Imagine you are attending BEMA-U’s presentation titled “Great Leaders Don’t Conform” at their annual meeting in Maui, Hawaii. As you enter the room where the presentation will take place you notice around the room grey posters with quotes from various leaders printed in white.

You have a chance to read a few, but the presentation begins and you focus your attention on the speaker. He begins, “We’re going to start off the next hour a little differently than usual. The title of this session indicates it is about leadership and as you look around the room, you see quotes from several individuals regarded as great leaders. Take a moment and read through the quotes, get up and walk around. After you’ve read them all, pick one that resonates with you and write it down on the card in front of you. When everyone has done this we are going to take a poll and see which quotes resonate most with people.”

Which of them resonates most with you? Take a minute and write the quote down somewhere meaningful.

Let’s see which quotes resonate with other participants.

Alright, so no one voted for Napoleon, but the votes have a fairly even distribution. What can the distribution of results

tell us about leadership?

The results help us arrive at an understanding of what leadership is and here’s why. We have 10 great leaders quoted

around the room and in researching great leaders for this presentation – something about them stood out, but maybe

not what you think. What stood out is how different each of them is from one another. Mother Teresa and Martin

Luther King were ministers with a sense of compassion. While Alexander, The Great and George S. Patton may have

been very compassionate, they were also leaders in war which often requires a different persona. Jack Welch and Jeff

Bezos led and lead billion dollar businesses and Nelson Mandela and Winston Churchill worked through political means

to accomplish their endeavors. So, the questions arise; what can all of these differences tell us about leadership? And,

are there any commonalities these leaders share that can help understand how to lead more effectively?

Here’s the insight – their differences teach us that great leaders don’t conform to an ideal set of attributes. There’s not a list of personality characteristics that by imitating will make us a great leader. If you consider the people behind these quotes, they were each very different from one another, some were bold and assertive, some were meek and compassionate, some had a certain arrogance while others were humble. So, the differences between these leaders teach us that believing there is an ideal set of leadership attributes or attempting to imitate someone else, probably won’t make us an effective leader. These leaders weren’t effective because they conformed to what other leaders were in the past – they were effective because they were self-aware and authentic. As the HBR article Discovering Your Authentic Leadership teaches, “During the past 50 years, leadership scholars have conducted more than 1,000 studies in an attempt to determine the definitive styles, characteristics, or personality traits of great leaders. None of these studies has produced a clear profile of the ideal leader. Thank goodness. If scholars had produced a cookie-cutter leadership style, individuals would be forever trying to imitate it. They would make themselves into personae, not people, and others would see through them immediately.”

So, if effective leadership isn’t about “cookie-cutter leadership style” or imitating other leaders, what is it about? Well, while there are significant differences between all of the leaders who are quoted around the room, they all have two very important things in common. Each of these leaders had a Vision they were working purposefully toward and they achieved Results. The leadership expert Warren Bennis understood the balance between having Vision, being Results Oriented and being yourself when he said “leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality” and that “becoming a leader is synonymous with becoming yourself”.

Considering the insights we’ve gained about the importance of Vision and Results, the BEMA-U Leadership Model starts with these two components – Vision and Results Orientation. Vision sets the course for effective leadership, it provides direction and criteria for effective leadership. Without Vision, any leadership is effective because success is undefined. Like the old adage, if you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there – if you don’t have a Vision, any leader will get you there. At the organizational level, a strong Vision meets two critical standards 1) It is compelling enough to motivate people or obtain buy-in and 2) It is specific enough to guide choices. At the department, team or individual level there is a third standard, which is that 3) It is aligned with the organization’s strategy.

Vision is upheld by a strong Results Orientation, which is the act of distilling Vision into purposeful and achievable milestones. It is also where focus of people’s work is first and foremost on results. So, it’s about not only developing and communicating a Vision and setting objectives, but following through to achieve results. To have a strong Results Orientation, effective leaders will emphasize the importance of efficiency and productivity and prioritize the highest-value work.

While Vision and Results Orientation lay the foundation for effective leadership, there are three additional areas of focus that have an incredible impact on effective leadership. McKinsey and Company performed a massive study involving 189,000 people and 81 different companies to identify what really matters with regard to leadership. Are you familiar with the Pareto Principle? Applied to this situation, the Pareto Principle would state that 20 percent of leadership behaviors would account for 80 percent of leadership effectiveness – and that is exactly what McKinsey and Company found. They actually found that “4 of 20 possible types of behavior…explained 89 percent” of leader effectiveness. It’s important to note that these are 4 types of behaviors, not 4 narrowly defined behaviors to be

imitated. So adding to the BEMA-U Leadership Model, we include Support, Removing Barriers (or problem solving) and Pursuing Diversity.

