Would you even consider the purchase of a high-performance car without having test driven it at least once? Most people will have driven that car dozens, maybe hundreds of times in their minds – before they make it their own. High performance attracts people who tend to understand what it feels like or want to know. They appreciate the fit and finish, they marvel at the technology – but what sells performance is how it makes you feel. I’d like to take you on a test drive of high performance leadership and give you a sense of what that feels like.
We don’t buy “things,” we buy experiences. It’s the experience of owning or consuming whatever it is we purchase, whether we are looking to simply experience the tangible and purely functional benefits (a bottle of water to quench our thirst) – or the intangibles that have little to do with anything measurable and everything to do with how they make us feel (a luxury watch). The choices we make are about feeling smart, feeling sensible, feeling safe, feeling daring, feeling sexy, feeling satisfied or feeling ecstatic. Human beings, by virtue of our minds, are meaning-making machines, and the root of making meaning of anything always connects to how we feel about those things.
Leadership is typically (and I’ll argue, incorrectly) viewed as a function. It is a natural component of group dynamics and a necessary function of well-performing organizations. But leadership is much more an experience than a function. Dr. Lee Thayer suggests that leadership is a performing art – an experience that is interdependently created by people in a leadership role performing in concert with those in followership roles. Leadership is an experience shaped by consequences. How well the leader performs is consequential in terms of how the organization can perform. And how well the organization performs is ultimately determines the success (or not) of the leader. Performance is the result of how we perform and high-performance is the result of being prepared to perform at such a level. A high performing organization is what drives ultimate performance. In Thayer’s view, it is doing everything you do better than anyone else – and improving upon that everyday in order to gain a sustainable competitive advantage. Everything about the organization must be fully competent in order to reach the fullest potential performance.
How well a leader performs is always a result of how well prepared they are for their role. They may have natural talent to begin with, or extensive education and training to inform them on how to act (what to do) – but competent leaders combine their ability and knowing what to do with their abilities – to accomplish meaningful and necessary things. It is in the experience of accomplishment that leadership is born and grows. And in an organizational dynamic – it is the organization that creates the experience of accomplishment. Even individual, personal accomplishments are interdependent on some form of system, and the dynamic of a relationship to any person, people or system defines an organization. As individuals we organize around personal beliefs and habits that define who we are and what we become capable of doing and accomplishing. It is the same for organizations of any size – and especially of those who provide effective leadership.
So let’s buckle-in behind the wheel, and move onto the track.
If this weren’t a test drive – we wouldn’t be expecting to return to where you are now. Leadership is a lifelong journey without end. There is no global positioning system and there are no maps. We invent our way through the course.
Fully competent leaders don’t find themselves returning to the same place over and over again. They lead their organizations constantly forward. Setbacks are experienced as pauses in momentum where we regroup, a shift in the vector but not a retreat backwards. Pit stops are preparation for continuing forward, and they are staffed with fully competent actors with the needed parts and tools and a sense of duty that creates real urgency balanced with flawless execution driven solely by a single-minded goal.
There is no one set of operating instructions. Everyone learns that leadership is a tool. How well we use any tool is a matter of how much we understand what that tool is designed to accomplish. We learn for ourselves through practice how we might best use a tool to get the results we need in order to accomplish exactly what we aim for and what it is possible for that tool to provide. At the high fringe of performance there are no mass-produced tools. Each tool is highly specialized and precisely crafted to the exacting needs of the user – even modified to suit how a particular user best handles them. A novice typically cannot learn from emulating the technique of a virtuoso – they typically begin by mastering simpler techniques. In the hands of a virtuoso violinist – a cheap student instrument can be made to sound good – and the finest violin in the world will not improve the performance of a mediocre player. It’s never the tool – it’s always the person whose hands it is in. Leadership is evaluated by what you do with it.
The gages are elegant and simple. It is not the gage that is critical – but the ability to trust the information, know what it means and what to do with it. It is about accessing it efficiently using the information effectively. It’s really about knowing what you need to know – not what someone else has determined what might be good to know. Driving high performance leadership is being tuned in to what you must focus on and filtering out whatever distracts us. It is more important to know what we “don’t” need to know when there is no time or energy to waste.
You must clearly understand your role – and it’s position in the overall performance. Sometimes you are driving behind the wheel – other times you may be riding shotgun. Sometimes it is necessary to jump into the pit and get dirty. It’s not just the willingness to do whatever must be done that matters – it is actually doing it. Competence amounts to accomplishment. Competence is always consequential. It’s knowing when do to so and how to do so – because you know why you must do so. It’s thinking with curiosity to constantly scan the “what ifs?” and making sure you are what and who you need to be to handle whatever falls your way – and performing as capably and diligently as you possibly can – knowing that with constant learning you can improve in both ways. And it is being the exemplar for others to do the same – or become someone who can and will. It is expecting of others no more than you would expect from yourself – and expecting unyielding improvement – knowing that being prepared for each turn means never allowing wear-and-tear to impede your performance. And always expecting that how we do things today will become dust rising in our rearview mirror tomorrow.
This is how great things are accomplished. This is how we turn imagination into reality and create a future full of limitless possibility. This is how great organizations are formed and great leaders perform.
Concluding the Test Drive
So, do you feel excited? Does the thrill of the pace and the heights you achieve and the adventure of imagining the future and turning the unknown into reality make your heart pound? Do you see your purpose playing out before you? If the answers are yes – than the path is clear.
Not everyone is cut out for this kind of journey. The status quo is a far safer place to reside. But make no mistake about this: the status quo is no place to live. Life is about learning and growing. When we aim for comfort we cease to explore. And when we cease to explore to stop learning. Life gets smaller. The more we try to protect what we have – the fewer things we can call our own. It’s the risk of “putting it all out there” that expands us. And it is being driven by a sense of something larger than we are – that causes us to risk our comfort and lose our satisfaction with the pursuit of safety that locks us in our ever shrinking boundaries – until one day we have nothing to speak of.
You can unbuckle now. This was just a test drive. Now it’s your choice. If you want high performance leadership you have to choose to become the kind of leader who can make that happen. The BullFrog Group ALPS (Advanced Leadership Performance Systems) program helps prepare leaders for real leadership – and helps them turn their companies into fully competent, high-performing organizations. It is a journey well worth taking. The final question is, are you prepared to begin?
