance, and one popular
approach is to blend them rather than build walls between them. By practic-
ing leadership skills in the other aspects of your life, leadership skills can be
honed and perfected. The organization is enhanced financially and organi-
zationally, the community is improved, the church or synagogue gets much
needed talent, and the family enjoys the benefits from improved leadership.

24. Practice articulating your vision for the firm and your group
Leaders describe to a group their vision of the future and often assume it has
been understood and internalized. Time passes and people ask questions:
“Okay, what is our strategy? I don’t know where we’re going.” The leadership
lesson is that communication of complex messages must be repeated over and
over. This is especially true when it concerns a topic that carries over a long
period of time, and one where people will scrutinize the leader’s behavior to
see if it is aligned with the earlier words.
Married people or others in any lasting relationship have learned that you do
not express your affection and commitment to the other person once and assume
it holds until further notice. With the passage of time, things are said or done
that cause the other person to question what was said earlier. And the mere pas-
sage of time dims the force and clarity of the words, so they need repeating.
That same phenomenon is at work in any organization. Yes, the leader said
we value trust and openness, but look what happened to Ralph when he asked
the question in the staff meeting. Or, rumors begin to swirl in the organiza-
tion and they are quite contradictory of earlier messages. It is for those reasons