leadership qulities of womens

Leadership: qualities that distinguish women; Results from a recent survey provide evidence that women bring distinct personality and motivational strengths to leadership roles--and do so in a style that is more conducive to today's diverse workplace.


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Leadership: qualities that distinguish women; Results from a recent survey provide evidence that women bring distinct personality and motivational strengths to leadership roles--and do so in a style that is more conducive to today's diverse workplace.

When a woman leader, like Dun & Bradstreet Inc. CFO See Chief Financial Officer. Sara Mathew, talks about her career-defining moments, her success is not what comes to mind first. Instead, she, like other women leaders who participated in a Caliper caliper

Instrument that consists of two adjustable legs or jaws for measuring the dimensions of material parts. Spring calipers have an adjusting screw and nut; firm-joint calipers use friction at the joint to hold the legs unmoving. Corp. survey, says she views her defining moments as those times when she weathered unexpected storms that tested her severely.

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In both a written survey and some follow-up interviews, women leaders shared--with enormous candor--details of failures and mistakes they've made, which could have derailed their careers. They also reflected on what they've learned through adversity ad·ver·si·ty
n. pl. ad·ver·si·ties
1. A state of hardship or affliction; misfortune.

2. A calamitous event. , and how they carried on with more determination, focus and a clearer understanding of their own strengths


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What emerges is a sense that the best women leaders, inside and outside finance, have taken leadership to a new level. That's not to say that men don't excel at Verb 1. excel at - be good at; "She shines at math"
shine at

excel, surpass, stand out - distinguish oneself; "She excelled in math" being leaders, or that a more hierarchical, traditional "male" style is passe pas·sé
adj.
1. No longer current or in fashion; out-of-date.

2. Past the prime; faded or aged.


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[French, past participle of passer, to pass, from Old French; see . But the survey does suggest that a new paradigm New Paradigm

In the investing world, a totally new way of doing things that has a huge effect on business.

Notes:
The word "paradigm" is defined as a pattern or model, and it has been used in science to refer to a theoretical framework. is evolving, and that women are in the fore-front of creating it.

Mathew recalls one of her defining moments, which came in a previous position with another Fortune 500 company. She had decided to completely revamp re·vamp
tr.v. re·vamped, re·vamp·ing, re·vamps
1. To patch up or restore; renovate.

2. To revise or reconstruct (a manuscript, for example).

3. To vamp (a shoe) anew.

n. the firm's investor relations Investor relations

The process by which the corporation communicates with its investors. program and make it one of the most enviable en·vi·a·ble
adj.
So desirable as to arouse envy: "the enviable English quality of being able to be mute without unrest" Henry James. in the country. As part of the introduction for this program, she coordinated the firm's first live webcast, to which hundreds of investors tuned in. But the webcast fell apart at the seams.

"I did a terrible job, as nearly every major financial publication in the country cited," laments Mathew. In a heartbeat immediately.

See also: heartbeat , she says, everyone in the industry knew who she was, but not as she wanted to be known. "I could go on and on, citing what went wrong. It was years ago, and I can still remember every detail like it was yesterday," she says. Ultimately, however, she was able to turn the situation around, and the investor relations program she succeeded in creating for the company several months later has turned out to be one of the best available.

Following the fiasco, she says her CEO (1) (Chief Executive Officer) The highest individual in command of an organization. Typically the president of the company, the CEO reports to the Chairman of the Board. was immediately firm about one thing: "that we would never do this, ever again." She knew she had to convince him that the company needed this program, needed to do it right and that the company's stock would eventually rebound.

Mathew says it probably took her a week or two to pick herself back up, shake off the dust and figure out what needed to be done differently. She knew her window of opportunity had closed, and she had to get it open again. Time was finite, and not on her side.

"The most important time [to act] is immediately after something goes wrong," she says. "It's recognizing the situation and admitting that, yes, I made a colossal co·los·sal
adj.
Of a size, extent, or degree that elicits awe or taxes belief; immense. See Synonyms at enormous.


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[French, from Latin colossus, colossus; see colossus. mistake." Then she went back and figured out exactly where, when and how things went wrong. She examined how she could have handled the situation differently, what resources she had within the organization and, most importantly Adv. 1. most importantly - above and beyond all other consideration; "above all, you must be independent"
above all, most especially , how to convince her CEO to ignore the media and the stockholders and give her a second chance.

