THE WAY OF THE SHEPHERD

Dr. Kevin Leman

William Pentad

Find inspiration and a fresh perspective of the art of leadership in this story of a cub reporter
who lands the interview of a lifetime and walks away with the keys to exceptional leadership. When the
reporter meets the most respected CEO in America, the businessman shares the seven secrets he
learned long ago from his mentor – an eccentric but a brilliant professor who taught him proven
management principles that, while ancient origin, are a readily applicable in today’s fast paced high tech
world.
The Way of the Shepherd will teach you how to lead the people around you so they will view
their work as a calling rather than merely a job, a place to belong rather than a place to work. It shows
how to infuse work with the meaning and how to engage and energize your workforce.
This unforgettable book reads quickly, hits hard and will stay with you. It illustrates an approach
to management, that is:
TIMELESS – proven not merely contemporary business but across millennia, ever since
shepherds first led their sheep to good pasture.
CHALLENGING – for it calls you to give your best in order to receive the best.
UNCOMMON – so uncommon that it will inevitably set you apart as rare, highly effective leader
if you will learn to follow its precepts.
The Way of the Shepherd will show you how to call forth greatness from your employees by
cultivating it in yourself. In the words of the professor, “The ultimate test of leadership isn’t setting the
direction of your flock. The ultimate test is this: can you get your flock where you wanted to go?”

PRINCIPLES OF THE WAY OF THE SHEPHERD

1. Know the Condition of your Flock

Follow the status of your people as well as the status of the work.
Get to know your flock, one sheep at a time.
Engage your people on a regular basis.
Keep your eyes and ears open, question and follow through.

2. Discover the Shape of your Sheep

Your choice of sheep can make flock management easier or harder.
Start with healthy sheep, or you will inherit someone else’s problems.
Know the SHAPE of your sheep to make they are in the right fold.

3. Help your Sheep Identify with You

Build trust with your followers by modeling authenticity, integrity, and compassion.
Set high standards of performance.
Relentlessly, communicate your values and sense of mission.
Define the cause for your people and tell them where they fit in.
Remember that the great leadership is not just professional; its personal.

4. Help your Pasture a Safe Place

Keep your people well-informed.
Infuse every position with importance.
Cull chronic instigator from the flock
 Regularly rotate the sheep to fresh pastures.
Do not give problems time to fester.

5. The Staff of Direction

Know where you are going, get out in front and keep your flock on the move.
When directing, use the persuasion rather than coercion.
Give your people freedom of movement, but make sure they know where the fence line is.
Do not confuse boundaries with bridles.
When your people get into trouble, go and get them out.
Remind people that failure is not fatal.

6. The Rod Coercion

Protect: Stand in the gap and fight for your sheep.
Correct: Approach discipline as a teaching opportunity.
Inspect: |Regularly inquire about your people’s progress.

7. The Heart of the Shepherd

Great leadership is a lifestyle, not a technique.
Everyday, you have to decide who is going to pay for your leadership; you or your people.
Most of all, have a heart for your sheep.

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 THE POWELL PRINCIPLES
(24 Lessons from Colin Powell, a legendary Leader}

Colin Powell, Secretary of State under President George W. Bush has established an entirely new
standard of leadership excellence. Through 4 US Presidents and countless world crises – including the
high stakes campaign against global terror, the blunt-spoken four-star general has grown to become one
of the world’s most effective bottom line leaders.

The following lessons in leadership outline the Powell Principles – the practical mission and people
based leadership that Powell has practiced throughout his career and that has translate into
performance excellence and competitive success. “Management is easy, Leadership is motivating
people, turning people on getting 110% out of a personal relationship.

1. Promote a clash of ideas

Ideas build up or bring down empires. To be successful, leaders must consciously work to stay in
touch with the best ideas of the people they lead. Not just to harvest ideas but to involve people in and
make them take responsibility for the shaping of their ideas. The organization needs to use noisy
systems and creative clashes to pump its own pulse.

2. Be prepared to piss people off

Leadership is not a popularity context. Leaders who are afraid to get people angry are likely to waver
and procrastinate when it comes to making tough choices. Good leaders focus ceaselessly on making
sure that their best people are the most satisfied. Leaders should clarify, exhort and push. They should
comfort employees whose performance is sub-par. Reward the best performers and get rid of non-
performers.

3. Establish trust
Trust is essential for influence and credibility. How to build it? By demonstrating the key attributes
and personal traits that are likely to build people’s confidence in you. Those attributes are competence,
character courage, loyalty and confidence. “Why would you follow somebody around the corner? Or up
the hill? Or into a dark room? The reason is trust.”

4. Walk the talk

People with integrity clearly “stand for” something bigger than themselves – a purpose or actions
honestly reflect these convictions. There is coherence in their decisions and behaviors that reflect their
idels. People will always be more inclined to follow a leader whose mantra is “do as I do” rather than
“do as I say”. Influence accomplishes as much as, if not more than authority… and leaves a better
residue.

