EVERY initiative, project, undertaking or achievement initially starts as a CONCEPT.  Anything of significance requires a TEAM to move from concept to reality.  To get a team to work together effectively requires mastery of the art of LEADERSHIP.

There are many different leadership styles.  There is a time and place for each leadership style, however in the long term, some styles are more effective than others.

John D. Halamka, MD emphasized 5 leadership characteristics in a blog post (which I have edited below).

1. Informal authority – Build trust and mutual respect (vs. ruling by fiat).
2. Loyalty – All for one and one for all
3. Air cover – Be on the front line of the fight, not criticizing the troops from a distant hill.
4. Good guys can finish first. (Work with integrity, honesty.   Don’t hurt your fellow humans to get ahead.)
5. Ineffective emotion usually doesn’t work. (It diminishes you. Loudest is not right-est.)

It is also useful to think about MANAGEMENT and LEADERSHIP as being different constructs. Although we need to be proficient at both, the following definitions may help to distinguish between the two:

Mark Leslie (former CEO of Veritas Software) says, “…effective entrepreneurial leadership is the ability to create a workplace culture that enables the employees in the company to excel…  It is not about command-and-control.  You attract the best and the brightest people and create an environment where they can use their intelligence and judgment to act autonomously… You have to get great people. You have to respect them, give them freedom.  You have to provide the mission and vision: Who are we and where are we going?  Most important, you have to share the rewards.”

Getting great people (and avoiding Bozo’s) is vitally important. Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg‘s stated approach is to hire smart people, independent of available job openings, and then help them identify their top talents. He also aspires to full transparency and communication across business and product organizations: Every Friday afternoon Zuckerberg (along with COO Sheryl Sandberg) chats with employees during an hour-long Q&A session.

Barbara Corcoran has indicated that her ability to create an enjoyable workplace is a keystone of her leadership style. “I found the more fun I created in the company, the more creative and innovative it became.  You got innovation.  You got loyalty.  You got people who would recruit for you.”

Jack Dorsey (founder of Twitter and Square) says, “Everything we do is about getting people to be more open, more creative, more courageous.”

Paul Levy has championed the idea of leader as coach, a steward of purpose who secures collaboration and commitment through a culture of trust, who protects team members from organizational rain.  He also suggests that transparency trumps tribalism and that the blame game should be jettisoned in the quest for betterment.

Max Depree exemplified servant leadership during his CEO tenure at Herman Miller, and Laurie Beth Jones taught us that when people learn that a leader really cares about their well-being, they will follow that leader anywhere.

It is truly unfortunate that so many “leaders” don’t “get” these basic leadership tenets (resulting in high employee attrition rates and / or sub-optimal performance).   Even worse, some try to serve up an insincere counterfeit by parroting leadership truisms.   Mark Leslie again says, “Values are not what you write in a handbook. Values are expressed every day in the way the company makes decisions…  Authenticity is at the heart of a company’s culture.  If it’s inauthentic, if you say one set of things, but don’t feel and believe those things, it won’t work.”

What about you?  What do you see as the hallmarks of a great leader?

@tonyparham

Addendum:  See these 8 Core Beliefs of Extraordinary Leaders from Inc. Magazine.

(Image from lumaxart, Creative Commons License)

• Technology is about the mining and use of data to make the world a better place. @ericschmidt #Google http://t.co/8PtNI8h1 ->
• On a daily basis, 16 percent of Google searches are new search terms@ericschmidt #Google bit.ly/svQ6bD ->
• What is your entrepreneurial DNA? http://t.co/Mu5CQU1t ->
• To move from “Good to Great” you need to be a “Level 5 Leader” –http://t.co/UULQSk5H ->

However, my favorite profile was penned by the Boston Globe’s Hiawatha Bray, who was quite vocal about the many failures which Jobs also experienced.  What was most enlightening about Bray’s profile was the way it pointed out that many of Jobs’ failures served as the foundation and starting point for future successes.  (Indeed, Jobs’ famous 2005 Stanford commencement ceremony speech had similar themes.)

Everyone who inspires to leave their mark on the world (and hopefully that is everyone), can learn valuable lessons regarding the inseparably intertwined roles of both success and failure as we strive to achieve our goals.

• Boston Globe: Failing Forward (Steve Jobs’s career defined as much by missteps as triumphs)
• GizModo: Steve Jobs’s Biggest Apple Flops
• GizMag: The business legacy of Mr. Jobs
• Stanford commencement address delivered by Steve Jobs (June 12, 2005)
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  • Video

In fact, Google’s Don Dodge and others suggest that failure is a prerequisite for business success:

So stay true to your vision / goals.  Persevere through (and learn from) your failures until your “success” finally arrives.

…and as you are setting goals, keep in mind, that — per Built to Last (affiliate link), which should be required reading for leaders in every sector — you should be targeting BHAG‘s.  Here are some thoughts about how to set good BHAG’s.

@tonyparham

The entire presentation (40 minutes) can be viewed below.
Click here if video thumbnail is not visible below.

@tonyparham

One of the things which I enjoy is the annual July 4th fireworks display in Boston.  Below are some interesting links and video which show the behind the scenes activities, and some related stories/info.

• The rhythm of the rockets - A master pyrotechnician synchronizes the dazzling fireworks with music for Boston’s 2011 Fourth of July celebration on the Esplanade.
• The official website for the Boston Fourth of July celebration on the Esplanade
• 2009 WSJ article re: NYC’s fireworks behind the scenes activities
• A Bulgarian blogger experiences the 2010 Boston fireworks as the best in the world
• An interesting July 4th story / parable (and more links)
• Below video shows an interesting 2009 tour of the Boston fireworks barge.  (If the video is not visible, refresh your browser view, and/or click here. Adobe Flash is required to play the video.  Can also try this link, which requires free registration.)

At last week’s Life Sciences Technology Insight event, Clintara won the audience’s award for Best Innovative Case Study Presentation.

As Clintara’s Director of Technology, I gave the initial segment of the presentation, in which I shared regarding the problems which pharmaceutical companies experience when launching new drugs (particularly in regards to drugs for central nervous system diseases).  I gave an overview of Clintara’s services (training, certification and diligence), described our smart pen functionality, and gave the audience a preview of our brand-new, native iPad training prototype.

I then introduced Astra Zeneca’s Ellis Wilson, who gave an excellent overview of the challenges which the pharmaceutical industry has experienced in regards to the increased incidence of noncompliant patients, inappropriate patients, and financially motivated patients.  Ellis presented data from several clinical trials and described how these patients created issues with the clinical trial data.  Ellis also shared how new technologies (such as those provided by Clintara) were beneficial in decreasing unwanted data variability.

I will post a link to the video of the presentation when it becomes available…. (Edit: Here it is!)

@tonyparham