"The first part was helping him understand how the world was changing around us, and that we couldn't continue down our current path, regardless of how safe it felt," Mathew argues. She let him know that the problem was not the strategy. "It was the poor execution--and I owned that, and my team and I could fix it."

Finally, she expressed her unwavering belief in the project and how it could distinguish the company from its competitors. Mathew says she believes strongly that passion goes a long way in persuading people to try certain things, and its sheer strength brings others to your corner. In this situation, she believes her passion helped to open a door that had been closed and locked.

Ultimately, the qualities she demonstrated--belief in herself and her cause, her disappointment in its failure, her feeling the sting of rejection very personally, her ability to learn quickly from her mistakes, her persuasiveness, her open style of problem solving problem solving

Process involved in finding a solution to a problem. Many animals routinely solve problems of locomotion, food finding, and shelter through trial and error. , her carrying on with a new-found confidence and her willingness to take risks--are those that helped her win.

Coincidentally co·in·ci·den·tal
adj.
1. Occurring as or resulting from coincidence.

2. Happening or existing at the same time.


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co·in , those qualities embody em·bod·y
tr.v. em·bod·ied, em·bod·y·ing, em·bod·ies
1. To give a bodily form to; incarnate.

2. To represent in bodily or material form: the findings of a year-long study that Princeton, N.J.-based management-consulting firm Caliper has recently conducted on the qualities that distinguish women leaders.

The study assessed personality qualities and conducted in-depth interviews with 60 women leaders from top companies in the United Kingdom and the U.S. Participants included women from such firms as Accenture, Bank of America
See also: and


Bank of America (NYSE: BAC TYO: 8648 ) is the largest commercial bank in the United States in terms of deposits, and the largest company of its kind in the world. , Deloitte & Touche LLP LLP - Lower Layer Protocol , Deutsche Bank Deutsche Bank AG (IPA: /'dɔɪ.tʃə/[1]) (ISIN: DE0005140008, NYSE: DB) (English: German Bank , Dun & and Bradstreet Inc., The Economist Group, Enterprise Rent-A-Car UK Ltd., Ernst & Young LLP, International Business Machines Corp., International Paper Co., JPMorgan Chase JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM TYO: 8634 ) is one of the oldest financial services firms in the world. The company, headquartered in New York City, is one of the leaders in investment banking, financial services, asset and wealth management and private equity. With assets of $1. & Co., Johnson & Johnson Co. Inc., Kohler Co., Lloyds TSB Lloyds TSB Group plc (LSE: LLOY) is a banking and insurance group in the United Kingdom. It was formed in 1995 by the merger of Lloyds Bank and the Trustee Savings Bank (TSB). The Group's head office is at 25 Gresham Street, London. Scotland, Molson Coors Brewing Co., Morgan Stanley To comply with Wikipedia's , the introduction of this article needs a complete rewrite. and Pella Corp.

For comparison purposes, the female leaders in this study were matched to a representative sample of male leaders drawn from Caliper's extensive database, representing similar industries and job titles. While much research has been published comparing the leadership styles of women and men, this study specifically focused on the personality qualities and motivational factors that serve as the core to the underlying gender differences.

Essentially, key findings show that women leaders are more persuasive, have a stronger need to get things done and are more willing to take risks than their male counterparts. When women leaders combine these qualities with their openness, flexibility, empathy empathy

Ability to imagine oneself in another's place and understand the other's feelings, desires, ideas, and actions. The empathic actor or singer is one who genuinely feels the part he or she is performing. and strong interpersonal skills "Interpersonal skills" refers to mental and communicative algorithms applied during social communications and interactions in order to reach certain effects or results. The term "interpersonal skills" is used often in business contexts to refer to the measure of a person's ability , a leadership style is created that is inclusive, consensus building and collaborative. It should be emphasized that the male leaders in this study were also exceptional in these areas, but the women set a new standard, as this is the first time such results can be attributed to women leaders.

Leadership, in Mathew's view, is not defined simply by a position, but rather as the ability to set and articulate a vision; then to energize en·er·gize
v. en·er·gized, en·er·giz·ing, en·er·giz·es

v.tr.
1. To give energy to; activate or invigorate: "His childhood people to go after that vision. And to create results. "Leadership is about results," she says.

