Leadership is something I have written about here several times, thanks to the great work by Robert Pater, who is a regular contributor to Professional Safety magazine on the topics of safety leadership and safety culture.

Leadership can be a natural characteristic fo some people, but it also can be something that is learned and taught and brought out of people who possess the right qualities that make a good leader.

Image of ancient Martial Arts costume. Image courtesy of Flickr user Michael Coghlan via a Creative Commons license

Ambition, patience, perseverance, honesty, humility – all of these characteristics make for a good leader, whether that person is in a leadership role or not. Titles are irrelevant when it comes to good leadership. We all know that.

Leadership Takes Principle

To be an effective leader in your company, you are not to be someone who goes by trends or the direction the wind is blowing that month or that quarter. Leadership, good and effective leadership, takes a concrete belief system that is in the person’s heart and soul, and it takes the discipline to live each day by those principles. Consistency in principle, even if it’s not popular, is the key to being an effective leader and gaining the respect of everyone in the company.

Leadership is not about being liked by everyone, or being agreeable with everyone. Leadership is about standing firm even in the face of disagreement, as long as you have a certain principle you live on and you are not being contrary just out of the stubborn concept of contrariness. Being contrary for the sake of being contrary will end up making you look like a hypocrite, which is not leadership-y.

Effectiveness Principles

Pater was writing a series of articles in Professional Safety magazine in recent months where he adapted nine effectiveness principles in martial arts and applied them to leadership and culture change in the workplace. I have linked to a blog post about some of those principles earlier, and here I want to recap the latest Pater article in this series, which covered three more important principles to being an effective leader:

  • Perceive the unseen. The ability to see the undercurrent of your company before change occurs is a vital component to good leadership. Whether that undercurrent is destructive or productive, having the sense to understand what is really happening under what you see and being proactive in response can keep your company on the forefront of a positive culture. Some of the things you should be observing include:
    • Atmosphere (mood or morale of the workers)
    • Any hidden agendas (are there tasks or responsibilities that seem to be recurring when they should not be?)
    • Conflict
    • Intent
    • Change resistance
    • Unfinished work
    • Promotions – who got them, who did not and why?
    • The competition
    • Feedback from stakeholders
    • Factors like temperature, light and noise levels that affect productivity or morale
    • How close are the offices and workstations?
    • Company’s reputation in the community
  • Note the small things. This sounds like “sweat the small stuff.” Instead, we are talking about observing and making the little adjustments that can make the difference between maximum efficiency and company failure. Yes, small things can accumulate and make a large impact.
  • Useful, not useless. Occupy your time wtih activities that will get work done. Don’t busy yourself with meetings or phone calls or e-mails. Efficiency in your work helps you stay focused and manage your time better and be more productive with the work hours you have. Efficiency means power.

You can check out Pater’s entire series of “Mastering the Martial Art of Leadership” on the PS Extra webpage, connected to www.asse.org.