Musings at Altitude

I’ve been intrigued by leadership since I was a teenager.  Back then I was obsessed with military history books like “A Bridge too Far” and “The Longest Day”.  In those books, I was inspired by military leaders, and I was completely obsessed with the heroes whose stories came out so vividly.  The intrigue of my youth was transformed into a study of military leadership at the Air Force Academy and then even additional studies at Air Command & Staff College.  And then that passion for study of military leaders turned into a passion for studying business leadership as I moved from the military into business leadership roles. 

In the last decade, we’ve been blasted with a large number of books on business leadership that have educated all of us on the best practices of businesses and their business leaders today.  But I can’t remember a single book (although there has to be some) that I’ve read in the last decade (I’ve read what seems like thousands) that has focused on the critical importance of compatibility in the leadership team.  I remember lots of books and articles that focused on leaders, but I’m sensing a dramatic shift away from the importance of individuals in leadership roles towards a full understanding and mission compatibility of a leadership team for driving success.  The more I think about this the more I believe it relates directly to the new way of interacting and communicating that exists today driven by collaborative tools and information sharing that just didn’t exist in the decades before.  We have no excuse not to have a high level of understanding and intimate collaboration across and within an executive team today – that same level of communications and collaboration was awkwardly hard to achieve in years past.  Because of this, we can no longer afford to assess leadership only at the top; now, we need to assess leadership from a team understanding which is a much tougher challenge but a much greater reward if accomplished.

As I’ve watched many senior leadership teams today, I’ve begun to characterize the executive team into several different categories:

(1) Desperately seeking a clue – this unfortunate scenario occurs when the top guy (who may be a very good guy in other circumstances) is working overtime to act as a leader and the executives underneath are blindly following the leader not knowing any better or willfully respecting the leadership role of the top guy even if that respect is not earned or warranted;

(2) Sometimes we know too much – in this scenario, the leader and the executive team may have way too many clues and thus believe that the execution in the organization below will work exactly the way they think as long as they exert their leadership influence over that organization;

(3) Geez it’s good to be lucky – this leadership team makes decisions and moves on problems or opportunities with their fingers crossed and often times with their eyes closed, but for reasons typically beyond their control, the team is rewarded for their efforts

(4) Let the blessings flow – this is nirvana, where the leader is humble, collaborative, decisive, and knowledgeable; the executive team supporting the top guy is supportive, communicative, responsive, and shapeable; together, they are an unbeatable team in good times and bad; they listen for the whispers without creating them; they create and mutually support a growth vision, and they recruit and retain the very best people to join them on a journey defined by success

As you might imagine, nirvana is rare and often times situational.  Being lucky is obviously better than being clueless, and yet being lucky can lead an organization dangerously close to peril when that luck runs out.  Knowing too much will often times create great comfort in the overseers of an organization and yet when the knowing creates blind spots to the reality of execution in an organization, this too can lead to great danger as an organization attempts the impossible because of the great knowledge of those at the top.

Today, I live for those nirvanic moments when the leadership team is so intimate and nurturing with each other that no problem is too large, and no success is too celebrated.  I also cherish those times when the knowledge of any one individual is eclipsed by the brilliance of an entire team.  I’ll take the blessings anytime!