1: “A lot of leaders are rowing a boat. They’re bringing everyone along with them, and saying, ‘Come follow me,'” Fred Kofman writes in The Meaning Revolution.
“But the way I’ve seen Jeff Weiner (Executive Chairman of LinkedIn) and other great leaders do it, they’ll go and get on a surfboard. They don’t say, ‘Follow me.’ They say, ‘Come join us on this huge wave.'”
What’s the difference between the boat and the surfboard?
“In the former vision, everyone’s literally in the same boat, doing only what their leader allows them to do,” Fred explains. “In the latter, everyone’s on the same wave and moving in the same direction, but they have much more freedom to improvise, to act boldly and creatively and set their own course of action.”
2: Micromanagement is not a mechanism for rapid growth. To grow an organization quickly, the leader must give people “the freedom to execute with speed, creativity, and risk,” Fred notes.
How do we achieve this end without creating chaos and disorganization?
The best leaders build a foundation of trust and integrity while creating a sense of meaning, calling others to pursue a larger, nobler purpose.
Fred left the consulting company he founded in 2013 to join LinkedIn as vice president of executive development and leadership philosopher.
His job at LinkedIn was to help the organization achieve its mission of “connecting the world’s professionals to make them more productive and successful.”
He set out to help leaders at all levels within the organization develop into “transcendent” leaders—ethical leaders driven by their own sense of meaning and purpose.
3: In Fred’s view, “leadership is not a position; it is a process,” he writes. “Anyone who manages people, from a first-line supervisor to the CEO, and even anyone who coordinates people informally, needs to lead to be effective.”
How does a leader inspire team members to accomplish a mission in alignment with the group’s values?
“Unfortunately, typical management techniques fail to address this question effectively,” Fred notes, “even in the hands of the best leaders.”
The very best leaders take a different path. They “move past our own deepest fears and anxieties to live a truly heroic life,” Fred writes.
“Well-harnessed inspiration, born of deep understanding and compassion for our human nature,” he notes, “is not just a fairy dust to sprinkle to make people feel good; it’s the solution to the hardest problems in business and in society today.”
Calling forth purpose and meaning answers the toughest questions leaders must answer:
o “How do I get people who are fundamentally interested in their own agendas (my issues, my to-do list, my agenda, my KPIs, my compensation) to cooperate with one another in pursuit of a shared purpose (our children, our customers, our collective future)?”
o “How do I get them to do their best to accomplish their individual missions, but also to subordinate their missions to the larger mission of the organization, so that the whole team wins?”
o “How do I incentivize them in a way that will make them more engaged?”
o “What can I, or the organization, offer them that will satisfy their deeper emotional needs, and give them a broader sense of commitment and purpose?”
As “transcendent” leaders, we are able to “resolve the conflicting agendas of self-interest and organizational mission into something much richer, more satisfying, and enduring,” Fred writes.
We can “mobilize an organization into becoming a source of lasting goodness in the world, creating an enormous sense of accomplishment, service, and joy in all those associated with it.”
More tomorrow!
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Reflection: What do I make of Fred’s insights on transcendent leadership? Am I leading as a transcendent leader? Do I want to?
Action: Discuss with a colleague, peer, or family member.
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