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Finding IT: Getting to the Heart of Leadership
In a world besieged by doing more with less and doing it faster, organizations are in a constantwhirlwind of change. Organizations depend more and more on their leaders to keep their purposeand focus from becoming increasingly fragmented.In haste for a quick solution, some leaders look for the silver bullet. While many leaders focus ona primary strength, whether it is technological or analytical skills, leadership is much broader.Leadership must encompass a well-rounded approach with multi-dimensional leaders.Multi-dimensional leaders focus on many strengths, especially servicing its human assets. Theseleaders choose the path of human reliance because they realize that success requires being a well-rounded organization with diverse talent.The research of Daniel Goleman on emotional intelligence and Leonard Berry on service describeshow organizations and employees need to be equipped with comprehensive tools for success.Goleman’s book 
Working With Emotional Intelligence
, discusses how having high emotionalintelligence, managing yourself and your relationships, is a different way of “being smart.” It isusually a predictor for life success.Berry’s research found that true excellence in service is rare. He featured Custom Research Inc. asone of the 14 highly successful, comprehensive and well-rounded service organizations in his book 
 Discovering the Soul of Service: The Nine Drivers of Sustainable Business Success
.To demonstrate this, the Tiered Leadership Path (figure 1) is a framework for developing multi-dimensional leaders. It is based on servicing human assets by integrating the valuable research of Goleman‘s emotional intelligence competencies (figure 2) and Berry’s Drivers of SustainableSuccess in Service Businesses (figure 3 see attached sheet).
Foundational Core
The inner tier of the Tiered Leadership Path (see figure 1) represents the foundational core. Thefoundation of Berry’s research lies in the core fundamental question: How do excellent service
FoundationalCorePhilosophicalSystemPurposefulExistenceOthers-CenteredApproachMutualCommitment
Tiered Leadership PathThe Emotional Intelligence Competencies
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Self-Awareness
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Self-Regulation
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Motivation
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Empathy
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Social Skills
Figure 1Figure 2
 
companies keep the human engine going to sustain their excellence? When searching howorganizations retain their “service soul” he discovered that the single most important factor of success is human values. Berry’s research revealed how the following seven core values – excellence, innovation, teamwork, joy, respect, social profit and integrity – benefit all companystakeholders from its customers to its communities.Leaders emphasize the sacredness of human values through values-driven leadership. Values-drivenleadership, Berry’s foundational core, gives root to the other eight drivers. “Ideals, principles and philosophy at the center of the enterprise that celebrate human potential are most likely to stimulatethat potential, to nurture and grow it, to sustain it” (Berry 1999, p. 236).Leaders are always looking for ways to engage in Goleman’s foundational core competency of self-awareness (see figure 2). Self-awareness is like an “inner barometer” that links inner motivationswith outer goals. Leaders in touch with their inner barometer often have an “I’m never satisfied”leadership attitude that drives their success.
Philosophical System
The second tier of the leadership path is taking the principles of the foundational core and framingthem as a philosophical system. Goleman’s application is through the competency of self-regulation, the ability to manage impulses as well as distressing feelings. Why does self-regulationmatter so much to leaders?Two hallmarks of self-regulation -- trust and innovation – have been noted as critical leadershipcomponents and organizational strengths.Trusting in leadership has become a key issue of the decade. Trust and leadership are necessaryfor the optimization of any system. When leaders create an integrity-enhanced environment of trustand fairness, it squelches political injustices that can lead to a nonproductive workforce. Trust becomes a critical competitive tool. Trusting an intangible service compared to a physical productis the only way for labor-intensive service organizations to sustain success over a long period of time.Innovation is another critical component of a strategic system. Innovation that is customer-focused(compared to competitor-focused) guides the action for organizations and industries. An exampleof a customer-based innovation challenge for the marketing research industry is the growth of on-line research. On-line research is becoming a data-collection method that fits the needs of manycustomers. Yet the resistance of some pockets of the industry to the growth of on-line research isan example of how the industry is enabling the status quo instead of being innovative-adapters.
Purposeful Existence
Purposeful existence, or reason for being, is the key motivator and fuel igniter within the leadership path. Since motive and emotion share the same Latin root, motere, “to move,” emotions areliterally what moves us to pursue our goals. Leaders with a purposeful existence are motivated to passionately pursue goals with a sense of commitment and optimism.
 
Commitment starts with a central, clearly defined organizational vision. Commitment grows whenleaders are able to communicate the vision’s purpose and a sense of being for the employees.Commitment motivates when employees embody the notion that they are a shareholder of theorganization, not just an employee.Optimism is a mindset that leaders must embody. It is a way of interpreting successes and failures.Optimistic leaders operate from a sense of hope rather than a fear of failure. Setbacks for optimists are considered learning opportunities. Berry describes the ability to control one’s destiny, pursue success on your own terms, as a similar mindset. Leaders with this mindset do not allowoutsiders to dictate the direction of the business or its purposeful existence.
Others-Centered Approach
The approach leaders use within the Tiered Leadership Path requires a focus on others. Leadershipis not just confined to senior management. Organizations need a strategic approach to growleaders at all levels. Leaders must focus on nurturing and supporting the talent within their organizations. This service-oriented approach through the ability to understand others is whatGoleman refers to as the empathy competency.In an article he wrote for the Harvard Business Review titled,
What Makes a Leader?
Golemansaid “it is much harder to learn to empathize – to internalize empathy as a natural response to people – than it is to become adept at regression analysis.” He further explained how empathy as aleadership component is particularly important today for the increasing use of teams and thegrowing need to retain talent.The concept of an others-centered approach is essential with teambuilding. When team leaderstake the time to understand each team member’s viewpoint they are much more successful inutilizing the teams’ skills, reaching agreed upon consensus, and developing strong relationships.Berry’s research revealed that “acting small,” a just-made-for-you approach, is the “big key” toleveraging long-term relationships.The growing need to retain talent requires an others-centered approach. Berry discovered throughhis research that this is a two-part process. First is having what he calls “executional excellence.”Attracting great people is the first rule of execution. Second is what he calls “brand cultivation.”He explains that the underlying purpose of a brand is to “connect customer (talent) and companyemotionally.” The stakes for “emotional branding” are even higher today. When good people leaveorganizations they take the company’s knowledge and the value they added with them. Adopting aservice-oriented approach that increases customer loyalty and satisfaction is one way leaders canhelp raise the stakes.
Mutual Commitment
The last and outer tier of the leadership path is the concept of mutual commitment. It is similar towhat Goleman considers social skills, the most outwardly recognizable culmination of all theemotional intelligence competencies.
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