Smart Leadership summary

“The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality.” So said Max Dupree, the former CEO of the furniture company Herman Miller. Although this may seem obvious, many leaders have difficulty confronting their reality. Why is this? Well, there are several reasons including a fear of failure, living in denial, arrogance, short-term thinking, and even being just too busy.

The thing is that if you want to stay grounded in truth and lead from strength, you must confront reality. The first step in doing that is to define your universe.

In 1913, Henry Ford introduced the assembly line. This brought production time for the Model T down from twelve hours to a mere one hour and 33 minutes. This increased capacity heralded a new era of mobility for people and products.

In our modern world, computers have increased capacity to even higher levels and have allowed amazing feats such as the sequencing of the human genome to be completed with ease. At the time Smart Leadership was written, the fastest computer was in Japan and had 7.3 million cores and a speed of 415.5 petaflops. Baffled? Don’t worry, Miller is and so are we, but one thing we can be sure of is that with the capacity that creates, it’s sure to change the world.

Back in 2003, Miller met the CEO of grocery chain Superquinn in Ireland. At that time, Fergal Quinn had around 30 stores. Quinn talked to his customers – almost to the point of obsession. Indeed, you could argue that he was undertaking a weekly customer focus group. He had an insatiable curiosity and love for his customers.

Think for a moment about the last time you spoke to your customers or better, listened to them. If you want to be a leader who can achieve maximum impact, you need to learn to flex your curiosity muscles. Rather than suppress the curiosity beast inside you, fuel it.

Management consultant and author Peter Drucker said that “The best way to predict the future is to invent it.” And that neatly brings us to the fourth and final Smart Choice: create change for a better tomorrow. Ultimately, that is the role of a leader: to help move people and organizations toward a preferred future.

Like the fictional Luke Skywalker of Star Wars fame, you must learn to “use the Force” within you – your strength, insight, and abilities. Channel those and use them as a force for good in the world. In the end, it will be your thoughts that affect your actions and your actions that shape the outcome.