The core of this type of leadership starts with having the qualities that can be identified and developed. It starts with courage, the willingness to take chances, the ability to motivate people, being willing to stand up for those people, knowing how to win frequently and lose gracefully and being able to learn from one's mistakes and come back to win again.

These are all qualities of character--core components of what an individual is made of. Part of it comes naturally, and part of it is what leaders work on because they have certain dreams. Many of these qualities are those that male leaders are known to possess. Now, however, in assessing the qualities that distinguish women leaders, certain other qualities of character take on a unique clarity. Some of these are discussed in the following.

A Distinct Persuasive Style

First and foremost, strong people skills possessed by women leaders enable them to read situations accurately and take in information from all sides. This willingness to see all sides of a situation enhances their persuasive ability. They can zero in on someone's objections or concerns, weigh them appropriately, address them effectively and incorporate them into the grander scheme of things, when appropriate.

Women leaders are able to do this because they genuinely understand and care about where others are coming from. This allows them to come at a subject from their audience's perspective, so that the people they lead feel more understood, supported and valued. Jacqueline Dout v. t. 1. To put out.
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Dout of wildcats: a company of wildcats. See also destruction. , CFO and secretary to the board for Pella Corp. says that when she is trying to convince someone to go in a certain direction, she will assess their perspective, rather than push hers.

"First, I ask them what they see as the challenges and issues. Then I ask what direction they think we should pursue and why. Then, I'll share with them what I feel about those aspects." In that way, she says, "everyone is clear about the issues and why we ultimately take a certain path."

Likewise, Susan Webb, executive vice president of JPMorgan Chase & Co., says the most important part of convincing someone is to make sure that they are fully educated on the subject and that they understand all the issues and ramifications ramifications npl → Auswirkungen pl . "Then, together, I like to think through all of the options available to us."

Webb says she doesn't like to go in to a decision-making scenario with a single option and insist, "This is what we need to do." Rather, she believes persuading is as much about listening as it is about directing. "I want people to be open to different viewpoints, challenge their initial ideas and to be onboard Refers to a chip or other hardware component that is directly attached to the printed circuit board (motherboard). Contrast with offboard. See inboard. with a solution that we've arrived at together," she says.

This engaging style of persuasion possessed by women leaders differs from that of male leaders, who tend to start from their own point of view. Because they are not as flexible or sociable, male leaders will often force their point of view, convincing through the strength of their position, rather than by actually persuading.

Rebounding and Learning From Setbacks

These women leaders also demonstrate a unique approach toward dealing with disappointment, rejection or situations that don't work out their way. They feel the sting of being set back. They may even dwell on it, and tend to be a little self-critical. But then they will muster their assertiveness assertiveness /as·ser·tive·ness/ (ah-ser´tiv-nes) the quality or state of bold or confident self-expression, neither aggressive nor submissive. , shake off any negative feelings and learn what they need to do to carry on. They've expressed a phenomenon that is almost like a voice in the back of their heads saying, "I'll show you," which pushes them forward.

Essentially, women with talent and ambition to move ahead, yet who receive signals--whether subtle or overt--that others think they will not make the grade, use this technique, in a sense, to further fuel their ambition.

Webb relates a story of how a crucial mistake became a major learning point for her. She, like Mathew, says that while it happened over a decade ago, she remembers it vividly. She was presenting a new incentive plan to her boss and her peers. She and her team had been working on it for a long time and just assumed that everyone in the room was onboard with the plan and that the presentation was just a formality formality, in chemistry: see chemical equilibrium; concentration. . She expected her boss and others to just listen to the final details, compliment her and her group for a job well done, sign off on the plan and execute it.

It soon became obvious, however, that she misread mis·read
tr.v. mis·read , mis·read·ing, mis·reads
1. To read inaccurately.

2. To misinterpret or misunderstand: misread our friendly concern as prying. her audience. "They started saying things like, 'Did you think about this?' and 'We're not sure about this.' And my initial reaction was to get quite defensive. I was feeling a need to protect the project that my team had worked so hard on."

About halfway through that meeting, Webb decided she was going about this entirely wrong and losing the battle completely. At that point, she changed gears and began to listen, but it was too late. "I really had infuriated in·fu·ri·ate
tr.v. in·fu·ri·at·ed, in·fu·ri·at·ing, in·fu·ri·ates
To make furious; enrage.

adj. Archaic
Furious. my boss at the time, and he actually didn't speak to me for a couple of days following that meeting."

