CHAPTER 1
THE HOOD
Leadership requires individuals coming together for a common purpose. There are many groups that rely on and benefit from each other. These groups are the hoods. Hoods are informal groups and formal organisations that can have the opportunity to bring about synergy and high performances that require coordination and direction. Individuals rely on and operate in several hoods and can have differing roles. These hoods rely on great leadership to exist, thrive, and grow. Leadership has wide-ranging influence and should not be viewed or aspired to as having the opportunity to only be at the top of the chain of command. It needs to be fully realised for the opportunities to bring positive change to hoods (i.e., communities, organisations, academia, neighbourhoods, markets, industries, alliances, teams, and individuals). Regarding such a holistic view to leadership, it should never be taken lightly or for granted. The hoods can be a leader's greatest asset or test, because change is naturally resisted or questioned at the least, and it will always be filled with winners and losers.
The hood is the metaphor to have discussion based on my management and leadership experiences across all the hoods with which I have been involved. This includes both the unpleasant and pleasant aspects of leadership and the impact that comes with the role. Hopefully this starts open and candid discussions on leadership and its requirement for management in all its hoods.
I hope this book will lead to debate and critical thinking regarding the application of leadership as both a guide and stimulus to achieve envisioned outcomes and bring about the high performances that individuals and teams can achieve with direction from leadership and cross collaboration at all levels in the hoods. The leader cannot be successful without having other people to support him or her with management and leadership.
The most crucial point in discussion of the hood is that it is about people and what they can achieve together in collaboration with other hoods.
All the hoods that you are involved with will provide benefits and opportunities for greater performance and self-development. This will provide the positive impact that you can have on people's lives through great leadership, even without being their formal leader.
CHAPTER 2
LEADERSHIP
Leadership is a system of processes and human arts consisting of creativity, tactics, ideals, and strategic movements. It should not be considered as only being about the control of the hood. The leadership role is to inspire, chart, and determine what the hood needs in all its contexts to improve performance and achieve a continuous evolution towards its vision.
Leadership is having the opportunity to serve, not to be served. This is not to lose sight of the rewards from successful leadership. Leadership is highly sought after for the rewards that are often attached to the position, which can be many things. In many organisations, the leadership role is a reward for previous performances. In some instances, it is even a case of being in the right place at the right time. However, leadership should occur at many levels and in many situations. Once receiving such a role, there is the struggle of remaining the leader through the need to deliver higher performance and have the creativity to develop and provide innovative pathways from which all stakeholders can benefit. There will be suitors for the role within and outside the organisation for the leadership position, and a new leader needs to perform or excite immediately.
Discussing leadership leads discussions on management. Leadership is about the movement and the extracting of higher performances from people, and this will also require professional management practices.
In the management of people and teams for creating change and supporting new leadership, there are issues and conflicts that need to be understood for effective leadership and management. There should also be consideration for the emotional impact it can bring on the leaders and their teams. To have leadership is to bring disruption, and this requires thick skin from the leader to stay the course while initiating change processes and understanding that such disruption brings discontent and, in some cases, militant responses.
Being in charge is not necessarily being the leader. In such cases, leadership direction and actions become situational and create a frequency of review or question as to who the leader is or who is in charge. This can be driven by managers who are the best fit for a given situation to step up or where the leader is preoccupied with other issues and leaves a specific leadership vacuum. This can also be driven by an individual who has political aspirations to lead, and there may be external environmental changes to deal with separately. Often when thinking about leadership, the focus can be on the personal attributes and the characteristics of prominent leaders.
What makes successful leaders? It is more about what they want to do and then do, even though how they do it and whom they do it with is very important. Leading is a progressive action that is about forward change. The substance of strategy and the audacity of the vision of where the leader would like to take the "businesshood" are vital. This leads away from the personal character attributes and more to the aspirational and innovative thinker.
