By: Andy Grove

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Patrick Lencioni has written many business books in his career, but wants you to start with this one if you haven't read any of the others yet.

Why?

Because almost all of his other books focused on how to be a better leader. But he's come to the realisation that some people won't embrace his teachings because of their motivation to become a leader in the first place.

The Two Motives

At the most basic level, there are only two reasons why people become leaders.

Responsibility

The first is that they want to serve others, and do whatever is required of them to serve the people they lead well.

It's understood that sacrifice and suffering are requirements in the leadership journey, and that "service" is the only proper motivation for leadership.

It's the understanding that leading is a difficult challenge, and although it isn't without elements of personal gratification, rewards are not the point.

Lencioni says that he gets annoyed when people get praise for being a "servant leader," because he believes that there is no other valid option as a leader.

Rewards

Unfortunately, the primary driver for most young people (and far too many older ones too, he points out, lest you think he's being an agist) are the rewards that come along with being a leader.

Things like status, power, and fame.

People who are motivated by those things don't take on the true demands of leadership when they don't find a direct connection between doing their job and getting the rewards.

That means that they decide how they'll spend their time and energy based on what rewards they are going to get rather than doing their actual job - serving the people they are supposed to be leading.

Will they confront the unpleasant situations and activities that true leadership requires? Almost certainly not.

He gives the example of a father who believes that being a parent should be fun and convenient, and how they'll have a hard time embracing the idea that he should spend a lot of time with his children or attend their various activities.

The end result is that reward-centred leaders end up delegating or ignoring things that only a leader can address, which leaves a painful and destructive vacuum.

The biggest problem in this whole scenario is that most of them don't understand that their motivation is flawed. Many reward-centred leaders actually take a great deal of pride in their approach.

The struggle

No leader is going to be responsibility-centred 100% of the time. We all have moments of weakness, and struggle to rise up to the challenge of doing the right thing from time to time.

However, you'll have one motive that is your default setting, and it will make all the difference.

In fact, Lencioni thinks it's a big enough driver that responsibility-centred leaders will almost always exceed expectations, and reward-centred leaders will almost always fail to live up to them.

The Five Omissions of Reward-Centred Leaders

Lencioni gives us a list of the five omissions of reward-centred leaders. We'll go over them one by one, but for now, here they are:

• building a leadership team;
• managing subordinates;
• having difficult conversations;
• running effective meetings; and
• constantly repeating key messages to employees.

You'll note that these are not all of the things a leader needs to do to lead well. Instead, they are the responsibilities that are most often avoided by reward-centred leaders because they don't see it as their job.

Unfortunately for them, and the people they lead, these are the things that a leader must do themselves if they want to be a truly effective leader.

Omission #1: Developing the Leadership Team

Some leaders believe that developing their team can be outsourced to the head of HR.

Don't do that.

Why?

When you outsource the development of your team to somebody else, the people you lead are not going to take it seriously. The message they'll get (no matter what you tell them) is "this isn't a priority."

There are a few reasons why otherwise intelligent leaders would allow somebody else to assume the responsibility for building their team.

First, they don't believe it's central to the success of the organisation. This, of course, is a huge mistake.

Second, leaders realise that effective team building includes emotional, and many times, uncomfortable, conversations. Why go through that ordeal with you could just as easily have somebody else deal with it?

Lastly, some leaders don't even bother to delegate this task to HR - the completely ignore it.

Reflection Questions

Do you feel like developing your team is a waste of time?

Do you organise "team building" exercises that are fun but mostly ignore the difficult developmental and behavioural conversations you should be having?

If you answered yes to these questions, you might be a reward-centred leader, and should think long and hard about whether or not a leadership role is the right fit for you.

Omission #2: Managing Subordinates (and Making Them Manage Theirs)

There's a difference between managing team members as individuals and dealing with them collectively as a team.

When you deal with them collectively as a team, you ignore many of the responsibilities that you have as a leader.

As Lencioni points out, managing individuals is about helping them set the direction of the work they do, making sure it is aligned with their peers, understood by their peers, and then staying informed enough to identify obstacles and problems as early as you can.

It is also about providing the right kind of coaching that focuses on the behaviours that will make it more likely that they'll succeed.

No matter what you read in other leadership books, your job is not to simply set the vision for your team and then sit back and wait for the results to come in at the end of the quarter.

True leadership is about rolling up your sleeves, and making sure that the right work is getting done, and that you help your team course correct in real time.

This is not micromanagement - this is doing your job as a leader.

In fact, your responsibility goes one level deeper - you need to ensure that the people you lead are leading their people in the exact same way. There is no doubt that many of the people you lead have dangerous reward-centered propensities, and you need to make sure to weed them out of the system.

Only then will you have an entire organisation that is aligned, and rowing in the same direction every single day.

Reflection Questions

Do you believe that providing one-on-one guidance and coaching to your people is beneath you and not worth your time?

Do you think that you should be able to trust your team to manage themselves?

Do you justify not knowing what your direct reports are doing by claiming you don't want to micromanage them?

If you answered yes to these questions, you might be a reward-centred leader.

You should consider getting more involved in coaching your direct reports.

