The Intangibles
The little things make or
break a leader
By David Drury
An introduction to the intangibles
Leadership books, seminars, conferences and
consultants have provided us with a wealth of information to make us better
leaders. We learn how to better manage
priorities, how to focus on a few narrow goals, how to cast vision, how to lead
meetings, how to get the right people on the bus, how to lead down, how to lead
up, and how to lead sideways while standing on our heads, I suppose. These skills have become so valuable to our
everyday lives as leaders that we breathe them in and out unthinkingly. These skills have become as important as
learning to read an expense report or operating a computer. Without these skills we would feel unable to
lead.
The amazing thing, however, is that you can learn
all these skills and still fail. It is
possible to be an incredibly skilled leader and still fall short. Superiors can give you an evaluation based on
sheer facts and you’ll get a good report—but you can still be on their hit list
for future “transition off the team.”
Your followers may respect your abilities and your hard work—but they
may not really want to be around you, and so your team dwindles or paid staff
lack motivation. You can master nearly
every leadership skill in the book and know the 21 laws better than the Ten
Commandments, and you can still lack essential qualities that weren’t on your
leadership development checklist.
BAD NEWS
AND GOOD NEWS
The bad news is that the little things can make
or break a leader. If you don’t have the
intangible qualities you may be very skilled and still stink at what you
do. This is really bad news. We’ve heard all the great leadership
trainings and developed ourselves like crazy and sometimes things still don’t
work out. More often than not it’s an
intangible issue. When the leader of a
non-profit organization seems to be doing all the right things but the Board of
Trustees think there’s something that holds him back—it’s usually one of the
intangibles. When a pastor of a church
is a great communicator, a good leader, runs good meetings, but a huge chunk of
the church is still voting against her—she’s missing one of the essential
intangibles. When the owner of a small
business is doing everything right to execute a perfect business plan but the
company still just can’t get over the hump—more likely than not the intangibles
have been neglected. You get the
point. When all else is failing even
when all else makes sense, look to the intangibles for the clue to the problem.
The good news is that the intangibles can be
learned just like the leadership skills we know so well. The intangibles can sometimes be innate qualities
in some people while others have to work hard at them. But the good news is that “incredibly
good-looking” is not one of the intangibles.
Plenty of ugly people have made it.
Don’t worry. You don’t need to go
to a conference or hire a consultant to learn the essential intangibles
either. The workshop for learning them
is your current environment. In fact,
the smaller the environment the better the workshop. The better people can get to know you the
better you can practice the intangibles.
WHAT ARE
THE ESSENTIAL INTANGIBLES ALREADY?
I know I’m dangling the carrot here with a lot of
leadership foreplay so let me get to the list you’re looking for. Here are the intangibles:
2.
Showing Up
3.
Taking Risks
4.
Having Fun
1.
Faithfulness
3.
Non-manipulative Integrity
(Click on each intangible above to see the fuller
description)
ARE THEY
REALLY INTANGIBLE?
Yes. Each
area involves an intangible that can’t be very easily measured or
quantified. You can measure how many
people you recruit for a new team you’re forming. All that is involved is a head count. It’s harder to measure how well you humbly
distribute the rewards of that team’s success.
The only way to know is to ask what each team member thinks about that
in an environment where they would be completely honest with no other
motivations to alter the truth (which is hard to create). However, just because that intangible is hard
to quantify doesn’t mean that it is meaningless. Let’s say that you recruited that team of
eight which you recruited and led them to success. But then you take all the credit for the
success and forget them and climb the ladder.
In the short run you may get ahead, but few of them will want to work
with you again and they may go so far as to begin under-cutting your success
behind closed doors. Others that weren’t
even on that team will begin to question your motives and in no time multiple
essential intangibles are in question when it comes to your reputation. This all stems from not doing something that
was hard to quantify or measure at the time: sharing credit when credit is due.
ARE THEY
REALLY ESSENTIAL?
Yes. The
key to this is playing out what it looks like to not have any one of these
intangibles. Most people just naturally
exhibit several of the intangibles. Very
few of us have no intangibles showing in our lives. Maybe we were brought up right or we learned
to play nice in school or we just figured out by social customs that these
things are how people should act. But
most people also have some blind spots.
When you play out what the absence looks like the contrast is stark in
just a few examples of the intangibles:
v
If a leader only cares about their own areas and supports no other
areas they will create a turf-mentality in their organization that affects
everyone around them. At first they will
just be isolated. Eventually they will
be beaten or pushed out by a team that wants to work together.
v
If a leader changes their mind all the time and follows whatever
fad or book they have read recently then others will begin to lack faith that
their current interest or decision has lasting consequence. They will be seen as flighty or
non-committed.
v
If a leader simply does what is required and never takes any risks
or bravely tries new things eventually they will not be followed. Their lack of brave action will not get them
fired but people will stop following them because they know they are just
“doing the job” and not going anywhere.
They may get things done but they are not really leaders that people
want to follow.
v
If a leader only shows up to their own events and meetings and
never shows up to anything else they will be seen as selfish and uncaring. If they are rarely in the office when most
other people are or aren’t accessible to others then they stop being a factor
in the organic elements of the organization.
The intangibles are hard to measure but can make
or break a leader. It’s important for
every leader to find out what intangible blind spots they have and to work on
those areas. These intangibles are
essential, but they can be learned.
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Or email David@DruryWriting.com
This is the introduction
to The Intangibles. Come back for more on each intangible.
_________
© 2006 by David Drury
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