Support is about understanding how different people approach and feel about their work. Also, ensuring they feel they have the proper encouragement and assistance, both individually and as a team, to succeed in achieving the results they have responsibility for.

Removing Barriers is the process that precedes decision making. It is the process whereby information is gathered, analyzed and considered. It is also about problem solving, so that those being led can move forward without unnecessary obstacles – whether that be proper resourcing and information or having the freedom to fail.

I worked with a large retailer who was trying to bring consistency and alignment to their pricing. Each category in the store had control over how it priced its products and rarely communicated their pricing strategy or approach with other categories. So, pricing was not aligned or consistent across similar or connected categories. In order to solve the problem they created a team that would create a process or playbook and oversee pricing across categories. One of the barriers to this though, was who had authority to price. As long as people could remember, each category had authority to price within their area. If the newly created category management team could only offer suggestions without formal authority – it would have been a barrier to their success. In reality, it was a barrier to their success until the leaders removed this barrier by giving them formal authority for pricing strategy. This is why removing barriers and problem solving is a key focus area for effective leaders.

Pursuing Diversity is about leveraging information, talents and skills regardless of their source, and in many cases it is about seeking inputs from a variety of individuals and sources. Another important aspect is to clarify assumptions and avoid biases. Clayton Christensen who is a Harvard professor and author famous for Disruptive Innovation talks in his book The Innovator’s DNA about how the most innovative people tend to have a depth of understanding in 1 or 2 areas, but a diversity of understanding across many areas. Take for example the story of Steve Jobs. As he was walking through Reed College campus in Portland, Oregon, he noticed an advertisement for a calligraphy class. Intrigued, he attended the class. Something as unusual and diverse as calligraphy – at the time no one would have associated with computers. Jobs later said, “When we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, it’s likely that no personal computer would have them.”

So, this is the BEMA-U Leadership Model that we offer to the industry. The value of a model is that it provides a framework to base efforts around and something clear to work toward. Additionally, when viewed as a process, the model as a whole and its individual components can be practiced, repeated and improved. Earlier, I presented the idea that there is no definitive set of characteristics or personality traits that make a great leader. This is true, however, it doesn’t mean that we ignore these components. Let’s review what Warren Bennis said, “Becoming a great leader is synonymous with becoming yourself”.

It is vitally important that we understand our own personality traits and how they impact the way we approach the leadership model. Self-awareness about strengths, weaknesses and tendencies is the final component to effective leadership. While it is not about imitating others, it is about understanding how our personality and behaviors influence

the way we are Results Oriented, Remove Barriers, Support, and Pursue Diversity. For example, someone emotionally expressive who tends to be candid and honest, the way they approach support will look different than someone who is calm and stoic. Self-awareness ensures that we address each component of the leadership model appropriately and effectively. In addition to self-awareness, leader purpose is about being intentional by thinking and behaving in ways that are consistent with your values and long-term interests.

Let’s try an activity. Listed on the card, there are five areas of personality; adjustment, ambition, interpersonal sensitivity, prudence and inquisitiveness along with descriptions.

Each of these traits is on a scale of low to high, but whether you are low or high doesn’t matter. Low isn’t inherently bad and high isn’t inherently good, there are benefits and risk regardless of where you fall on the scale. Take the next couple

of minutes and rate yourself on each of the five traits. There is a broad definition on the far left, as well as some descriptors for the low side of the scale and some descriptors for the high side of the scale. Just make a mark where you feel you are on the scale.

Now let’s consider how the specific traits impact the way we approach the leadership model. Think of any card from a deck of 52 cards and write it down. Based on the card you choose, use the legend below to identify your areas of focus.

For example, if you choose the Queen of Hearts, you would consider how your Inquisitiveness influences the way you

approach Support. If you choose the Seven of Diamonds, you would consider how your Interpersonal Sensitivity

influences the way you approach Results Orientation. One other note, if you chose a Joker, you can pick the areas you

want to consider. Once you’ve considered your areas of focus, write your thoughts and insights in the space provided.

What did you discover? How will this insight impact the way you approach leadership moving forward?

I hope through the information you’ve received today and through this activity that you’ve arrived at some valuable insights about leadership and increased your self-awareness. With this in mind we add the final component to the BEMA-U Leadership Model and that is you; your personal leadership style.

Please take what you’ve gained today and apply it to be a more effective leader personally and professionally. We strongly believe in this model and its ability to transform leadership at the personal and professional level. For this reason, we are offering an intensive two-day High Performing Leadership Workshop, which is the first of three workshops that make up the BEMA-U Leadership Skills Program. The workshop will be November 2-4, 2015 at the Allerton Hotel in Chicago. Registration is open now and details are available at www.bema.org/stronger. So, join us in November to build Stronger Professionals, Stronger Companies and a Stronger Industry.

Thank You.