How do you assess the competence of a leader? It is clearly what they cause to be accomplished. Dr. Lee Thayer, who has written more than a dozen insightful books on leadership strongly suggests that “it is the organization that makes the leader successful, not the other way around.” What this means – is that the accomplishments of those the leader helps to inspire and inform are the litmus test for leadership.
Physics suggests that accomplishment is a transactional function of energy and force. Things get done in a mechanical way where we can measure cause and effect. Simple machines like levers and pulleys increase the efficiency of work and can increase what we can accomplish with the same amount of effort. Chemistry suggests that atoms form molecules and molecules can be combined in predictable ways when we manage the conditions.
What we accomplish with things is entirely different than what we accomplish with people. Things can be managed – but people cannot; they must be led.
This is what leadership is fundamentally all about: how to get people to perform in a way that they accomplish things that are needed or intended.
There may be plenty of science that speaks to human behaviors. We understand that there are chemicals in our brains, things like serotonin, endorphins, oxytocin and dopamine that drive certain emotional responses. Adrenalyn can force your muscles into involuntary action. And things like your environment and your diet all contribute to your capacity to perform in various conditions.
The science of human performance suggests we can modify our bodies and minds in order to improve our capacity to accomplish things. We can train or muscles to be stronger, our reflexes to be faster, our attention to be sharper and our awareness to be broader.
Science has even endeavored to apply external means to achieve these results – with drugs such as steroids, surgical modifications, electrostimulation and biofeedback. Yet none of these things – at least so far, has been effective in making better leaders.
The value of what we accomplish is not measured in effort. Accomplishment is a function of consequences. All actions have consequences.
The art of accomplishing what really matters comes down to discerning what consequences are want and what we are willing to tolerate in order to realize them. Consequences can be positive, negative or neutral. It is easy to accomplish things that are inconsequential. If you are looking to reduce your body weight – you would technically succeed by simply plucking a hair from your body, and while perhaps measurable, would be a meaningless accomplishment.
The thing that separates what is truly worthwhile from what it meaningless is purpose. Without some clear sense of purpose we can waste tremendous amounts of energy and effort. We can become paralyzed as a result of our own state of dysfunction. There is the old saw that suggests when you find that you have dug yourself deep into a hole, you should put down the shovel. Without a clear purpose we are likely to accomplish things that are either meaningless or worse. Purpose is what guides us away from destructive behaviors and towards things that really do matter.
Leadership defines itself by an unshakable commitment to purpose. All great leaders have an indelible sense of purpose that is contagious. They have an incurable curiosity that causes them to learn and adapt to whatever it is that their purpose demands they accomplish.
The essence of meaningful accomplishment is conscientiousness – which literally means that our thinking that drives our behavior is governed by our conscience. Pragmatically speaking, this translates to understanding that we must serve something beyond our own personal needs or interests. Grit is the product of putting conscientiousness into action.
When we get comfortable with the idea of being uncomfortable, and stretch the limits of our beliefs and our abilities, we accomplish the things that not only matter most, but also seem impossible.
The art of accomplishing what really matters is a function of developing yourself into a competent leader. You must become someone who effectively dedicates yourself to the competence of others. You must devote yourself to improving and increasing the performance of others – by cultivating the competencies in yourself that make you empathetic and effectual. You must nurture your own curiosity about what is possible – and turn possibilities into realities by showing people that what is necessary is also possible – and help them to feel that what is possible is also necessary.
Nothing that really matters ever occurs in a vacuum. The art of accomplishing what really matters always involves at least two people.
As suggested by the question of the proverbial tree that falls in the forest, human reality is a shared experience. Our lives have consequences. We are not born alone; we are born into a relationship that has been nurtured in the womb for many months. Even if you attempt to escape the world into a state of abject solitude, you have changed the human dynamic of anyone who may have noticed. In this sense we are all leaders to some certain degree.
The question is, what is your purpose? What consequences are meaningful to you? And what are you willing to do, and what are you prepared to give-up in order to accomplish what matters most?
The art of accomplishing what matters most is the art of being human.
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Phil Liebman is the Founder and CEO at ALPS Leadership – We Guide CEO’s and Their Leadership Teams to Become Exceptionally Competent Leaders and High-Performance Organizations
www.ALPSLeadership.com
Phil is also been a Group Chairman with Vistage Worldwide since 2005 – where he helps leaders realize their potential by learning with and from other leaders. He is the author of the soon-to-be published book, “Cultivating MoJo: How competent leaders inspire exceptional performance.”
