Gritty Leadership (#109)
Leadership is the process of influencing people by providing purpose, direction, and motivation. Gritty organizations do not grow organically; leadership is the catalyst. Sam Walton’s leadership developed Walmart into a gritty organization and the largest retailer in the world. Howard Schultz’s leadership grew Starbucks into a gritty company and to dominate the coffee market. Sara Blakely’s grit grew Spanx from her apartment into a global brand. Dick Winters’ leadership transformed Easy Company into a gritty unit and the best rifle company in the European Theater during World War II. Grant’s grit at Shiloh snatched a victory out of the jaws of defeat. The common denominator in all these gritty groups is their leadership.
Leadership, in the end, means delivering results. Whether it is profit in the corporate environment, fund raising in the non-profit world, wins in sporting competitions, or victories in battle, leaders must deliver results. Building a gritty organization, or one that possesses the “will to persevere to achieve long term goals” takes an enormous amount of leadership. Building the grit often doesn’t bring about short-term rewards. It takes months and years of dedicated, purposeful leadership every step of the way to provide the team a purpose, communicate a goal and a plan, develop a gritty culture, and build trust in the team.
Leading an organization is tough no matter what the environment. Three ideas can help make it a little simpler and get you the results you want. Firstly, understanding how grit works in you helps you better understand it in others. Secondly, leading by example and modeling the grit you want others to demonstrate is an incredibly powerful tool. And finally, making a conscious decision about using an appropriate leadership style for your people and the situation can inspire the most challenging of groups to move together towards a goal.
Gritty Leadership of Yourself
“Know yourself and seek self-improvement” is a US Army leadership saying. Leaders like Ulysses S. Grant, Sara Blakely, and Michael Jordan knew that before they could grow grit in their team, they needed to understand and develop their own personal grit. The foundation of gritty leadership is understanding how grit works in yourself and what inspired you in teams and cultures you’ve been a part of.
Leaders need to know and feel how grit worked within themselves. If you skipped chapters 2 through 11, go back and read them. A leader needs to know their personal purpose, as well as how they persevere, bounce back from defeats, and deal with their fears in the pursuit of their own personal goals before they can ask others to increase their grit, as well as help develop the organization’s grit.
Another aspect of knowing and leading yourself is reviewing your personal experiences with teams and cultures. Think about the best and worst teams you have been on. What motivated you on the great teams and what do you never want to replicate from the bad teams? Think about the best and worst organizational cultures you have been part of. Once again think about what motivated you in the great cultures and what do you never want to see again from the worst ones.
Once you understand what works for you as part of a team and as part of a group’s culture, it gives you insight into how to lead your group better.
Lead By Example
As a leader in the US Army, I always tried to lead from the front. One of the infantry’s mottos is “Follow Me!” The idea of leaders taking the first step is important on the battlefield, in the board room, and on the playing field.
Once you have mastered your own personal grit, leaders must model the gritty behavior that you want. Want the employees in the store to be friendly to every customer? You need to be friendly with every employee and every customer you interact with every day. Need the team to put in the long hours at practice working on their defense? Be there to turn the lights on, coach them while they are there, and turn the lights off when the last player wants to go home. Want your military unit to be able to march long distances and be ready to fight? Put on your ruck and start walking. In short, lead by example.
The most critical way you lead by example is your decision about where you spend your time as a leader. Where you spend your time tells the group what is important and what you value. For example, if your people are a priority, leaders must spend time and interact with your people. If instead leaders spend all day sending emails and attending meetings with the executive team, it sends the message that perhaps the people in the group are not that important.
Not leading by example sends mixed messages to the team and sabotages your culture and teamwork. For example, one Division Commander during the surge in Iraq was afraid to go outside the wire. He would never drive anywhere, flew from base-to-base, and would demand elaborately staged 10-minute walks within sight of the safety of the walls of a Forward Operating Base as his “combat patrols.” His unwillingness to accept the same level of risk for himself that he asked from the 20,000 people that worked for him caused resentment in the team, inhibited his impact as a leader, and destroyed trust.
Leaders Getting Results
Daniel Goleman is an author and science journalist who has written extensively about the brain and behavior. After surveying 3,000 executives, he found that there are six leadership styles that leaders use. These leadership styles aren’t personality traits, rather, they are leadership tools to be kept in your leadership toolbox. The six leadership styles are authoritative, coaching, affiliate, democratic, pacesetting, and commanding.
Leaders use all the leadership styles in their toolbox to get results, especially to build gritty organizations. What style you select is based on you, your people, and the situation. There is no right answer, but it needs to be a conscious decision. You can’t just always default to a commanding style because it is what you are most comfortable with. Repeated use of a style that doesn’t fit the situation and your people can do significant damage to the organization.
Goleman’s research also found that leaders who master four or more styles get the best performance out of their group. According to Goleman, the most useful leadership styles to have in your toolbox are the authoritative, democratic, affiliative, and coaching styles.
