Honesty, Discipline and Fairness
Simple components of effective leadership
I am in the school of thought that emphasizes that leadership can be taught. In words of Field Marshal Manekshaw :
Bring me a decent person and I will make a leader out of them
Effective leadership is surprisingly simple when you come to think of what it comprises of. In the words of Major Dick Winters, it is based on three basic components : Honesty, Discipline and Fairness.
In my life, the goal that I am pursuing is that of transformation into being an effective leader. This got me down to study the 3 components in great detail and I realized that those words don’t exactly mean what I thought while glancing over them. I had a thought of writing my observations and sharing it with you.
Honesty
Honesty, when seen from the leadership angle, is more than just the classic definition. It encompasses more that just the mere thought of ‘not lying’. Honesty also means to not pretend that you know it all and are the one & only source of wisdom.
We all have come across peers/managers/ colleagues who stopped learning when they got into positions of marginal power and the root cause is that they are being dishonest to themselves. In a very convoluted fashion, they have convinced themselves that they have finally learnt everything that there is to learn and others must now submit to them. This is a sure recipe to failure.
Honesty in it’s essence is first and foremost accepting that fact that you don’t know everything and in a situation where others are counting on you, being honest about it. This creates opportunities for your to grow and more importantly, you will gain respect of those around you for being someone is willing to learn and grow.
Now thinking about the classical definition of honesty, it must not be forgotten. How many times have we seen examples where facts are turned and twisted in a way that completely covered the truth behind it? Although this may sound very smart in the short term, almost always does the truth come out and you stand to lose the social capital that you seek to build.
Be it your employer, investor, employee or anyone affected by your actions, absolute honesty and clarity is mark of a great leader. In situation of difficulty, leaders recognize the problem and work on them rather than just pretending that these problems never existed or even worse - that those weren’t a problem at all.
Discipline
In context of leadership, discipline is the ability to keep your focus when the time is tough and willingness to sacrifice short term gratification for long term ambitions. it is the absolute must for a leader that they are disciplined in a way that is not restricted only to the physical discipline.
In sports, the athletes who seek perfect conditions to pursue their sport are commonly referred to as ‘Fair Weather Athletes’. These are the ones who will cancel a practice when they see a drop of rain. What separates the best in this pack from fair weather athletes is to pursue the goal irrespective of the weather. The same is valid for leadership. When time is great and the numbers are good, it is comfortable to present the NPS figures to your management and take credit for it. But what happens when business is not going great? Will you still look at those numbers? Will you stand in front of the management and face scathing questions? This ability to be steady, no matter what the conditions are, is what constitutes discipline.
Discipline gives clarity of thought because you are not debating if you will take that tough decision. Also discipline gives you dependability because others are not doubting your character, which brings us to the key advantage of discipline.
Leading by example is the most important function of a leader. Not by fear or intimidation but by example. This is where discipline helps to set an example for others to follow and train the next generation of leaders. By sheer luck, I have had the opportunity to work with leaders who were very disciplined and I noticed the mesmerizing effect that this had on others. There was trust and understanding that no matter what happens, our leader would not throw us under the bus. This mental clarity and psychological safety enables us to do things which are beyond our wildest expectations.
Fairness
In context of leadership, fairness can be paraphrased as absolute justice and impartiality. It means that there you set standards and do not deviate from them because you see someone favorably or that this is one time exception . Earlier, I had seen fairness in a very narrow light but as I read about great leaders and statesmen, and overlay that with the people I had interacted with, I realized that it was more that just decision making.
Setting standards in an organization, big or small, is task of the leader. These standards get translated as culture over time but what they represent are the ways in which organizations handle themselves especially in trying times. Setting standards is an activity that must not be taken lightly as little points that may seem significant at the moment may compound over time into unsurmountable problems.
After the standards have been set, holding your organization accountable for these standards is also the responsibility of the leader and this is where fairness comes into picture. A leader by role is a decision maker, the one who has to take a call and stick to it. Procrastinating on a decision does not help as it adds to the confusion and therefore being decisive is synonymous with taking swift decisions. These decisions face the risk of being clouded by factors such as favor, relationship or personal preference but this is where it is required that the leaders differentiate themselves from the managers. They don’t deviate from the standards or open them to interpretation, they look at each member with impartiality and rule praise or punishment with equal decisiveness. Nobody likes to be punished but if they know that they are being punished for a legitimate reason by a fair and impartial leader, they will accept this with a smile on their face.
Fairness goes a long way in establishing an environment where new ideas thrive. If you read any number of books about world class research centers like Xerox PARC or Bell Labs, you will see examples of extraordinary fairness and impartiality
The underlying principle once upon understanding the above points is to execute consistently. It is not uncommon to get excited when you hear about new principles but it is more difficult to keep up that motivation for a longer duration and execute upon it.
Remember: Leaders are not born, they are made. Approaching leadership like a skill that can be learnt is probably the first epiphany that skips many.