The wordle at the top of this post shows the characteristics that people name; the larger the word, the more often it is named. These characteristics illustrate how important relationship skills are for leaders.

The characteristics that your people look for in you are also in this collection. Now, before you get depressed, please remember that this is a composite picture – many people describing many leaders. There’s no need to try and measure yourself against this collection and exhibit all of these qualities. However, it’s worthwhile to take a moment to think about how many of these qualities you already exhibit and which you might want to cultivate. This will help you to be a leader others want to follow.

I’ll be updating this wordle from time-to-time. So, if you’re surprised by the importance attached to any of these qualities, if something important for you is missing, or you’d just like to share what makes your best leader special, please leave a comment below.

Field Marshal Lord Slim, responsible for the British campaign in Burma in WWII and a great thinker on leadership, summed up the difference thus:

“There is a difference between leadership and management. The leader and the men who follow him represent one of the oldest, most natural, and most effective of all human relationships. The manager and those he manages are a later product with neither so romantic nor so inspiring a history. Leadership is of the spirit, compounded of personality and vision. Its practice is an art. Management is of the mind, more a matter of accurate calculations, statistics, methods, timetables, and routine. Its practice is a science. Managers are necessary, Leaders are essential.”

Here is a chart I use to illustrate the difference:

The tasks in the management zone require a certain degree of intelligence and discipline. Those in the leadership zone largely benefit from emotional and social intelligence. While some tasks are purely leadership ((e.g. develop vision) and others purely management (e.g. plan), many require a blend of the two (e.g. develop staff).

To succeed, you need strength in both areas: an excellent manager with no leadership qualities will ensure that the experiments are completed; however, there is no guarantee that the results shed light on the right question. An excellent leader with no management skills can develop and communicate wonderful visions; however, these will never materialise. The former is a technocrat, the latter a dreamer.

I surround the management zone with the leadership zone (rather than vice versa) in this model, since most researchers who move into leadership positions start out with a reasonable level of management ability and need to expand their skills and capabilities into the leadership zone.

If you would like to find out where your centre of gravity is between management and leadership, carry out the following experiment: write down your six most important tasks (not necessarily most time-consuming). Then place them on an axis with management at one end and leadership at the other. Some tasks will be at one end or the other, others will be somewhere in-between; this reflects that they need a blend of management and leadership. When you look at how you’ve positioned these six, you get a sense of whether your center of gravity for the six is closer to management and leadership. I’d like to hear from you, how you get on with this exercise.

leadership noun \ˈlÄ�-dər-ˌship\
1: the office or position of a leader
2: capacity to lead
3: the act or an instance of leading

For once, the dictionary is not so helpful. So, let’s continue and see what some of the great thinkers on leadership have to say.

Peter Drucker defines the term leader pithily: “The only definition of a leader is someone who has followers.” However, that seems a little to pithy for my taste. Are you only a leader once you have followers, or do you attract followers through displaying leadership? (This is akin to the old philosophical question about whether a falling tree in the forest makes any noise, if there’s nobody present to hear it.) John C. Maxwell made an early attempt to fill out the dictionary definition, “leadership is influence – nothing more, nothing less.”

The coiner of the term transformational leadership, James MacGregor Burns, expanded on the idea of influence thus: “I define leadership as leaders inducing followers to act for certain goals that represent the values and the motivations – the wants and needs, the aspirations and expectations – of both leaders and followers.” Bernard Bass defined this in terms of how the leader affects followers, who are intended to trust, admire and respect the transformational leader.

Warren Bennis added another layer to this, “leadership is a function of knowing yourself, having a vision that is well communicated, building trust among colleagues, and taking effective action to realize your own leadership potential.” So, one way of being better able to influence others is through knowing yourself, your strengths and weaknesses. John Kotter points to another aspect in “Leadership defines what the future should look like, aligns people with that vision, and inspires them to make it happen despite the obstacles”. Tenacity is a key quality in research, the willingness and ability to keep attacking a problem or question until it yields its secrets.

