What is Leadership A Story and a Suprising Answer
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hi
my name is jim and i’ve always been
fascinated by words that we use all the
time
but we don’t really know what they mean
take v for example
i’m going to use the word v a lot in
this speech in fact i just did
and you probably use it all the time too
but i have no clue what it means how to
define it how to describe it as someone
who doesn’t know the english language
luckily it doesn’t matter if i can’t
define thee but what might be a little
more consequential
how about the word leadership do you
know what it means you know it doesn’t
matter what kind of group i ask if i ask
students or
or managers or executives or even folks
in the c-suite not only do people
struggle to answer the question they
won’t even make eye contact with me when
i ask it because they’re afraid i’ll
call on them
and make them answer now now some people
tend to think of it as popularity
charisma or public speaking ability or a
carefully crafted image or even
financial success
let me tell you as a researcher that we
don’t believe leadership really has
anything to do
with most of those things since we know
it when we see it we can’t define it but
we kind of know it when we see it maybe
the best way to learn about leadership
is to tell talk about it through a story
let me tell you a story from the united
states civil war about a man named
colonel
joshua lewis chamberlain he was a
professor in maine who was so motivated
by the union cause that he signed up to
be an officer
and he commanded a unit called the 20th
maine i started out with sixteen hundred
men
but by july first 1863 down to about 266
because
well war is hell let’s pretend you’re
joshua chamberlain and you are commanded
to guard a point of strategic importance
in gettysburg called little round top
the battle of gettysburg is tomorrow now
if you know anything about the civil war
you know it’s between the north and the
south
uh gettysburg is in pennsylvania pretty
far to the north so if the confederacy
is pushed this far north
they’re doing pretty good this is the
one moment where it looks like the
confederacy is going to win the civil
war
we need to get this one colonel
chamberlain unfortunately with only 250
men
you’re like i can’t i can’t defend this
position possibly you go to high command
say i need more men they say they don’t
have any you say you don’t understand
i’ve got to have more men they say nope
you say
it can’t be done without more men and
they say fine and they give you 120
mutineers from the second main now
history is a little vague as to why the
men
these 120 men were so angry one of the
reasons that pops up a lot in the
history books is because of
a bureaucratic bungle that the
government made that could never
possibly happen in the modern era where
basically remember
19th century these guys can’t read they
can’t write for the most part
they thought they were signing contracts
for two-year contracts
for service the government accidentally
gave them contracts for three years of
service and now the two years are done
so they think they’re done they think
they’re going home to their wives to
their families to their livelihoods
to their farms only for men with guns to
stop them and say nope you’ve got
another year well no i don’t i only
signed for two nope you sign for three
it’s right here you can imagine
why they might be irate luckily today’s
government would never
do anything like that so colonel
chamberlain’s got these 120 mutineers
but he really needs them to fight for
him so he says you know what what do i
do how do i get him to fight for me high
command says well you know make them you
can shoot them
if they disobey you have the right to do
that so again imagine you’re joshua
chamberlain
uh think about what you would say in
this position you’re going to give a
speech to them that night you need to
motivate them
to fight for the union what would your
what would your teachers say what would
your coaches say what would your boss
say
to get these men to fight for the union
in this pivotal moment in our nation’s
history
now my students are often surprised when
i tell them that there are no surviving
youtube clips of this speech uh from
1863 but what we do have
are diaries uh journal entries letters
written home
and historians think they’ve been able
to piece together the gist of what
apparently
was a fairly short speech these probably
weren’t as exact words but
this is kind of a combination of
everything that it seems like people
have managed to piece together here’s
what colonel chamberlain actually said
i’ve been told that if you don’t come
with me and serve in this union army
i can shoot you but you know i won’t do
that
not to good maine men we’re down below
half strength the confederates are
coming
and we need you no doubt about that so
many of us have come
and served and died and we did it
because it was the right thing to do
we’re an army going out to set other men
free and what we’re fighting for in the
end
is for each other we know not of the
future and cannot plan for it much but
the cause for which we fight is higher
our thought is wider
that thought is our power but i think if
we lose this fight
the war will be over we’ll lose the
whole war
but if you choose to come with us i’ll
be personally grateful
that was the whole speech 120 men
signed up to fight the next day
and the battle of gettysburg went up and
down
different sides had the momentum at
different points but there was one
critical moment where
up on little round top colonel
chamberlain and his men were starting to
run out of ammunition
if i was in that situation i’d probably
run like hell that’s not what they did
a bayonet charge was called for they
launched they struck the surprised and
demoralized confederate setting up off a
domino effect
that ended with the union winning the
battle of gettysburg the battle of
gettysburg was the turning point that