Subsequently, her boss spoke to a number of people, calmed down and invited her to have breakfast with him. He told her he was committed to her success, and believed she could go far with the company. But, he warned, "I think you've also got a major blind spot; and if you don't fix it, it could derail de·rail
intr. & tr.v. de·railed, de·rail·ing, de·rails
1. To run or cause to run off the rails.

2. your career."

Webb describes the statement as an incredible way for him to start off a session of negative feedback. "All of a sudden, I was able to listen," she says. "Then he related that he had spoken with some of my colleagues about what happened and found this wasn't just one episode, but rather part of a pattern, which was something serious that I needed to work on. He then essentially said, 'You need to learn how to push me and others along with you and not pull us behind you.'"

She says she got it. "That was a turning point for me," says Webb. "Now, whenever I'm in situations like that, I've learned to present our project or findings in a much more open, inclusive style, honestly seeking out the opinions of others to help improve the final results." Another benefit, she says, is that this style has actually made work much more fun.

Inclusive, Team-Oriented Approach

When it comes to decision-making and problem-solving, women leaders in the study demonstrated an inclusive, team-building leadership style. They were genuinely interested in hearing all points of view, then making the best possible decision, and the final decision did not necessarily have to be their initial point of view. They were able to read situations accurately, take in information from all sides and then make the most informed decision possible.

This difference in style between men and women starts with listening. The women leaders are not just listening to form an answer, but really listening, learning, reflecting, then implementing a plan that incorporates the best of everyone's ideas.

This inclusive style of leadership is based on open lines of communication "Lines of Communication" is an episode from the fourth season of the science-fiction television series Babylon 5. Synopsis
Franklin and Marcus attempt to persuade the Mars resistance to assist Sheridan in opposing President Clark. , according to according to
prep.
1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians.

2. In keeping with: according to instructions.

3. Susan Rice, CEO of Lloyds TSB Scotland. "To learn, you have to keep asking," says Rice, who says she is always asking questions. "The people I work with will say the process of me asking them questions helps to clarify their own thinking and they actually come out a little sharper. That takes a lot of trust." She sees her job as setting a clear strategy, asking the right questions and encouraging managers to be the experts in their business.

Because women leaders are more willing to share information, they will also talk decisions through with many more people than their male counter-parts. For example, Pella's Dout says she spends approximately 40 percent of her time motivating, challenging and coaching people. "As a leader, I believe the biggest challenge is to make sure people are motivated, involved and contributing, because that diversity of thought is what brings value to an organization and helps make it successful."

A Willingness to Take Risks

One of the most surprising findings from the study is that women leaders are more likely to push back if they are overly bound by regulations and rules, and they will engage in more risk-taking than male counterparts. Women leaders are venturesome and less interested in what "has been" than in what "can be." They will run the risk of occasionally being wrong in order to get things done. And with their fine abstract reasoning skills, they will learn from their mistakes and carry on.

Several of the women pointed to taking on assignments that nobody else wanted, and that succeeding in those high-risk situations helped to catapult catapult (kăt`əpŭlt'), mechanism used to throw missiles in ancient and medieval warfare. At first, catapults were specifically designed to shoot spears or other missiles at a low trajectory (see bow and arrow). their careers. Indeed, many women in the study say they took on risky assignments early in their careers to gain recognition.

Webb says in 1994 she was asked to take on the role of what was called "Alternative Delivery." She was then in the branch banking system, and something called the "Internet" was about to happen.

"We didn't quite know what it was, but we thought the branches were essentially going to go away. What was critical was to build the alternative channels that customers would use for doing business with us." So she was placed in charge of this new delivery system, which has turned out to be a perfect training ground. It was up to her to figure out what she needed--in terms of staff and equipment--and how to make it happen. A year later, she was recognized for her success and placed in charge of a major operating group.

Creating a New Leadership Style?

So, are women creating a new style of leadership? The answer may be "yes." The study provides preliminary evidence that women bring distinct personality and motivational strengths to leadership.

Jeannette Lichner, managing partner of Bank of America in the U.K., says, "The strong leadership profile exhibited by these women executives points to the future. The female view that we strengthen ourselves by strengthening others is re-defining leadership," she argues. These women leaders share a strong profile. They are assertive as·ser·tive
adj.
Inclined to bold or confident assertion; aggressively self-assured.


