PERFECT LEADERSHIP

Much is written about leadership, and its many definitions. Consider the following example statements.

“We will achieve market leadership in a given marketplace”

“We are leaders in quality and reliability”

“The government will take the lead in providing social services”

“Industry will need to show more leadership is some particular cause”

I am sure you could think of many others.

In this book we want to focus on the leaders of an organization, how they lead, and what effect leadership policies have on followers and the organization. The organization might be a business, non-profit, college, hospital, or any situation where there is a leader and followers.

This book’s title, Perfect Leadership, on its face is audacious. How can leadership be perfect? Who even is knows what perfect leadership looks like?

Let’s examine the Gospel of John -

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. 4 In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.” [John 1:1-5]

In this scripture we learn that Jesus was with God from the beginning as the Word and always existed. Later in John we are told,

“The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” [John 1:14]

That is, the Word became flesh in Jesus.

We will argue that perfect leadership must originate with the only person on earth who was described as perfect, Jesus.

“For the law appoints as high priests, men who have weakness, but the word of the oath, which came after the law, appoints the Son who has been perfected forever.” [Hebrews 7-28]

Highlighting the challenge of leadership, even with great training, we postulate a story. Mary, a rising employee in a medium-sized corporation, obtained an MBA at a reputable business school’s night program and is well-qualified to take over as leader of her group. Having earned that position, in the first few years of her tenure she was sent to several leadership/management seminars and workshops. Though she feels confident in her role, Mary still encounters situations which do not jibe with the management concepts she has been trained to employ. Despite all her preparation and experience, she often finds her efforts insufficient to overcome organizational obstacles.

As a senior manager at two Fortune 500 corporations, I could identify with Mary’s frustration. Having graduated from the University of Cincinnati with a degree in engineering, my aspirations and expectations ran high. These were quickly deflated in my first job where I observed controlling managers, lack of teamwork, and even sabotage! Individual achievement and career advancements were often pursued for the benefit of the leader’s personal goals and at the expense of corporate goals. Employees became demotivated.

Many employees around me seemed to be doing just enough to get by; others didn’t really cooperate with one another as a team; and still others were working well below their potential. I began to observe how different parts of the overall organization worked and how well they related to mine. Taken together, the parts of the business didn’t coalesce around building stock-holder wealth and at times the different units of the organization seemed to be competing rather than cooperating.

As an individual contributor, I began a lifelong search for why so many aspects of a given enterprise were dysfunctional. The list of concerns (24) was staggering.

Poor placement and development of talent.

Employees’ creativity relatively untapped.

Managers’ over-controlling situations, including going as far as re-doing 100% of employees’ work and/or directly performing the employees’ work.

Employee-to-employee, manager-to-employee conflicts remained unresolved even though there were many attempts to rectify them.

Serious mismatches between management’s goals and employees’ actions/behaviors.

Work was not exciting, TGIF!

Negative and often incorrect rumors resulted in as much as a 5% productivity hit.

Stress levels and the risk of failure very high.

Employees and managers taking their frustration home to families.

Unethical behaviors by management and employees; stealing, false reporting of travel expenses, sexual acts.

Individual goals trump group goals.

Employees and managers stealing other organizations’ ideas and claiming credit – sabotage of others’ efforts (can’t have them look better than me).

Discrimination against races other than white and genders other than males.

Minimal or no succession plans.

Incredibly poor communications, including no communications.

Management/leadership by fiat, anger, shouting, strong language, intimidation, etc.

Lip service given to many new processes and programs – no management commitment – efforts become the “program of the month.”

Talents go undeveloped.

Considerable confusion over the roles of leaders and managers and the importance of each.

Individual greed operating at all levels of business.

Management and leaders’ actions lead to losses in productivity and increased bureaucracy.

Ineffective and discriminatory handling of rewards and recognition.

Short term focus for planning – no vision and/or strategic plan.

Application of humanistic psychology.

Are we stuck with such dysfunctional issues? How did we get to be this way? Were people in leadership and management responsible for this mess? Was there a time when things were better, but somehow the culture has shifted?

From my search for the solutions to the 24 dysfunctional organizational issues, I found the best answers in the Bible. From Bible studies, consulting with business owners who applied the Bible, and my own experiences, Compelling Leadership Principles© were born.

These principles are based 100% on the Bible and teachings of Jesus. After all, the ministry of Jesus and His leadership style was most compelling, and worthy of emulation. The word ‘perfect’ in the book title “Perfect Leadership,” takes its meaning from Jesus as the only perfect one.