The businesshood is a term I like to use to describe how an organisation is its own neighbourhood. This includes the scope and reach of businesses existing within other hoods and communities and the role that people play to develop and prosper the leader's ideals. A business or organisation and its leader cannot thrive alone. They need to have wide-ranging internal and community support apart from needing to service and interact with other businesses. They also need to satisfy and increase customers, comply with laws and general corporate governance, show environment responsibility, deal with morale issues, and develop their teams in safe, conducive environments. Talking about leadership in the businesshood shows the scope and complexity that is involved, as well as the inherent conflicts and challenges. A greater understanding of the range and scope of leadership responsibilities will show greater appreciation for the rigour of leadership. This will also show that business specialists and executive support teams will appreciate their roles and not underestimate the support that is required and the challenges that leadership must deal with.
As in any neighbourhood, there are diverse groups with wide-ranging views on their own leadership aspirations and with different ideas as to what the vision should be. Then there are those who want the power and the trappings that may come from it, regardless of any wider ramifications. This has been likened to the survival of tribes or subcultures with their own agendas. In acknowledging the differences and the conflicts that are in hoods, we can start to accept that this conflict — or at least tension — exists within the business environments. This presents further challenges for leaders and the different operating environments that exist within organisations.
The challenge for the leader is not to obtain mere consensus but to institute excitement and commitment to executing a strategy, innovating with constant improvement from all learnings and creating an organisational attitude that contains strategies aimed at adding value. This also includes marketing excitedly to customers or constituents on behalf of stakeholders, in both the short term and long term, for sustainable and adaptable growth. I am not saying that a leader should not execute with discipline, but the leader should consider how this discipline is deployed.
There are copious amounts of material and advice on managing performance, and these teach the how-to of management, leadership, and good business practices. The thoughts in the following pages are more on the what and why, along with calling out the chaotic aspects of the leadership environment. This hopefully creates thought on and greater appreciation for what a leader's role is while not taking anything away from great managers and the need for great management. The leader needs to work on the business rather than in it. It is rare to find a leader who can do both, particularly in the long term.
These thoughts are insights, but I do not proclaim to be an expert. I have been fascinated by leaders and their decisions throughout my career, and although I have not understood them all, they have challenged my thoughts on what is good leadership and why is it necessary. I don't believe that there is a prescription for leadership, but when you come across enduring leadership, it is awesome and something to aspire to, support, demand, and seek.
The most successful leaders that I have witnessed and aspired to learn from have formed a challenging excitement with their teams and have connected with the team members at an individual level. These leaders have always been able to articulate a clear purpose and direction with challenging but manageable objectives. They have always challenged the organisation and its individuals through vision. And they have enabled me to challenge and morph into a leader (to my own surprise) and accept the responsibility, excitement, and honour of developing new leaders.
Development is a keyword throughout the discussion because it is personal development, mentoring, growing, and improving people and teams. This is a wonderful opportunity for the leader to provide further opportunities throughout the hood. Leadership is a movement because there can be no leading without substantial movement from the status quo. I have often been asked, "What is a leader, and how are leaders different from managers?" Through whatever means, leaders provide movement from the status quo, whether they are bringing changes to individuals or developing teams, creating growth, or making major organisational change. In simple terms, they set a course and navigate to the destination with the required resources to reach the objective with new horizons in place before achieving their first objective. They do this with vision and through inspiring and supporting people, often at an individual level.
The hood analogy is meant to create a view on the wide range of influences and executions that impact organisations in today's world. I also like to use the hood apart from its association with a neighbourhood or community to draw on the gang or tribal conflict that exists in the hoods. One must appreciate that leadership and management is not always as pleasant as the textbooks would have one believe. We will look at a fictional business hood shortly, and I hope the analogy gives clarity and provides approaches to your own leadership aspirations with a cool and inspired head.
Leadership is a skilful art requiring the necessary situational skills to guide people to new objectives. Although many would-be leaders have all the certification that enables great managers, they often fall short of leadership aspirations. Leaders need to be savvy and understand that being a leader is not an individual performance role. Leadership encompasses the successful movement of people and their teams, as well as the support and awareness of all internal and external stakeholders. Leadership discussion often centres on the skills that are required rather than the social and emotional skills that I liken to the art of leadership, and it is this talent of having a mix of knowledge and the understanding of people and time that leaders require. Time is a definite factor because leaders and their organisation don't have a lot of it; the leadership tenure is often limited. In moving towards the future vision, which has no defined point as it evolves, so too must the leader and the needs of the organisation evolve. There are leaders who seize this as an opportunity for a revolution, razing the culture, throwing out the old, and even nuking it. However, the savvy leader will inspire and coerce the organisation to evolve, but with their influence and at their speed. Evolution at warp speed requires keeping the foot on the pedal and not losing sight of the need to learn, develop, and obtain timely and latent resources to provide the support and achieve their great vision.