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as·sertive·ly adv. , persuasive, empathic em·path·ic
adj.
Of, relating to, or characterized by empathy.

Adj. 1. empathic - showing empathy or ready comprehension of others' states; "a sensitive and empathetic school counselor"
empathetic , willing to take risks, outgoing, flexible and have a need to get things done.

These personality qualities combine to create a leadership profile that, one could easily argue, is much more conducive to today's diverse workplace, where information is shared freely, collaboration is vital and teamwork distinguishes the best companies. And, while these women may be creating a new paradigm of leadership, Dun & Bradstreet's Mathew believes she has "only scratched the surface of what true leadership really means."

RELATED ARTICLE: Making Your Message Clear

Consultant, author and speaker Marcus Buckingham challenges current thinking in leadership trends with his sharp and focused message

Marcus Buckingham sees the world through his own lens. With a master's degree master's degree
n.
An academic degree conferred by a college or university upon those who complete at least one year of prescribed study beyond the bachelor's degree.

Noun 1. in social and political science from Cambridge University Cambridge University, at Cambridge, England, one of the oldest English-language universities in the world. Originating in the early 12th cent. (legend places its origin even earlier than that of Oxford Univ. , he worked with the Gallup Organization for 17 years researching the world's best leaders, managers and work-places. Culling culling

removal of inferior animals from a group of breeding stock. The removal is premature, i.e. before completion of its life span, disposal of an animal from a herd or other group. from his work, he's now published three best-selling best·sell·er also best seller
n.
A product, such as a book, that is among those sold in the largest numbers.


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best books--his latest is The One Thing You Need To Know--all aiming to manage the complexities of today's leadership. In speaking with Financial Executive Managing Editor Ellen M. Heffes, Buckingham makes clear his belief that a key to successful leadership lies in conveying one message, and doing so with clarity.

From your perspective, what's the main job of a leader?

MB The chief responsibility of a leader is to rally people to a better future. The role of leadership is to see something better, to believe fervently fer·vent
adj.
1. Having or showing great emotion or zeal; ardent: fervent protests; a fervent admirer.

2. Extremely hot; glowing. that that "better" must come true, and then to excel at getting other people to be excited, challenged and confident in that better future. The better you're able to rally people to a better future, the better you'll lead.

Leadership isn't about integrity, initiative, courage or creativity. All of those are useful things, but you can be all of those things and not be able to lead your way out of a paper bag!

There are all kinds of things leaders get to do in their positions: they get to decide strategy, allocate assets and analyze complex situations. But none of those are really the job of a leader, because none of them imply that you've got a bunch of followers followers

see dairy herd. .

Many say [things like], "Everyone should aspire to aspire to
verb aim for, desire, pursue, hope for, long for, crave, seek out, wish for, dream about, yearn for, hunger for, hanker after, be eager for, set your heart on, set your sights on, be ambitious for be a leader," "We need everyone to lead in this organization," and that's just not true. You want a few leaders who can see clearly about a future that they are trying to build, but if you get everybody trying to do that, you've got chaos. The leadership role is a discrete and difficult [role] in an organization, and it is incredibly valuable. It is important to define it properly.

What traits do you attribute to some of the best leaders?

MB Two traits stand out: optimism and ego. If you're going to lead, you better believe in every fiber of your being that things can get better; no matter how good the present is, or how bleak, you believe instinctively in·stinc·tive
adj.
1. Of, relating to, or prompted by instinct.

2. Arising from impulse; spontaneous and unthinking: an instinctive mistrust of bureaucrats. and almost irrationally that things can get better, and no amount of "nay-saying" would ever convince you that they can't. The present is vivid to you, but the future seems even more vivid. If you're not unflinchingly optimistic op·ti·mist
n.
1. One who usually expects a favorable outcome.

2. A believer in philosophical optimism.


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op , be a lawyer, go into strategic planning Strategic planning is an organization's process of defining its strategy, or direction, and making decisions on allocating its resources to pursue this strategy, including its capital and people. or go into some job that requires you to analyze everything that can possibly go wrong. Don't lead.

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The future doesn't just require someone with the optimism to see it. It requires someone with the ego to believe that he or she is the one to make it come true. Such leaders define themselves around their ability to stake these claims and make these claims come true. They are independent, don't like being managed and hate to be in the middle of the pack. They self-define themselves as "over-achievers."

