Being a great leader means putting aside the needs of your ego and ensuring that you are an inspiring role model for your employees. Executive coach Natalie Gillam of NG Coaching in Dubai, explains how leaders can achieve that by adhering to their principles.
We all have values and principles, we learn them from early childhood and continue to update and add to these as we become adults.
From our parents, we learn what is important, moral guidance, rules about what is acceptable and not acceptable, also what they think are behaviours to be rewarded or punished.
We learn values about how to be ‘good'.We learn the meaning of money and attitudes to others. We learn how to treat people and how they treat us in return.
We also learn from them how to tell lies, the importance of winning, how to express love and anger - our parents teach us much by what they do, rather than the rules which they give us.
This is because we learn from our role models by replicating the behaviours which we think are acceptable or will make us successful, at least as much as we learn from the published rules about what makes you a good person.
In our working lives too, we learn our corporate values and principles from our early role models.
We observe what gets you noticed, what gets rewarded, what our bosses do either within the stated rules or values of the organisation or covertly, outside of those principles.
We pass on these lessons once we have reached a position of managing people, as we become role models for others. This is the cycle of learning - people learn from what they see others do more than from the words that are spoken.
Therefore it is vital when developing the great leader within you, that you consider what your role models have taught you - consciously and unconsciously; also what you wish others to see and model in you.
Consider carefully what you stand for, what your behaviours express and what kind of message you send to others about what is really important and about what the principles and and values are that you hold.
Principled leaders are aware of being role models
Great leaders demonstrate integrity at all times. They are seen to be true to their principles and let it be absolutely clear to people what they stand for.
They are not ambiguous, they do not say one thing and do another.
They understand that people in the organisation will be looking to them to ‘walk the talk' or act in alignment with the values they espouse. They take responsibility for their actions, knowing that what they do is publicly viewed and is an example to others.
One leadership challenge that has been very successfully applied in several large organisations, is for leaders to ‘go back to the floor'.
One travel agency sent its entire board of directors to work in the shops one busy weekend in the busiest time of the year.
They experienced working in the conditions in which they were expecting their staff to work, they were confronted with the same problems and hurdles, they had to deal with the same customers, the same systems and processes.
This was a revelation and the board agreed and implemented many significant changes to improve things in the retail operation as a result.
This is a great example of the management practising what they were preaching.
The board of directors had been talking about implementing greater efficiencies and being smarter in decisions so that the business got real value from every activity.
For them to remain detached from the operation would not have demonstrated these principles but once they got out there, they were viewed as an example for all managers. The financial performance of the company was significantly improved as a result.
Principled leaders take the time to consider what is important
It is easy to find the time for discussing strategy, sales figures, investments and all things financial.
Great leaders also find the time with their whole leadership team to discuss values, principles and priorities that will guide their decisions.
These do not need to be revisited frequently but making a conscious choice about the values with which a leader and his team proposes to lead, is vital to their integrity and credibility.
In our values workshops, leaders have the chance to envision the organisation as they would most like it to be, then agree the key values that will be important in order to create and sustain that successful organisation.
They can talk through what each value really means, what it looks like in action, translated into behaviours and policies.
For example, "We will trust our people and empower them to make more decisions without referring to us for approval" is a value many leaders agree will enable the organisation to expand and get more done more efficiently, without the bottleneck effect that can happen when controlling managers are allowed to continue to ‘sign off' too many decisions.
The benefits to the organisation are obvious and everyone can agree this in principle.
In practice, the team needs to work through what this actually looks like - who would now be deciding what, how will we deal with it if the decision made by a more junior manager turns out badly, what action do we take if we feel anxious at losing power and control and are tempted to intervene and undermine our staff making decisions.
Working this through as a team enables the team to create and agree strategies and principles about how to manage different situations.
It also means that the value can always be upheld and the team monitors individuals and ensures that all comply to the company's principles.
Principled leaders have courage and strength
Doing the right things requires self discipline and courage, as these will not always be the easy qualities to demonstrate.
It may be easier to blame others, to give in to your ego's need to be seen to be right.
But strong leaders know that the long term benefits of how you are perceived by others if you stick to what is right, far outweigh your vanity.
We are all driven partly by the needs and demands of our egos.
Successful people are likely to have bigger egos; it may well be that your strong ego has enabled you to become so successful in the first place.
Ego and drive, ambition, the ability to take risks and go the way you believe is best, even when others doubt you - these are all qualities that may have helped you to win.
However, knowing your values and principles are more important than your ego and this means putting those values first, making decisions based on these, not on your ego.
Your ego may not want to let go of something because it is your pet theory or idea; your values about investing only in things that meet agreed criteria may mean that you have to let go.
Your ego may not want to let others think for themselves, come up with their way of achieving things because you know best and you would rather just tell them.
Even if you do feel this way however your value about empowering and developing others for the benefit of your organisation must be upheld.
Principled leaders learn that the needs of the organisation are more important.
The principled leader knows that he or she must set those values and live them every day, so that others can see that they truly believe what they say is important.
The principled leader is strong enough to put the most important values into practice every day.
This is why it is important to understand, articulate and agree those principles after careful thought and consideration, so that you sign up to only those values you know you truly believe.
This article is the work of NG Coaching, a high performance executive leadership coaching company based in Dubai and London. NG Coaching provides executive coaching and leadership masterclasses in the UAE.
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