Or, you should resign yourself to the fact that they will fail to meet your expectations come review time, and spend an unacceptable amount of time working on things that are not aligned with the direction you set for the organisation.

Omission #3: Having Difficult and Uncomfortable Conversations

One of the biggest responsibilities a leader has is to confront the "difficult" issues quickly. And then quickly resolve them with clarity and charity.

Lencioni tells the story of Alan Mulally, who is the former CEO of both Boeing Commercial Airplanes and Ford.

He was brought in to turn around Ford, and under his leadership he was able to lead Ford as the only car company not to need a bailout from the government during the recession in the late 2000's.

He was decidedly a responsibility-centred leader, and one of his keys to success was what Lencioni calls "joyful accountability."

What does that mean?

Alan would approach people who needed correction, and cheerfully let them know that it was up to them whether they changed their behaviour. He would let them know that if they couldn't change, he would still be their friend, but that they couldn't continue to work for him.

He understood that if you are going to change the behaviours of an entire organisation (which is one of your most important leadership responsibilities), you need to first do it with the people who directly report to you.

That requires you to have difficult conversations.

Conversations, that if not handled properly, can destroy relationships and companies.

Conversations, that if handled with skill and care, can actually lead to stronger and more resilient relationships and companies.

Reflection Questions

Would you rather accept your team's damaging behaviours rather than have a potentially emotional and awkward conversation with them?

Do you complain about your team's poor behaviours with other people in your life rather than dealing with them directly?

If so, you'll need to adjust your expectations around the "comfort level" you are supposed to have in your role. Then, you'll need to dig deep and find the courage to start having those difficult conversations until they become second nature.

If that sounds too hard, prepare yourself for a life of politics, bad morale, and high turnover in your team and organisation.

Omission #4: Running Great Team Meetings

As Lencioni points out, meetings are one of the most unpopular and underestimated activities in all of business.

He asks us to think about the best place to observe whether a surgeon, teacher, or quarterback is good at their job. Of course, it's to watch them during an operation, during a live class, or in a game.

The most obvious place to observe whether or not a leader is good at their job is...you guessed it...in a meeting.

Unfortunately, we've dealt with bad meetings for so long that most people simply accept them as a cost of doing business (or keeping their job).

When leaders accept mediocre meetings, two unfortunate results occur.

First, it leads to bad decision making. If meetings are not engaging and people are not at their best, it's obvious that the decisions will not be well thought out. Every time you run a mediocre meeting, some decision got made that will generate a sub-optimal result.

Second, if you allow bad meetings to occur on your watch, your direct reports are going to do the same with theirs. How you run your meetings sets the tone for the entire organisation.

Reflection Questions

Do you complain about your own meetings, and can't wait for them to be over once they start?

Do you allow your team (and maybe yourself) to "check out" during meetings?

Do you sometimes let people skip meetings so they can attend to "more important" work?

If so, you might have a problem with your leadership motive, and you have two choices.

You can spend the time and energy required to ensure that your meetings are focused, and when required, intense.

Or, you can resign yourself to poor decisions, lower levels of creativity and problem solving, and ultimately poor performance.

Omission #5: Communicating Constantly and Repetitively to Employees

Studies have shown that employees have to hear a message seven times before they believe that executives are serious about what they are saying.

That probably says just as much about poor executive follow through as it does about employee cynicism.

Regardless, it brings home a critical point - that leaders need to communicate constantly and repetitively in order for the message to be heard.

Why do we communicate in the first place? So that every level of the organisation is aligned with the direction of the company, and have bought in to the vision.

When it's done well, it's an emotional process more than an informational one. And it requires real, and sometimes tedious, work from the leader.

It's not fun saying the same thing over and over again. Right?

Good leaders will get creative and find different ways of saying the same thing. However, they are much more concerned about employees being informed than they are about them being entertained.

Reflection Questions

Do you hate having to repeat yourself, and complain to others that your employees don't listen?

Do you continuously look for new messages and ideas to communicate because you are bored saying the same things over and over?

If so, you might be a reward-centred leader.

If you want to fix that, you'll need to change your attitude about communication and see it as one of your most critical tools for helping your team understand and internalise important ideas, rather than a vehicle for your own entertainment.

If you don't, prepare yourself for confusion and misalignment among your team. And get ready to being surprised and frustrated by their inability to understand and help you execute your plans.

The End of Servant Leadership

As a conclusion, Lencioni tells us that he fears that too many people have come to tolerate, and even expect, leaders to be self-centred.

Employees are resigned to the fact that executives only take action when it is in their best interest to do so.

And executives are resigned to working for CEOs who can't be expected to do the critical things because they find them uncomfortable or uninteresting.

If it continues this way and reward-centred leadership becomes the new normal, the next generation will grow up believing that this is what it takes to be a great leader.

This can't be allowed to happen.

It starts with you embracing responsibility-centred leadership, and modelling it for everybody in your life to see. From your direct reports to your friends and family, they all need to see strong leaders who do the difficult things with joy.

Only then, Lencioni believes, will we see companies becoming more successful, employees more engaged and fulfilled by their work, and society becoming more optimistic and hopeful.

We'll know we've arrived when people stop using the term "servant leadership," because it will be obvious that it is the only valid kind.