While they might not have the same brash brash (brash) heartburn.
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water brash heartburn with regurgitation of sour fluid or almost tasteless saliva into the mouth. personality as a Donald Trump Editing of this page by unregistered or newly registered users is currently disabled due to vandalism. , a psychological analysis of this type of leader will likely find that they have incredibly strong egos, meaning virtually nothing about them is humble. They don't have humble assessments of their abilities and they don't have humble dreams or humble goals.

Both ego and optimism--two of the most critically important talents for a leader to possess--cannot be gained through training. You can't give someone mouth-to-mouth ego-resuscitation or teach them to believe that the future must be better!

The best leaders also have a naturally opportunistic opportunistic /op·por·tu·nis·tic/ (op?er-tldbomacn-is´tik)
1. denoting a microorganism which does not ordinarily cause disease but becomes pathogenic under certain circumstances.

2. streak, which means that in general, they see the world as a very friendly place. These two ideas live very happily inside their heads. They're very self-assured. They subscribe success to their own actions, decisions and choices which, of course, reinforces their self-assurances. Which, in turn, leads them to be more self-resilient as they move forward.

They are also very lucky. And they claim to be very lucky. That is not humility Humility
See also Modesty.

Humorousness (See WITTINESS.)

Bernadette Soubirous, St.

humble girl to whom Virgin Mary appeared. [Christian Hagiog.: Attwater, 65–66]

Bonaventura, St.

washes dishes even though a cardinal. . They just think the world is kind of arranging itself around them in some weirdly wonderful way and they see the world as a good place, one in which good stuff happens. That's part of optimism, I imagine.

Can you point to some public or business figures who you view as exemplary leaders?

MB In the non-business world, I'd suggest Rudolph (Rudy) Giuliani and Gen. Colin Powell--both of whom have very different styles as leaders, but who have huge egos and flaming flaming - flame optimism that things can be better.

In the business world, I'd suggest Robert L. Nardelli, chairman, president and CEO of The Home Depot The Home Depot (NYSE: HD) is an American retailer of home improvement and construction products and services.

Headquartered in Vinings, just outside Atlanta in unincorporated Cobb County, Georgia, Home Depot employs more than 355,000 people and operates 2,164 big-box Inc. It always amazes me that after all he has accomplished at General Electric Co., he's gone to the 10th largest U.S. company and turned it around, thinking, "I haven't spent the last 10 years in retail, but nonetheless, I think I can go in and turn this 250,000-person company around." Now, that's ego.

Also, Bradbury H. Anderson, president and CEO of Best Buy Co. Inc., is a self-effacing chap. He's inquisitive--not brash, not, a know-it-all, but he's running a 100,000-person company in the middle of an incredibly dynamic marketplace of shrinking margins and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. snapping at his heels.

You have said and written that the one thing leaders need to know about is "clarity." Talk about clarity.

MB Since the chief responsibility of a leader is to rally people to a better future, the big question for leaders is: "How?" The problem is that people are anxious about the future, and legitimately so. The future is scary. It's new, it's different and it's strange. So, the challenge of leadership is how to take people's legitimate anxiety about the future and turn it into confidence.

The best way to do that is to be clear--clarity is the answer to anxiety. Not consistency, not the right strategy, not integrity, nor passion. They are all jolly good things, but if you want to turn people's legitimate anxiety about the future into confidence, you need to be unremittingly clear. The challenge that most leaders have is not that they're wrong in their assessment of where they are going. It's that they are vague--or worse, they are complex. Their descriptions are far too negative, and CFOs particularly fall prey to this.

For example, one area begging for clarity is an answer to the question: "What is this company's, or this department's, core strength?" The funny thing is that when leaders talk about this, they'll talk about the five or six different strengths the company has, incorporating in their description everything the company has got going for it.

We don't need to know that we've got 10 advantages or 10 edges. We don't need our leader to tell us [that] our culture is good, our innovation is good, our creativity is good and our people are good. We need the leader to sort through all of that stuff and to pick one. And then tell with great vividness and great veracity veracity (vras´itē),
n why that one is going to give us our edge.

How do you identify and then communicate this clarity you describe? And, can it be learned?