caused the union to win the civil war
the civil war was the turning point that
changed the course of a nation
it all came back to that speech that
fantastic example of leadership from
colonel chamberlain so let’s talk about
that
just a little bit really quick what did
he do he didn’t coerce
he persuaded now unless you’re in the
mafia
your boss probably doesn’t have as much
power over you as colonel chamberlain
had over his men
sure your boss can can fire you could
demote you give you a bad performance
evaluation something like that
colonel chamberlain could kill these
people he had the right to do that
that’s the ultimate power to get people
to do what they want
but he said nope he gave it up with the
very first line of the speech he gave up
that power he didn’t want to coerce them
he wanted to persuade them
because he wrote he believed that they
would fight better if they fought
because they wanted to
not because they have to and then he
talked about them he persuaded the men
that the cause was noble and worth doing
we’re an army going out to set other men
free what we’re fighting for in the end
is for each other so i ask you
as a leader or someone who wants to be a
leader think about what your team does
your organization does is your cause
noble and worth doing
think about that for a second the answer
might surprise you one time i was giving
this talk and there were two banks in
the room and someone from the first bank
stood up and said
that’s not really what we do it’s not
noble and worth doing we do investments
we make money
someone from the second bank stood up
and said and by the way second bank does
exactly the same thing as the first bank
same good services said of course what
we do is noble and worth doing we help
people afford their dreams we help
people retire in comfort
we help people buy their first home
their first car how could that not be
noble
sometimes it’s all in the way you think
about it the way you frame it what’s
your real goal
as you’re making money he persuaded the
men that the cause was noble and worth
doing and
he he respected them he tried to help
them but he said even though you’ve been
wronged i need you to come with me and
help others
and in the course of that he turned the
tide of the war change the course of a
whole nation
now now there’s a name for this approach
to leadership uh
there are people who talk about it one
that one that shares power instead of
hoarding it one that puts others first
and develops them and helps them to grow
and succeed
one that gets together with teammates
and followers to talk about how what
we’re doing can make a difference in the
broader world
it’s called servant leadership and it
was
founded by a man called robert greenleaf
who worked at a t as their very first
director of management research he
studied
leadership what worked and what didn’t
for over three
decades before coming to this conclusion
that this servant leadership thing
was in his opinion the best way to lead
the non-profit he formed today it’s
called the greenlee center for servant
leadership
it’s still around it’s still doing great
things to promote this style of
leadership which i know
sounds idealistic a little bit like a
fairy tale now let me come to you as a
professor
and a researcher of leadership there’s a
lot of evidence that it actually works
it’s not a fairy tale there are
literally hundreds
of peer-reviewed published quantitative
papers
hundreds showing that servant leadership
has a unique empirically demonstrated
effect
on motivation performance satisfaction
commitment finances everything we’re
interested in it has a unique effect
right now in the modern context in fact
a lot of research indicates
that servant leadership is even more
effective than more goal-centric forms
of leadership or profit-centric forms of
leadership here’s something i call the
paradox of leadership
if you want to make lots of profit talk
less about profit
and talk more about how what your team
what your organization is doing
to help customers help employees to help
partners to help communities
research shows that actually less of a
profit focus will help you get
to more profit so what is leadership
well former president dwight eisenhower
has a really great definition he said
leadership is getting people to do the
things you want done
because they want to do them not not
because they have to not because they’re
forced to not because they’re worried
they’ll get fired
not even because they want a promotion
or they’re trying to suck up to the boss
but because they genuinely want to do
these things that’s real leadership
great definition but how do you do that
how do you motivate people to want to do
these things
well research and one of the pivotal
moments in our country’s history
show that servant leadership might just
be the best way to do it
i still don’t know what the word v means
i probably never will
but i’m starting to get just a little
bit of an idea about what leadership
might be
it’s sharing power it’s developing
people it’s helping them grow it’s
having
foresight and thinking ahead and
listening to what ideas others have and
it’s motivating
by talking to people together to talk
about how is what we’re doing making a
positive difference for someone
for a customer for a partner for another
employee for another team
for our community maybe even for broader
society if you want to get ambitious and
i know it may sound idealistic
and not like what you’re expecting from
a leadership talk but research says
it really really has a uniquely powerful
effect
it’s called servant leadership read
about it think about it
give it a try it might just change the
way you look
at organizational and team management
and leadership for the rest of your life
it can make you a better leader it might
just help you to make a
big difference in the life of someone
else a customer an employee
a follower maybe your community
everybody wins
and that’s what leadership is