The ‘leading’ edge – attitude trumps skills

Of course we must develop leaders. After all, we’ve evolved to be strongly responsive to the context we’re in, and thereby people who can shape that context have a tremendous influence on us.

But given the state of leadership across the globe and decades of developing it, it’s clear that most leadership training is ineffective.

In a recent conversation with Charlie Pellerin, NASA’s former director of Astrophysics and the author of How NASA Builds Teams (life changing book!) he highlighted to me what’s wrong – most leadership training develops the wrong thing.

Let me show you why...

·         Think of someone you admire as a leader (from any walk of life)

·         Write down 4-5 qualities that make them a leader in your eyes

·         Now circle each quality if it is more about an attitude than a skill

... did you circle most as ‘attitudinal’? In fact, most things we call out as leadership qualities are attitudes.

Here’s the root cause - we train leadership skills, not attitudes.

Of course such skills (clear communication, emotional control, etc) are necessary but they are not sufficient; it’s your attitude that counts with others the most.

Raise leadership by focussing less on the leading skills and more on how your attitude is perceived.

... and now for a rude word - Accountable 

Caution – the following blog can be beneficial to your career; but it’s not for the faint of heart.

This is what accountable looks like; Gene Kranz, Flight Director of multiple Apollo Missions (most notably 1, 11 and 13) personifies it and I'd like to share why I think we should too - every one of us.

I’m not a fan of responsibilities – they enable the meek to say ‘it’s not my job’ and abdicate too easily, conscious cleared.

I’m often asked about ‘the next step’ for people’s project management careers – ‘what can I do to stand out / be more successful / be more competitive’. You know that question.

Simple – be accountable. Keep agreements, hold others to them, say ‘I will fix this’ – then fix it.

Let me ask you this – which would you rather – your staff and peers had responsibilities or behaved in an accountable way?

Which would save you more time and frustration? Which builds trust and respect faster?

Of course Mr and Ms faint-hearted will say ‘but you might fail’ or my favourite – ‘I can’t do that – I’m not allowed’.

Total number of times in my life someone has said ‘you're not allowed to be accountable’? Zero.

By being accountable in my career and life I have:

·        fallen over a few times and got back up (world did not end);

·        succeeded in delivering what I promised, wherever possible;

·       earned trust from people;

·       made many international friends;

·       learned (and continue to learn) from the best people on the planet, on leadership and performance;  

·       met my wonderful wife; and

·       quadrupled my salary (not really important actually, but some require a ‘tangible’ beyond the obvious).

The very best outcome was my wife – hands down – the rest is merely ‘terrific’.

Not a bad run so far...what have you got to show for your accountability?

No better voice than Gene Kranz's on personal accountability and where it got him. Listen to the man; this is the right stuff.