MB You can learn to get much better at it because, after all, it's a function of doing less of things rather than more. In today's crazy world, you can get overwhelmed o·ver·whelm
tr.v. o·ver·whelmed, o·ver·whelm·ing, o·ver·whelms
1. To surge over and submerge; engulf: waves overwhelming the rocky shoreline.

2.
a. with information. What people want from their leader is an ability to edit, to cut things out of what they're talking about and focus on a very few things.

There are four areas where people are crying out for clarity. One is: who do we serve? What is our department, or who is our department or company, trying to serve? And the reason is, of course, if you've got a leader who's vague, or worse yet, one who says "we're supposed to serve all of the people all of the time," then, employee anxiety goes up--not down.

Anderson said, "Yes, of course, Best Buy is going to serve everyone who walks through the door, but we're designed to serve people who are smart, but confused. Our whole focus is going to be on customers who love all this new technology and stuff, but are not quite sure how to plug it into their lives."

To the next question, what is our core strength? Anderson's answer is: "Our Blue Shirts that customers meet on the floor of every store." While most leaders take far too long to figure out the right answer--there are lots of right answers--he is right. He is clear, and that clarity increases the confidence of all 100,000 of his employees. That kind of clarity makes people more confident, and that confidence will make the CEO right.

So, to the question of Who do we serve?, we need a clear answer, a beautifully detailed answer. Second, we need a beautifully detailed answer to: What's our core strength? Next, we need a beautifully detailed answer to: What's our core score? What is the one number that we should look at to help us track how far we've come "How Far We've Come" is the lead single from Matchbox Twenty's retrospective collection, Exile on Mainstream, which was released on October 2, 2007. The music video premiered on VH1's Top 20 Countdown on September 1, 2007. ? And how far we have yet to go?

This is one of the things that financial executives fall into so often. They come up with a whole list of different metrics metrics Managed care A popular term for standards by which the quality of a product, service, or outcome of a particular form of Pt management is evaluated. See TQM. . They might even put them into a balanced scorecard Balanced Scorecard

A performance metric used in strategic management to identify and improve various internal functions and their resulting external outcomes. The balanced scorecard attempts to measure and provide feedback to organizations in order to assist in implementing , but it's a terrible leadership tool because it's too complicated. What the fellows are looking for Looking for

In the context of general equities, this describing a buy interest in which a dealer is asked to offer stock, often involving a capital commitment. Antithesis of in touch with. from a financial executive is one who will cut through all these different metrics. So great is the technology that any company can generate hundreds or thousands of different scores. We need to cut through all that and go to just one.

Anderson picked "employee engagement." Twice a year, using a short 15-question survey, he measures how engaged each store's employees are. And that's the score he trumpets all the time. That doesn't mean he ignores others, like profits, sales and so forth. It just means, what he's betting on is, "If I can get everyone to focus on increasing employee engagement, their level of confidence will rise and that confidence will spill over--and we'll move all the other scores, too."

That's the same approach that Giuliani used in New York City New York City: see New York, city.
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New York City

City (pop., 2000: 8,008,278), southeastern New York, at the mouth of the Hudson River. The largest city in the U.S. . "I'm going to reduce crime," he said. "All I'm going to talk about is crime, crime, crime, crime, crime." His bet was, "If I reduce crime, then everything else will get better--tourism will increase, new business openings will increase and even a number of successful child adoptions will increase." The point here is to pick a score and talk about it all the time.

Finally, we need to know, What actions can we take today? Don't tell us your priorities. Don't tell us your objectives. Give us the very few actions that we are going to take right now. Not because actions make things happen, although they do, but because actions are unambiguous. They clarify us. That is why people like actions--because they are vivid.

Also, when it comes to leadership, less is more. Once you've picked which customers you're trying to serve, or what your core strength is, then you need to banish--from your conversation, emails, presentations--pretty much every thing else. You need to be incredibly repetitious rep·e·ti·tious
adj.
Filled with repetition, especially needless or tedious repetition.


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repe·ti . Once you've found answers to those three or four questions, don't deviate from them. That doesn't mean you can't continue being inquisitive in·quis·i·tive
adj.
1. Inclined to investigate; eager for knowledge.

2. Unduly curious and inquiring. See Synonyms at curious. and refine the message a little bit by incorporating changing circumstances, and so forth, and maybe even every now and again having a total change of focus.

You need to be intentionally unbalanced in the way that you lead. Talk about those answers and don't talk about any thing else.

BY
MILAN