On Target Leadership: Three Building Blocks

Leadership is likely the most studied of all human behavior. Google it and you get something like 151,000,000 results. Yet, for all the research, reading and training on leadership, there so many examples, at even the highest levels in organizations, where people still don't get it right.

Maybe it’s because leading is difficult to do, at least difficult to do well all the time. Life is an ongoing journey of hitting and missing the target. Leadership can be simple, but without question it can be challenging. It’s tough to hit the bull’s-eye every time.

In its simplest form, I think there are three building blocks for on target leadership: Competence (knowledge & skills), Commitment (confidence & motivation) and Character (ethics & virtue) the first two blocks come from Ken Blanchard’s lexicon. I added “character”; although I’m sure for Blanchard it was implied. But given the leadership crisis we’ve been witnessing on Wall Street, in not-for-profit organizations and even churches, I’ve compelled to be explicit about the need for character as a component of on target leadership.

You can easily see how the three building blocks support each other for desired results. You can also imagine how strength in one or two areas still could be a problem. The proverbial Hitler example is always a dramatic one. He was competent and committed as a leader, but was morally and ethically corrupt.

Kouzes and Posner in their landmark research and best-selling book, The Leadership Challenge, state clearly “integrity” ranks top of the list for leadership traits, because if people can’t count on honesty in the leader, nothing else matters. It’s been my experience too that when there’s a downfall with leadership, it’s often a lack of ethics and morality more than ability or ambition.

On target leadership is solid framework constructed with three building blocks: competence, commitment and character. Essentially, all are critical. But followership can be more patience with a learning curve or forgiving with mistakes competence or commitment by the leader, but rarely gives a good second chance when the trust contact is violated.

What do you need to work on?

Mike McCartney