Job 1 for New Grads? Start Getting in the Habit of Exemplary Leadership
There are certain timeless core practices that make the best leaders the best, say Jim Kouzes
and Barry Posner, coauthors of the sixth edition of The Leadership Challenge.
If you want to make yourself incredibly valuable in the workplace, now is the
time to start honing them—even if you don't yet have a job.
Hoboken, NJ (May 2017)—As graduation looms, finding a job is most likely at the forefront of your mind. You're consumed with thoughts about where you'll work, what your salary will be, and how you can best master the fundamentals of your career. What you might not be thinking about (at least not yet) is how to become an exemplary leader. But Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner say you should.
"When you're looking for that first job, keep in mind that 97 percent of employers believe that leadership development should begin by age 21," says Jim, coauthor along with Barry of the sixth edition of The Leadership Challenge: How to Make Extraordinary Things Happen in Organizations (Jossey-Bass/A Wiley Imprint; May 2017; ISBN: 978-1-119-27896-2; $35.00; www.leadershipchallenge.com). "If you haven't started your leadership development by now, you should.
"You probably won't be in an 'official' leadership position immediately," he adds. "But from your very first day, you can set the example for others, inspire others, challenge yourself to improve, collaborate with others, and encourage others to do their best."
To be clear, leadership is NOT about gaining a title or telling other people what to do. Jim and Barry say it's about relationships, about credibility, about passion and conviction, and ultimately about what you do.
"Everyone has the capacity to be a leader," says Barry. "It's not some mystical inborn quality. It's an observable pattern of practices and behaviors, and a definable set of skills and abilities. As one young leader told us, 'You never know where one step will take you. And you never know where the next one will lead. The difference in being a leader is that you take that step.'"
Jim and Barry first asked ordinary people in the early 1980s to tell them what they did when they were at their "personal best" in leading others. They found that despite differences in culture, gender, age, and other demographic variables, the stories leaders came back with revealed similar patterns of behavior. They then published their findings in 1987 in the debut of The Leadership Challenge.
Thirty years later their research has continued to show that when leaders are at their personal best, there are five core practices common to all: They Model the Way, Inspire a Shared Vision, Challenge the Process, Enable Others to Act, and Encourage the Heart. Together, these comprise The Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership® model—and leaders who more frequently demonstrate these practices create higher performing workplaces and have significantly more engaged employees than those who demonstrate the practices less frequently.
Like anything else, say the authors, becoming an exemplary leader takes practice—lots and lots of practice. That means you need to make learning leadership a daily habit. Whether you have a job lined up or not, they advise that you start working on mastering the Five Practices. Here's a little more about each one:
Model the Way. Titles are granted, but it's your behavior that wins you respect. Exemplary leaders know that if they want to gain commitment and achieve the highest standards, they must be models of the behavior they expect of others. To effectively model the behavior they expect of others, leaders must first be clear about guiding principles. They must clarify values. Leaders must find their own voice, and then they must clearly and distinctively give voice to their values.
Eloquent speeches about common values, however, aren't nearly enough. Leaders' deeds are far more important than their words when one wants to determine how serious leaders really are about what they say. Words and deeds must be consistent. Exemplary leaders set the example through daily actions that demonstrate they are deeply committed to their beliefs.
Inspire a Shared Vision. People talked about their personal-best leadership experiences as times when they imagined an exciting, highly attractive future for their organization. They had visions and dreams of what could be. They had absolute and total personal belief in those dreams, and they were confident in their abilities to make extraordinary things happen. Every organization, every social movement, begins with a dream. The dream or vision is the force that invents the future.
To enlist in a shared vision, people must believe that leaders understand their needs and have their interests at heart. Leaders breathe life into the hopes, dreams, and aspirations of others and enable them to see the exciting possibilities that the future holds. Leaders forge a unity of purpose by showing constituents how the dream is for the common good.
Challenge the Process. Challenge is the crucible for greatness. Every single personal-best leadership case involved a change from the status quo. Not one person claimed to have achieved a personal best by keeping things the same.