From the area of research come two other definitions, which are pretty close to those from the mainstream literature. Alice Sapienza author of Managing Scientists: Leadership Strategies in Scientific Research writes “leadership is an influence process that is noncoercive in nature and produces acceptance or commitment on the part of organizational members to courses of action that contribute to the organization’s effectiveness”. In Making the Right Moves (available for download from HHMI), Edward O’Neil (UCSF) condenses it to an equation:

 Leadership = Vision + Relationships + Tasks

 This equation helps to illustrate why I place so much emphasis on skills and tools that support relationships in my leadership sculptor® process.

When I ask researchers to describe leadership, they give me a wide variety of viewpoints. One such description is of someone I would term a boss, someone who directs people to achieve a goal. In such a definition, the research leader is relying on their position, their scientific ability and on their research funding (in the literature, this is labeled assigned leadership). While such a style can work well in an emergency, Daniel Goleman et al’s research has shown this to be less effective in other settings. One indicator of an overdose of “boss” in R&D settings, in my experience, is the above-average staff turnover or drop-out rate in such a group or department. Other viewpoints echo the literature: having and being able to share a vision, getting people to do their best, maximizing results, having and transmitting ideas.

R&D takes place in an intense environment – you’re either first to a result, or nowhere. There are no 2^nd prizes. That’s why, in my definition of leadership I make visible a counter-balancing aspect to save researchers from themselves:

Leadership is the art of maintaining a dynamic balance between influencing others, by word and deed, to reach common goals and ensuring their development and well-being.

(Photo: Margaret Anne Clarke)

David Ferrucci, leader of the Watson artificial intelligence project , has just written an article for the New York Times in which he describes how he pulled together the multidisciplinary research team behind this great achievement. He had to overcome the researchers’ natural inclinations to stick with their own individual projects and to foster an environment in which they collaborated intensively and shared ideas. He won them over with the vision of how they together could achieve something grand that none of them alone would ever manage. He reinforced the team collaboration with what he terms the “war room”, where the researchers from all the different disciplines worked together in the same big office.

The grand result was due to many insignificant breakthroughs, as if each researcher was delivering one tessera for the overall mosaic.

While winning a quiz show is impressive, it’s just a milestone. IBM is already investigating how Watson’s ability to understand language and crunch data can be put to good use to suggest diagnoses and treatment options to doctors. If you would like to know more about this research, visit IBM’s own site about Watson.
Ferrucci has the last word: “In the end, the hero was the team, not any individual member or algorithm.”

Step 1 Make sure they understand that they belong

When people join a team they are usually both optimistic about the new challenge and at the same they’re wondering whether they’ll fit in. You need to remove this question mark. When I moved to ABB in Switzerland, it was a big adventure for me: new industry (gas turbines), new company, new country, new language (Swiss-German). On my first day, my new boss assigned me to one of his long-time engineers to show me the ropes, both inside and outside work. This had a powerful effect, as well as ensuring that I could be quickly productive. Clients with whom I’ve shared the story, report to me that positive effects of helping their people to settle quickly.

Once they’re settled, it is also important to give praise and recognition, when due and to ensure that they are included in any social events you or your team organise.

Steps 2 and 3 Tell them where you’re going and help them understand how they can contribute to this

One of the main differences between a team and a working group is that in the latter each person is basically working on their own and the output is the sum of individual efforts. In a well-functioning team, you can achieve more than just the individual outputs through a high degree of cooperation. One way to do this is to make sure that they understand where you are taking your research, what the long-term focus is and how their work fits into this picture.

Having such a common goal provides a focus for all activities in the team. When your people see that their work is not only serving their own interest, but is also contributing to something bigger, this helps to provide their work with more meaning, which also helps their motivation and energy levels.

Step 4 Ensure they have the skills required to contribute

There’s not much worse than being asked to do something and you have no clue how to tackle it. There’s not much better than being given a something you don’t know how to do and being given the appropriate coaching, tips or training to complete the task. I spent a year in a compressor design team to help me better understand how research could contribute to the product. On my first day I was asked to solve a technical issue about which I had no clue. Upon noticing my mild panic, Wolfgang stepped in and told me he’d show me how to work out the solution after the meeting.