5. Pick the right people

Hire talent and values, not just resumes. Don’t hire or promote anyone who does not share the same
values that drive your organization. Even a talented individual will find it hard to contribute to your
mission if their values are not in synch with your own. Don’t let your ego get in the way. Hire people
good enough to succeed you. Strong leaders are not afraid to surround themselves with people better
that themselves.
 6. Listen
Leaders who shut up and listen nor only learn a lot, but carve out an environment where others are
willing to listen to them. Use every means to encourage communication. Stay in touch with real people
and real data.

7. Be a vigilant in details
The leader who has clearly mastered the details inspires confidence. The details won’t by
themselves generate the best solution or course of action, but paying attention to the details will
increase the likelihood of sound analyses and creative insights. “If you are going to achieve excellence in
big things, you develop the habit in little matters”.

8. Be a disorganizer
Effective leaders find the truth and face the truth. They use truth to make decisions that will move
their organizations forward. The job of the leader is not to be the chief organizer, but the chief
disorganizer. A disorganizer is someone who constantly picks at and harasses the routine of the
organization. Contentment with the status quo is dangerous.

9. Check your ego at the door

Leaders who cling to their established positions and standard operating procedures will place their
organization in jeopardy. “Never let your ego get so close to your position that when your position goes,
you ego goes with it”. It is always less painful to change yourself that to have change forced upon you.

10. Let change lead growth

Create a climate in which people are valued for their ability to develop new skills and grab new
responsibilities, thereby perpetually reinventing their jobs. Adapt tp new situations; respond to them
with innovative action.

11. Seek consensus (but don’t be ruled by it)

Earn a personal commitment from every member of the team. Make sure that everyone is invited
and expected to participate. When individuals become personally committed to the mission, the
potential for success is greatly magnified.

12. Fit no stereotypes

Leading people with a particular style or approach often generates rigidity in thought and action.
Some situations require the leader to hover closely; others require the timely appearance of long and
loose leashes. Practical, action-oriented leaders think on their feet. They improvise. They understand
that part of good leadership is the ability to employ the most effective tool for the situation at hand.

13. Simplify
Effective leaders take the abstract and complex and read it into something that is graspable and
straight forward. Clearly articulate a broad agenda. Provide everyone with the tools and training
necessary to take action. Insist that everyone take the responsibility to carve out the best ways to
execute that agenda.

14. Let situation dictate strategy

Avoid “one size fits all” solutions. There are no magic elixirs for every situation. Be flexible; be
prepared to change direction as the situation warrants it.
 15. Push the envelope
Don’t hesitate to push things to the limit when the situation warrants it. Be provocative, by taking
calculated, intelligent risk, you are likely to accomplish more than playing it safe.

16 Close with the enemy

Take on clearly defined battles that can be won – and won decisively. Make sure that the gorals are
understood and endorsed by the people who need to endorse them. Pick your battles but don’t turn up
your nose at opportunity.

17. View people as partners

Leaders treat people as partners nor as “subordinates” who are expected to follow him blindly, but
as partners who will bring their experience and expertise to the table and who will work with him to
achieve exceptional goals. Every task count and that high moral is critical to getting the best out of
people. Surveys suggest that highly effective executives spend between 50% to 75% of their time on
“people” issues.

18. Challenge the pros

The pros are people with authority and status. The trait they have in common is that they are able to
wield significant power. Encourage those around you to challenge you and the other senior members of
your team. Disagree without being disagreeable. Where it’s you challenging your superiors or your
subordinate challenging you, remember that more opinions and more voices usually translate into more
alternative options.

19. Don’t rely on charts and titles

“Plans don’t accomplish work. Goal charts on walls don’t accomplish work… it is people who get
things done”. Titles do not necessarily translate into wisdom. Respect those in authority but remember
that leadership is about more.

20. Trust those in the trenches

The people in the field are closest to the problems and thus, closest to the situation, therefore,
that’s where real wisdom is. Take advantage of the intelligence of those in the field.

21. Make optimism a top priority

Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier. A leader’s enthusiasm, hopefulness and confidence multiply
as they radiate throughout the organization. Leaders who view the world positively and confidently tend
to infuse their people with the same attitude. Conversely, leaders who persists is seeing the world
negatively are very likely to demoralize, demotivate and undermine the effectiveness of their colleagues.
People will choose to follow a leader with an optimistic message rather than with visions of doom and
gloom.

22. Have fun in your command

Successful leaders view fun in the workplace as essential to innovation, risk-taking, team spirit and
performance. When people have fun together, they are far more likely to accomplish extraordinary
things together. No matter how big the enterprise has become or how much the momentum it seems to
have, if there is no joy in the workplace, all bets are off.
 23. Strive for balance
As a leader, you need to recognize that people need balance in their lives, have outside interests,
have families and need to spend time with them. Don’t neglect home and family. Don’t spend yourself
entirely at work. No organization is sustainable that counts on burning up its people.

24. Prepare to be lonely

a. Accept responsibility
Those who seek out responsibility have to be prepared to accept it. Failures are their own;
success belongs to their colleagues.
b. Lead by example
All employees are boss watchers. The rank and file would always take their cue from the
leader. It is therefore doubly inept that the leader lives the values he or she espouses.
c. Know when to exist
When you have figured it all out, it’s time to pass it along to the next generation.
SOMETIMES, LEAVING IS THE GREATEST ACT OF LEADERSHIP.

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