Leaders venture out. None of the individuals in the study sat idly by waiting for fate to smile upon them. Leaders are pioneers. They are willing to step out into the unknown. They search for opportunities to innovate, grow, and improve.
Exemplary leaders also know that innovation and change involve experimenting and taking risks. One way of dealing with the potential risks and failures of experimentation is to approach change through incremental steps and small wins. Life is the leader's laboratory, and exemplary leaders use it to conduct as many experiments as possible. Try, fail, learn. Try, fail, learn. Try, fail, learn. That's the leader's mantra.
Enable Others to Act. Grand dreams don't become significant realities through the actions of a single person. Achieving greatness requires a team effort. It requires solid trust and strong relationships. It requires group collaboration and individual accountability.
Leaders foster collaboration and build trust. The more people trust their leaders, and each other, the more they take risks, make changes, and keep moving ahead. This sense of teamwork goes far beyond a few direct reports or close confidants. They engage all those who must make the project work—and in some way, all who must live with the results.
Leaders make it possible for others to do good work. They work to make people feel strong, capable, and committed. Exemplary leaders strengthen everyone's capacity to deliver on the promises they make. When leaders enable people to feel strong and capable—as if they can do more than they ever thought possible—they'll give it their all and exceed their own expectations.
Encourage the Heart. The climb to the top is arduous and steep. People become exhausted, frustrated, and disenchanted. They're often tempted to give up. Genuine acts of caring uplift the spirits and draw people forward.
Recognizing contributions can be one-to-one or with many people. It can come from dramatic gestures or simple actions. It's part of the leader's job to show appreciation for people's contributions and to create a culture of celebrating values and victories.
Recognition and celebration aren't about fun and games, though there is a lot of fun and there are a lot of games when people encourage the hearts of their constituents. Encouragement is, curiously, serious business. It's how leaders visibly and behaviorally link rewards with performance. When striving to raise quality, recover from disaster, start up a new service, or make dramatic change of any kind, leaders make sure people see the benefit of behavior that's aligned with cherished values.
"There are many opportunities to make these five practices part of your life, while you're working at a temporary job before you get a position in your desired field or even before you have a paying job at all," says Jim. "You can inspire others right now. You can encourage others. You can shake up the status quo and take some risks. These are the hallmarks of exemplary leaders."
"The potential to lead exists in all jobs, at all levels of authority, and in every relationship, not just your relationship with bosses or coworkers," agrees Barry. "Life itself can be experienced as a crucible for becoming an exemplary leader. When you recognize that truth and start acting on it now, you're well on your way to being an extremely valuable employee and, frankly, a better human being."
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About the Authors:
James M. Kouzes (Orinda, CA; www.leadershipchallenge.com) is the Dean's Executive Fellow of Leadership, Leavey School of Business at Santa Clara University, and lectures on leadership around the world to corporations, governments, and nonprofits.
Barry Z. Posner (Berkeley, CA; www.leadershipchallenge.com) is Accolti Endowed Professor of Leadership and former Dean (1997-2009) of the Leavey School of Business, Santa Clara University. An accomplished scholar, he provides leadership workshops and seminars around the world.
Kouzes and Posner have been working together for more than 30 years, studying leaders, researching leadership, conducting leadership development seminars, and serving as leaders themselves in various capacities. They are coauthors of the award-winning, best-selling book The Leadership Challenge. Since its first edition in 1987, The Leadership Challenge has sold more than 2.5 million copies worldwide and is available in more than 20 languages. Kouzes and Posner have coauthored more than a dozen other award-winning leadership books and are frequent keynote speakers. Each has conducted leadership development programs for hundreds of organizations.
About the Book:
The Leadership Challenge: How to Make Extraordinary Things Happen in Organizations (Jossey-Bass/A Wiley Imprint; May 2017; ISBN: 978-1-119-27896-2; $35.00; www.leadershipchallenge.com) will be available at bookstores nationwide, from major online booksellers, and direct from the publisher by calling 800-225-5945. In Canada, call 800-567-4797. For more information, please visit the book's page on www.wiley.com
