What is leadership?According to James MacGregor Burns, who authored the Nobel prize-winning book Leadership, there are at least 130 current definitions of leadership; while Warren Bennis and Burt Nanus, in their book Leaders: Strategies for Taking Charge, claim there are at least 350.
Despite the lack of a singular clear-cut definition, clearly there is no limit to the number of thoughts and insights on the topic of leadership. Yet at the end of the day, sometimes the best insights are found in the words of our best leaders...
On May 27, 2011 Secretary of Defense Robert Gates gave the commencement address to graduates of the United States Naval Academy. In his 46 years of public service, in the Air Force, at the CIA, in the White House and now at the Pentagon - Secretary Gates has served under eight different presidents and a variety of different leadership styles.
During the commencement address, Secretary Gates offered his thoughts on leadership touching on the following qualities: vision, conviction, self-confidence, courage, integrity and common decency.
The relevant portion of the speech follows. They are words worth reading as we all work to continually fine-tune our own leadership capacity:
...I have learned that real leadership is a rare and precious commodity, and requires qualities that many people might possess piecemeal to varying degrees, but few exhibit in total...
...For starters, great leaders must have vision - the ability to get your eyes off your shoelaces at every level of rank and responsibility, and see beyond the day-to-day tasks and problems. To be able to look beyond tomorrow and discern a world of possibilities and potential. How do you take any outfit to a higher level of excellence? You must see what others do not or cannot, and then be prepared to act on your vision.
An additional quality necessary for leadership is deep conviction. True leadership is a fire in the mind that transforms all who feel its warmth, that transfixes all who see its shining light in the eyes of a man or woman. It is a strength of purpose and belief in a cause that reaches out to others, touches their hearts, and makes them eager to follow.
Self-confidence is still another quality of leadership. Not the chest-thumping, strutting egotism we see and read about all the time. Rather, it is the quiet self-assurance that allows a leader to give others both real responsibility and real credit for success. The ability to stand in the shadow and let others receive attention and accolades. A leader is able to make decisions but then delegate and trust others to make things happen. This doesn't mean turning your back after making a decision and hoping for the best. It does mean trusting in people at the same time you hold them accountable. The bottom line: a self-confident leader doesn't cast such a large shadow that no one else can grow.
A further quality of leadership is courage: not just the physical courage of the seas, of the skies and of the trenches, but moral courage. The courage to chart a new course; the courage to do what is right and not just what is popular; the courage to stand alone; the courage to act; the courage as a military officer to "speak truth to power."...
Another essential quality of leadership is integrity. Without this, real leadership is not possible. Nowadays, it seems like integrity - or honor or character - is kind of quaint, a curious, old-fashioned notion. We read of too many successful and intelligent people in and out of government who succumb to the easy wrong rather than the hard right - whether from inattention or a sense of entitlement, the notion that rules are not for them. But for a real leader, personal virtues - self-reliance, self control, honor, truthfulness, morality - are absolute. These are the building blocks of character, of integrity - and only on that foundation can real leadership be built.
A final quality of real leadership, I believe, is simply common decency: treating those around you - and, above all, your subordinates - with fairness and respect. An acid test of leadership is how you treat those you outrank, or as President Truman once said, "how you treat those who can't talk back."
...know this. At some point along your path, you will surely encounter failure or disappointment of one kind or another. Nearly all of us have. If at those times you hold true to your standards, then you will always succeed, if only in knowing you stayed true and honorable. In the final analysis, what really matters are not the failures and disappointments themselves, but how you respond.
During the commencement address, Secretary Gates offered his thoughts on leadership touching on the following qualities: vision, conviction, self-confidence, courage, integrity and common decency.
The relevant portion of the speech follows. They are words worth reading as we all work to continually fine-tune our own leadership capacity:
...I have learned that real leadership is a rare and precious commodity, and requires qualities that many people might possess piecemeal to varying degrees, but few exhibit in total...
...For starters, great leaders must have vision - the ability to get your eyes off your shoelaces at every level of rank and responsibility, and see beyond the day-to-day tasks and problems. To be able to look beyond tomorrow and discern a world of possibilities and potential. How do you take any outfit to a higher level of excellence? You must see what others do not or cannot, and then be prepared to act on your vision.
An additional quality necessary for leadership is deep conviction. True leadership is a fire in the mind that transforms all who feel its warmth, that transfixes all who see its shining light in the eyes of a man or woman. It is a strength of purpose and belief in a cause that reaches out to others, touches their hearts, and makes them eager to follow.
Self-confidence is still another quality of leadership. Not the chest-thumping, strutting egotism we see and read about all the time. Rather, it is the quiet self-assurance that allows a leader to give others both real responsibility and real credit for success. The ability to stand in the shadow and let others receive attention and accolades. A leader is able to make decisions but then delegate and trust others to make things happen. This doesn't mean turning your back after making a decision and hoping for the best. It does mean trusting in people at the same time you hold them accountable. The bottom line: a self-confident leader doesn't cast such a large shadow that no one else can grow.
A further quality of leadership is courage: not just the physical courage of the seas, of the skies and of the trenches, but moral courage. The courage to chart a new course; the courage to do what is right and not just what is popular; the courage to stand alone; the courage to act; the courage as a military officer to "speak truth to power."...
Another essential quality of leadership is integrity. Without this, real leadership is not possible. Nowadays, it seems like integrity - or honor or character - is kind of quaint, a curious, old-fashioned notion. We read of too many successful and intelligent people in and out of government who succumb to the easy wrong rather than the hard right - whether from inattention or a sense of entitlement, the notion that rules are not for them. But for a real leader, personal virtues - self-reliance, self control, honor, truthfulness, morality - are absolute. These are the building blocks of character, of integrity - and only on that foundation can real leadership be built.
A final quality of real leadership, I believe, is simply common decency: treating those around you - and, above all, your subordinates - with fairness and respect. An acid test of leadership is how you treat those you outrank, or as President Truman once said, "how you treat those who can't talk back."
...know this. At some point along your path, you will surely encounter failure or disappointment of one kind or another. Nearly all of us have. If at those times you hold true to your standards, then you will always succeed, if only in knowing you stayed true and honorable. In the final analysis, what really matters are not the failures and disappointments themselves, but how you respond.