Step 5 Give and receive regular feedback

It’s important regularly to give your staff feedback on their performance – this is one of the key contributing factors to high energy levels at work.  I’ve written a blog article on how to give feedback.

If you take this one step further and establish a feedback culture in your team, the multiplicative effect is powerful as the Johari window shows. Everything about a person can be assigned to one of the four panes; a team’s effectiveness can be estimated by looking at the size of the Public pane. When someone receives feedback, their blind spot pane reduces and their public increases in size. This means that more of their qualities are known and can be accessed by the full team.  In addition, any of their annoying behaviours have been addressed before they start to generate conflict.

A feedback culture usually has a positive impact on trust levels in the team. When trust rises, then people are more willing to move something from private to public to help the team further. For example, many years ago, my boss’ boss was told to run a summer school on fluid mechanics. This was new land to him and he asked for input. I told him about my experiences growing up in my parents’ international summer school in Dublin (which had been in my private pane) and got the task to set up a series of CFD summer schools close to Oxford.

I’d like to hear about how many of these you have in place and what their impact is. I’d like even more to hear about other ways you have to get your team moving.

Myth #1 Time can be managed

I’ve covered this one in a 2010 posting on my blog: You can read what the Mad Hatter has to say about time management here.

Myth #2 One size fits all

One of the biggest hurdles to improving self-management is that most of the books on the subject take a “one size fits all” approach. I work with a personality system called the Enneagram which consists of nine personality archetypes. Each Type is characterized by a particular way of looking at the world and an associated set of preferred strategies for dealing with life.

Most of the self-management books seem to be written for or by someone who is the Enneagram Archetype called the Achiever or Performer. People with this personality type tend to be very well organized and focus on what needs to be done to achieve a desired goal. If, as a reader, you’re also of this Type, then the book can help you to become even more super-organised. If you’re not, then the book is an invitation to frustration and failure – why can’t I follow this recipe?

Myth #3 An empty inbox is the sign of an organized person

To be honest, an empty in-box in your mail program is just that, the sign of an empty in-box. It shouldn’t be an end in itself. What is the point in ensuring that your inbox is empty, if you have urgent and important tasks to take care of? They need your attention, not your inbox.

It’s a good idea to keep your inbox under control, so that you avoid unwelcome surprises. However, there is a law of diminishing returns. Depending on how you tick, you may need “empty” to feel comfortable. My own threshold is about 40 mails; when my inbox goes above that, my stress levels start to go up. At the time of writing, my inbox stands at 58. Once this posting is finished, I will give my mails some attention. I notice that when the level goes below 20 that there is no appreciable change in my stress levels.

Myth #4 All it takes is self-discipline

I read an article once that claimed that procrastination could be dealt with through enough self-discipline. Procrastination is your unconscious’ way of telling you it hasn’t signed up to this particular idea. Most people have not been blessed with a self-discipline gene, so strategies that require this have a small chance of success.

Over the past eighteen months I have been learning how to use the Zurich Resource Model in my coaching and leadership development work. This blends the latest research from psychology, neuroscience and embodiment to help the conscious and unconscious to align and help you express the attitude you need to reach a particular goal. When used well, you find yourself moving effortlessly in the right direction.

Myth #5 You just need to simplify

An increasing number of books on the market propagate different approaches to simplifying your work or your life. While there are good ideas in these books, they miss the point: you’re not in a job that can be completed in four hours a week. If it could be, someone more senior would find even more for you to do!

In my experience, it is more beneficial to be clear on your organisation’s strategy and how you and your people can contribute to that; these are your core activities. This provides a natural focus for activities and a way to prioritise your tasks. The more of your time and energy is spent on this, the more progress you make and the more fulfilling your day becomes.

Tip #1 There is an “I” in Leader

Clarity is a hallmark of good leadership communication. One source of confusion is that many people use the second or third person when they intend to talk about themselves, their own ideas and standpoints. “You want to …”, when they mean “I want …”. This can be confusing. Simply a shift to the first person, “I would like you …” adds a lot of power and clarity to our speech.

