Beyond Leadership

I just came across an article I wrote when I was involved in student leadership back when I was teaching in a secondary school. It has been at least four to five years back when I wrote this reflection essay on leadership for my students. It is heartening to see that my thoughts on leaders and leadership though developing then, still remains congruent - that the beyond leadership skills and techniques, the main essence of leadership was the character of the leader. I've reproduced the article in full below for readers' reading pleasure.

Beyond Leadership

Oliver Chia

“Character is Destiny”

William Hundert (Kevin Kline) in The Emperor’s Club

In these times when everything seems to be reduced to techniques and methods, leadership too has often been seen as learning a series of skills and management tools. Being a good leader then means a mastery of these techniques and skills. True, a mastery of these skills will aid in the science and art of leadership. However, being a great leader means possessing certain attributes that is beyond leadership skills.

The character William Hundert played by Kevin Kline in The Emperor’s Club, in the initial introductory narrative pronounced, “Character is Destiny.” All too often in the quest to become better leaders, the need for character is often glossed over or ignored. Abraham Lincoln, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mendela – the honors rolls of history of great leaders all possessed one thing in common, impeccable integrity and character. The quest to be a great leader necessitates that we simply cannot ignore the character development of the man or woman; that which is foundational to being a leader par excellence.

What then are these essential characters? I proposed three key characters for anyone seeking to be a leader: Humility, Integrity and Compassion. To be humble means a freedom from pride. It means having a learning heart. A humble leader is able to assess a situation rightly, free from pride, and make the correct decision. He would also be able to learn from all situations. The world would be his teacher. Integrity has been variously defined as wholeness, soundness or honesty. To be a person of integrity means to be a whole person, there is no discrepancy between heart thoughts and outward actions. He or she is a person of sound character. This leader is honest and is trusted by all. A compassionate leader is a person who is genuinely passionate about people. He leads out of a motivation to care and serve others. He, through who he is, builds strong loving relationships with people. He serves well before he leads well. Humility allows you to continue to learn to be a great leader; Integrity enables people to trust you; and compassion allows people to know that you care for them and then they will follow you. All these are foundational to leadership.

And how do we develop and cultivate these characters? I suggest three practices that could be adopted to help develop these characters. The first is to keep a reflection journal or simply to set aside some time for reflection in solitude. To learn to be humble means to be in a state of continual reflection, see what you can learn from every situation. Having a journal and writing in it will prompt you to reflect and learn. To have integrity means to be consistent in thoughts, words and actions. Do not say or do things you do not mean. It is difficult, but we have to examine our every motive. In this respect, it helps if you spend some time reflecting on your motives for your actions. Another practice to adopt in developing character would be to have a small circle of peers form an accountability group. In such a group where honesty and openness is practiced, valuable feedback can be obtained. This can put you in a posture of humility and learning from your peers. Also having a small group of two to three help check your pride and motives would be useful in developing humility and integrity. It will help you not to esteem yourself too highly and adopt a gracious attitude to everyone about you. Of course in such a small group, a covenant of secrecy must be maintained, whereby matters shared should not be disclosed to others outside of the group. Finally, to be compassionate means to live in an authentic community of people, having caring relationships with other. It also means seeking to give of yourself to others: your time, energy and resources. It means making a contribution to your community. In this respect, to cultivate compassion then would mean that you have to seek to contribute to the community. This can be done if you deliberately set aside time, energy and resources to help in a cause, be it volunteering to help out in an old-folks home, seeking to better the quality of life in the community by taking up environmental causes or simply set out to do a random act of kindness a day.

To go beyond mere leadership then means more than just learning leadership tools and techniques, it means building of the right character. It starts from the inside out, and the time and energy spent in investing in the building of character forms the foundation of a great leader. Remember character is more important than competence. Develop your character.

~ The End ~

After note:

Two years after, as I look and reflect on the words I had written, I am still convicted that Humility, Integrity and Compassion is essential to the character of a leader. To these I would add brokenness; a person made weak or infirm or subdued completely by the Spirit of God. The ever present danger for a leader is that he or she would serve for the sake of the ego. Being broken in spirit would bind the ego and allow the Spirit of God to work mightily in the life of the leader.

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Matthew 5:3 (NIV)

Ollie

Nov 2007