All About People
It really, really is all about people…
In many ways, this is my favourite of the four pillars because despite what some might think, there is nothing as complex as dealing with people. Money, strategy, products and services are things you can control to a greater degree. You might get it right or wrong but generally you get to call the shots. But people are gloriously independent of your agenda. Amazingly, each and every one of them has their own.
For a start, have a think about all the different categories of people you need to deal with. It's your team, your suppliers, your customers, your shareholders, possibly your Board, your bankers and your competitors. Naturally there is some tension between what you want and what they want.
This is where the unifying quality you need to demonstrate most is leadership. Leadership will be a post on its own soon, but right now, let’s just agree that it can be summarised as the result of how you interact with people. It has nothing to do with personality type. You can be quiet, loud, excitable, optimistic, pessimistic, happy, sad or angry and that doesn’t have any direct impact on leadership.
I know it’s a cliché to say it, but if there is a cliché that still has some juice, I’ll happily use it without shame. This one goes like this - What is a
leader? It is someone who people will follow. Now that can frighten the socks off some people because it immediately begs the terrifying question - if leadership lives somewhere other than with me, how do I exercise it? The truth is, it’s the wrong question.
This question raises the next definition that needs clarification. When you hear the words leadership and management, what do you think? For many, they are interchangeable. Being in a management position automatically makes you a leader. Sorry, that’s bollocks. It gives you a set of
responsibilities/accountabilities, but it actually just gives you more pay and maybe some other fruit.
You find leaders everywhere. If you want a clear but grim example, go to a car crash site. It is a situation that turns normal into emergency instantly. Four cars stop and someone immediately jumps out, assesses the situation and begins to assign duties to the others who carry them out without question. The person making the requests may be a plumbers apprentice and the people doing what she asks may be senior executives. In the moment, position or standing mean nothing.
In this instance, she is providing both leadership and management. She has worked out what needs to be done and has taken ownership of the outcome. To achieve that outcome, she needs the help of others and enrols them in sharing ownership of the outcome. What you are seeing defines the difference between power and influence.
The further up the food chain you get, the more direct power you have. You have the right to direct people, resources and activities. But we all have examples of people in positions of power who have no authority, no respect and produce very little. These are people who have never considered what it takes to make things happen in any other way than by their own direct effort.
Leaders can take surprising forms. The world is plagued by the cardboard cutout of a leader as white, male and middle aged. It’s a cultural throwback to a different time when the world required different skills and abilities. If we could be colour and gender blind and focus on the things that make a difference, our leadership teams would look vastly different. But, let’s not go there now. Too big, too complex and too much freight for this column.
Let’s get back to the complex sea of people we’re dealing with and look at the difference between power and influence. In any situation, your place and status is different. To the junior team member and sometimes the supplier, you may have power. With the customer, not so much. Sometimes that power balance shifts around. There’s no one size fits all.
But, there is one thing that is relevant and valuable in every situation and with every configuration of people. That is influence. Influence has nothing to do with power. Influence is the ability to get other people to join you on your journey, not because they have to, but because they share a common goal with you.
Funnily enough, the characteristics that allow influence are the opposite of wielding power. Let’s list some -
empathy
honesty
vulnerability
compassion
communication
There’s so much more to leadership than I’ve talked about here, but just imagine what it takes to get your own team, your suppliers and your customers to be all pulling in the same direction. Knowing that you are working for the ultimate benefit of all of them is a potent way to influence what they do and the decisions they make and when you’re all rowing together, there lies the route to productivity, efficiency and profit.
I can help you with that.