Tip #2 Keep it Simple

It’s almost a given that an R&D team is international and that few people in the team are using their native language in day-to-day work. Since the team’s language is often “poor English” (as Goran Lindahl used to call ABB’s official language), it is helpful to keep things simple when communicating. Three concrete ways to do this are:

• Formulate your sentences positively. Tell people what you want, rather than what you don’t. This removes guesswork on their part.
• In her wonderful little book Making Contact, Virginia Satir demonstrates the danger of “but”: It tends to erase what precedes it. “I agree with you completely, but I think we also need to …”. The agreement gets lost. Simply replace the “but” by an “and” and notice what happens.
• If you use slang and other colourful language to add spice to a conversation, you run the risk that people miss the message. It just gets lost in translation.

Tip #3 Ask open questions

When I support leaders to develop coaching skills for use with their people, I notice that the majority tend to use closed questions (which can be simply answered with a yes or no) in the practice conversation. Such questions can be quickly answered with a low level of engagement on the part of the conversation partner. They are useful when you want to check a specific piece of information, e.g. “Did you run the experiment at 28.7°C?”, or to test a particular idea or hypothesis you have.

When you ask open questions (“when …?”, “what …?”, “how …?”, “who …?”), you engage your discussion partner and activate their thinking. You draw out information and help them and yourself to gain insight. You know that you’ve asked a particularly useful question when the other person needs to pause for thought. It’s usually a sign that learning is taking place.

Tip #4 Why not why

Many clients are not too happy at first when I suggest that they reduce heavily their use of the question “why?” It has the reputation as being the fundamental point in research. I reframe that as saying the fundamental point is to understand.

The challenge when dealing with people and their work, is that the “why” question can automatically generate a defensive reaction, which is unhelpful. “Why doesn’t the program work?” will usually not quickly lead to a solution of the problem. (A typical response is, “I don’t know, it just doesn’t give any answers.”) Instead, by asking some well-chosen open questions, you can often quickly pinpoint the source of the problem. (A better starting point to might be, “What error message does the software give?”)

Tip #5 Listen

Especially when you are busy, it is tempting to interrupt and answer – as I have learned many times to my own cost. Far better is to wait until the other person is finished and then reply. This allows you to listen on different levels, which can provide valuable insights. Three typical levels of listening are:

• Cognitive – the factual information the person is delivering. This is the strongest level in research conversations.
• Emotional – this can provide clues about how important the topic is, or what is colouring the conversation.
• Meta-level – here we look down on the conversation in order to recognize any patterns emerging. This can be particularly helpful when a conversation is unproductive as we can then switch from the topic of conversation, to a conversation about the pattern that the conversation is taking (e.g. “we seem to be going around in circles here”).

Tip #6 Paraphrase and summarise

How many meetings have you attended in which people seem to repeat their position several times? One way to short-circuit this, if you’re leading the meeting, is to summarise the conversation from time to time. This helps people to focus and also lets people know that their contribution has been heard, which reduces the likelihood that they’ll repeat it. When this is done well, it also helps the meeting participants to reach a consensus more quickly.

Tip #7 Use pictures and metaphors

Although slang is not so helpful (see Tip #1), a message without colour and imagery would be dry as two-day-old bread. Well-chosen pictures and metaphors not only brighten up a conversation, they also help people to remember your ideas.

This list isn’t exhaustive – as the number of books on communication attests. What tips have you found most useful to help your communication?

(Photo: RichVintage)

Mistake #1 “Spare the rod …”

Many years ago we asked one of my bosses how we could recognize that he was satisfied with our performance. His reply was, “If I’m not standing in front of your desk”. This illustrates how any people have learned that it’s better to criticize than to praise. The question I’m most often asked is, how can I criticize my people more effectively? When we’re discussing science or engineering, there’s plenty of room to criticize ideas. However, it’s less productive to criticize behavior. Here’s an article on how to give feedback that helps you to avoid the criticism trap when talking to people about their behavior.

