TC0003: Values Based Leadership vs. Salesmanship

GEN Eisenhower speaking to troops
the day before D-Day

If you Google ”Definition of Leadership” (and who hasn’t?) you get 80.8 million returns.  My personal definition comes from one of the nation’s greatest statesmen, soldiers and leaders, former President Dwight David Eisenhower.  His definition is elegant in its simplicity: “Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it."  This is a leadership definition with values as its bedrock.

In this definition, the only difference between leadership and salesmanship is values.  The only difference between Adolph Hitler and Mahatma Gandhi was values.  Each was a charismatic visionary, capable of great influence over others.  However, where Hitler was a creature in the depths of depravity, Gandhi’s value set made him a force for moral supremacy.  Values count.

If you are in a leadership position then you have been granted regulatory authority over others.  With that authority you incur the absolute responsibility for those others.  That regulatory authority is what makes a supervisor.  But what makes a leader is the willingness of another to follow you.  Regulatory authority grants power from above.  Leadership is the empowerment of the leader by the led.  The question all leaders search for the answer to is “what is the element that causes empowerment?”.  I believe that trust is the basic bond of leadership and the element of empowerment, as my mentor, GEN Fredrick M. Franks instilled in me.    If you would be a leader, then you must have the trust of the led.  It is the led that must bestow upon you the mantle of leadership that is also a mantle of servitude.

If trust is the basic bond of leadership, how do we become trustworthy? It has been my observation that people hear about 40% of what I say.  They see 100% of what I do.  For my teenage children the hearing ratio appears to be much lower.  You know the saying, if you talk the talk, you must walk the walk.  As I mentioned earlier, values may be taught, but they are more easily caught. Dan Nolan

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