CHAPTER 3
THE BUSINESSHOODS
Everything appeared to be normal in the businesshood. The corridors were crowded with the senior managers in deep discussions, trying to stamp their positions in the pecking order of who's who in the hood and lobbying for resources while trying to promote their profile through their very presence. It was just another day typically dominated by managers coping with the ad hoc challenges and reviewing the detailed measurements of the so-called well-managed organisational success. Individual managers are busy staking claims to their own or others' performances regardless of their role and objectives, debating the hood's plans and critiquing their peers; all of this is hopefully for their own benefit. The glitz and show from the spoils of past successes are clear and are the envy of competitor gangs (organisations). The past and current success seems to give credibility and permission for managers to push their own personal agendas and take time away from the vision to consolidate their own position and aspirations. This charade is for personal gain and their own self-interest to remain in power (or to seek more of it). Along with the personal trappings that are on offer, this seems to be seductive, but it's a weakness, threatening the stability and hence the very structural existence of the hood, or at least its continued success. It is breaking down into defensive tactics because it serves its own agendas of being better or the same rather than being great. From what perspective or context is success to be judged, and who is judging it? The current back slapping and patronising views can border on happy talk for what performance is. This type of group self-assessment can be further manifested by group think and self-interest. There is no leadership because the leader is beholden to so many managers with differing demands, misleading the leader (whether purposely or not) and causing everyone to lose sight of the vision. The leader's behaviour is modified by the groupthink reinforcements and is lost in the bureaucratic requirements and demands for the daily operational, compliance demands, internal and external stakeholders, and competitive forces influencing its execution of strategy and subsequent performance. This is more in line with developing or managing propaganda programs than real strategic, vision-led management, but this activity has everyone feeling comfortable and engaged.
Without inspired leadership, there is only management. The leader is merely managing court each day, surveying the vista of smiling, chatting individuals who are the representatives of their teams and charged with the responsibility of delivering the programs and results, as well as managing their continued existence. They are almost crying out for defined leadership. The teams of people have formed their own tribes with their symbols, micro strategies, and their own propaganda, jargon, and symbols that are a code to those in the know of which sub tribal gang they belong, aspire to, or are beholden to. Posters start to go up on walls, new key performance targets emerge (and there are heaps of them), and discussions in hallways are typical of a political process for the further breakdown of leadership and performance. All this activity is to further reinforce their propaganda for self-benefit in pushing their own positions or to undermine peers or their leader while appearing to be very busy.
It's obvious that there is something untoward happening akin to political disorganisation and with reactive alliances forming based on the situation at hand. These alliances are based on self-promotion and personal gain, or fear of being alone and being outside the sphere of power and security. The leader is inept or certainly out of his depth in allowing the disparate behaviours to continue, although they are disguised by the over- the-top supportive commentary to the leader. This leads to the question of whether there can be successful strategy or performance without great leadership. This is where a plan and strategy separate in definition.
Where are the management teams, the group values, and the subsequent behaviours that are meant to be the very substance for the organisation's performance and integrity? The very structure of the hood is marching to an informal beat that is unpredictable and extremely chaotic in situational responses and sudden changes, rather than being directed by an overarching, strategic vision. The rush of sudden tactical changes, often driven by the so-called need for stabilising the organisation, manifests with its unpredictable behaviour into almost a metaphor for its being in control. Examples of this in the hood are obvious character assassinations, backstabbing, liars, sabotage, overlooking of talent, political advantage, petty theft of time, lack of transparency, short-term reporting of goals, preventable accidents, meetings for the sake of meetings, almost daily changes in direction, and capitulation to the market by reacting only to the competition. But most of all, there is a lack of innovation and discipline.