The Six Leadership Styles
The six leadership styles are:
·Authoritative — Mobilizes people toward a vision. This style works best when a clear direction or change is needed and is epitomized by the phrase “come with me. ” It helps to create a positive climate
·Coaching — Develops people for the future. This style works best when helping people and building long-term strength. It is represented by the phrase “try this.” It is part of building a positive climate
Affiliative — Creates emotional bonds and harmony. This style works best to heal rifts in teams or motivate people in stressful times. It is epitomized by the phrase “people come first.” It helps craft a positive climate
Democratic — Builds consensus through participation. This style works best to create consensus or get input and is embodied by the phrase “what do you think?” It helps create a positive climate
Pacesetting — Expects excellence and self-direction. This style works best to get quick results from a highly competent team and is captured in the phrase “Do as I do, now.” It can create a negative climate
Commanding — Demands immediate compliance. This style works best in crisis or with problematic people. “Do what I tell you to do.” It can contribute to a negative climate.
To continue the toolbox analogy, similar to home improvement projects, a leader needs to identify if the group needs you to use some oil, needs a hammer, or maybe needs a screwdriver to get the job done effectively and efficiently. As you think through transforming your group into a gritty organization, think about the different leadership styles you may need to use in each stage.
For example, a client that grew her gritty team and increased sales 30 percent in the process used all six styles. First, she used a democratic style to set the purpose and plan. She used pacesetting when she needed to lead by example and demonstrate the grit and values that needed emphasis. She then transitioned to using a coaching style to build the team. Finally, she used the affiliative style to develop the culture. Along the way, she had to use a commanding style to put an employee on a three-month performance plan and an authoritative style in the immediate aftermath of discovering a ransomware attack. After six months, she could see the progress in the team – they were much better at handling adversity and were focused on attaining their long-range goal of increasing sales.
In another example, General David Petraeus deployed to Iraq in February 2007 to take over Multi-National Forces-Iraq (MNF-I) and lead the coalition forces during the Surge. Things looked bleak when he took over, with sectarian violence at all-time highs, Sunni and Shia insurgent groups regularly attacking American forces and fighting with each other, and the destruction of the Shia mosque in Sunni-controlled Samarra the previous year still a source of grievance and sectarian attacks. The U.S. committed itself to sending an additional 5 brigades (about 30,000 troops) to Iraq to reverse the trends. As General Petraeus observed on taking command, the situation was “hard, but not hopeless.”
After Petraeus spent a few weeks on the ground in Iraq, he used an authoritative style to get his direct reports out to see the situation on the ground for themselves. He used a democratic style to get all his commanders in the room and agree on the “Big Ideas” that needed to be pursued going forward – the principles for which had been captured in the Army Field Manual published several months early under Petraeus’ oversight in the United States. The group embraced four Big Ideas: first, the human terrain – the people – was the decisive terrain; the people had to be secured, but could only be secured by living with them, establishing bases in their neighborhoods – a 180-degree change from the strategy of the previous two years. Second, the coalition had to clear areas of insurgents and then hold those areas, not clear and hand off or leave. Third, the coalition could not kill or capture its way out of the industrial strength insurgency it faced; rather, it had to reconcile with as many of the rank and file of the fighters, as was possible. And fourth, Multi-National Forces-Iraq had to pursue the “irreconcilables” – the leaders of the insurgent and militia groups – even more relentlessly than it had before. As the force began implementing the Big Ideas, he used a coaching style with the Division Commanders to ensure that they understood what he wanted and were moving out to accomplish it. He used a combination of authoritative and pace setting styles with the commanders that lagged. At regular intervals he brought the team back in, listened, took feedback, and communicated a common picture of the situation. He coached the commanders to share lessons learned and constantly sought to ensure that the Multinational Force was a learning organization. All of this took a combination of authoritative and democratic approaches. The strategy worked – violence was driven down significantly across Iraq, by 85% in the course of the 18 months of the Surge. In summary, General David Petraeus used a variety of leadership styles to lead MNF-I, get results, and increase the safety and security of Iraq and the Iraqi people.
Obstacle
Once you understand yourself, lead by example, and decide on what leadership styles work with your group the biggest obstacle in growing a gritty organization is deciding what aspect to emphasize and which don’t need as much attention. Experience, intuition, and a bias towards action must guide you. For example, a corporate group might need a better plan, a renewed emphasis on culture, but less time on teamwork. A sports team might need to refine its purpose, find players with more grit to help with the culture, and spend less time on its plan which worked well last year. Finally, a non-profit might need to develop a scoreboard and its teamwork, while spending little time on its well understood purpose. There is no right answer but making a decision and leading your organization towards develop its grit is always better than doing nothing.
Conclusion
Leading a team is never easy. There is no magic bullet when leading a gritty organization. Understanding how you get gritty is the first step, leading by example is the second step, and consciously using the right leadership style to fit your people and your situation is paramount. Keeping these three ideas in mind as you grow grit in your bicycle team, your small business, or your military unit can make the leadership journey slightly easier.