Episode #1: Not Meeting The Leadership Challenge Is Quietly Killing Us

Careers are cut off at the knees and businesses destroyed when people problems are allowed to fester. Getting the people part right is not just fundamental, it is critical in any business. Ironically, we are all taught to believe that “hard skills” - our technical expertise - is the main requirement for success. The reality is that if the people skills part is not working well, no amount of technical expertise will compensate for the damage being done to the business. Poor, mediocre or uninspiring leadership is easy to spot. However, there are other types of problematic leadership which are not so immediately obvious, but which must be fixed.

Smart, capable people get promoted and are given responsibility for others. This is usually because they have demonstrated a mastery of the “hard skills” areas of the business. The challenging part is that often these admirable and highly evaluated skills are individual to that person. Those working for them, by definition, do not possess the same capability level. Also, individual expertise may not be replicable or transferable to others. Another additional problem is that having the requisite hard skills is not enough. You can’t do it all yourself and so leaders need to be able to delegate, to leverage the capacity and ability of others. This requires expertise in the soft skills - particularly leadership, communication and people skills.

As famous baseball coach Yogi Berra wryly noted, “Leading is easy. Getting people to follow you is the hard part”. The vast majority of companies mention they need more out of their people. They especially look to the leader groups, particularly middle management, to provide this capability. Most often they complain that those responsible for others are not getting sufficient leverage from the whole team and are not producing sufficient outcomes.

Global Research Reveals Surprises

The breakdown occurs when individual technical expertise does not provide enough of what followers want from leaders. Recently, global research was conducted on what drives followers to be loyal, motivated and engaged about their organisations. This research was duplicated in Japan and the three key factors were found to be same:

1. The quality of the relationship with the immediate supervisor
2. The employees belief in the direction the senior leadership were taking the organisation
3. Their sense of pride in working for the organisation

All three pivot points refer to “soft” not “hard” skills. They are indicating issues about communication and people skills. This is often the weak point for technically oriented people. They are often very detail driven, high “task focus” individuals. Communicating with, leading, enthusing and motivating others are expertise areas where they struggle.

If the lynchpin for engagement and motivation hinges on expertise in these areas and those given responsibility for leading are underperforming, then the full potential of the team will never be realised. If the full potential of the people is not being realised (and given people are usually the biggest expense line in any organization), the “opportunity cost” is very, very high. This is like a leadership “cancer “, quietly killing the organisation.

Engagement Levels Count

If your competitor has a more engaged team, then the outcomes, the quality of idea generation, teamwork, accountability, coordination, attention to quality, and going the extra mile for the client will be superior. They outperform you in innovation, because they are getting more people to care more. They are inspiring them to want to be an integral and valued part of the improvement process. They will soon be eroding your market share and will ultimately destroy your business.

The four major business skills of leadership, communication, sales and presenting are all soft skills. Hard skills alone are just not going to do it. Companies and individuals who want to succeed need to invest to completely marshal the full power of all their potential – their “people power”.