Mistake #2 Stay in “parent mode”

Many leaders complain about the lack of independence of their people. They seldom make the connection between that and how they talk to them. At the beginning, people are – in research terms – “children”. However, they grow up rapidly. Therefore, it’s important to adapt the style of conversation, so that it’s more adult-to-adult rather than parent-child. One way to achieve this is to shift from “tell” mode to developing a conversation among equals by eliciting their thoughts and opinions. This helps to bring them out of the mode of expecting you to make all the running in the conversation.

Mistake #3 Tell people what they need to do

When we’re busy and one of our people comes for advice, the quickest way to get back to our own task is just to tell the person how to solve their problem and get them back to work. Unfortunately, their brain isn’t very engaged in this conversation and the chances are high that they’ll be back pretty soon looking for more advice on a similar problem. In the long-term it’s worth developing a coaching attitude towards staff and, through astute and open questions, helping them to find their own solutions. This increases the range of problems they can solve themselves, so that when they come back it’s with a better class of challenge.

Mistake #4 Let them learn through osmosis

I’ve met many leaders who believe that their people will observe how they operate and learn from that. They see no need to coach or explain since staff will just soak it all up. While some people can learn through careful observation, they need to know that this is what you expect from them. It doesn’t just happen of its own accord. For the rest, it’s important to structure their development. In particular, by explaining the thinking behind your non-scientific decisions, you prepare your more senior people for a leadership role.

Mistake #5 Overwhelm stimulates learning

On my first day in a compressor design project, I was told I had until that evening to decide how many blades would be in each row of the third and fourth stages of the compressor. I had no clue and no idea where to start. My boss told me that was my problem. Fortunately, a colleague saw I was overwhelmed, came over to me after the meeting and explained the required engineering. Here’s a blog entry on how to stimulate development while sidestepping overwhelm.

(Photo: opensourceaway)

Some leaders unintentionally take a leaf from Lenin’s playbook (“trust is good, control is better”) and control every single step their people take. While this strategy has its place in an early phase of development, it is counterproductive with good and experienced people. With them you need to agree the goal and trust them to know how to get there. The delegate strategy in this chart (pdf) outlines one way to do this.

Mistake #7 One size fits all

Sometimes we find a good way to help someone develop and fall into the trap of thinking that the next person will learn in the same way. Since our people have different strengths, levels of experience and personalities, we need to tailor our approaches accordingly.

Mistake #8 Keep your thoughts to yourself

In the beginning, development focuses on helping people to acquire technical skills and think for themselves. As staff mature, it’s important to share with them how you arrive at your decisions, how you read certain situations in the lab or the department. This helps them to learn how they could handle such situations themselves during their career.

Mistake #9 Give people all the room available

Some leaders don’t like boundaries themselves, so they give their people complete free rein, whether or not that’s what fits their working style. However, creativity and development thrives on well-chosen and enforced boundaries. Therefore it’s important to set some limits.

Mistake #10 Focus on the next deliverable

Early on, people need to learn how to take small steps. Most of them find it hard to think longer term, to think strategically. You can help them by gradually increasing their planning horizon. If you’re preparing someone so that they can lead their own team, as a rule of thumb they need to be able to think at least one-and-a-half projects into the future.Which of these mistakes do you know and how have you learned to avoid it? Which other mistakes are – in your experience – candidates for the Top Ten?

• The inner or comfort zone represents the set of skills and tasks that a person has mastered; they’re comfortable doing them.
• The outer or panic zone contains the teypes of tasks and skills that freak that same person out.
• In-between lies stretch tone. It contains the skills and tasks you can assign that are just right for developing your people.

By gradually increasing the difficulty and complexity of tasks and ensuring that your people develop new skills, you increase their comfort zone and at the same time expand their stretch zone, so that the range of panic-inducing tasks reduces significantly. Many years ago, I used toorganise research symposia on a regular basis. My boss asked me to delegate this taks to someone in my team, so that I could free up my time for other, more strategic, tasks. I only had one candidate and the first time I spoke to her about taking over the organisation, I could sense her high level of discomfort. Therefore, I structured the organisation into a sequence of learnable tasks, each of which required her to stretch and grow. Within half a year, she was able to run the events independently.