Simple Truths of Leadership summary

Do you have a vision for your company’s future? To be a great servant leader, you’ll need to create one – and share it with your staff to inspire and motivate them toward a common goal. Creating a vision isn’t complicated. But it does involve answering three big questions. 

The first question is, What’s the overall purpose of your company? In other words, what kind of business are you actually in? To find your answer, try to go as deep as possible. Take, for example, Disney. Disney’s vision isn’t to be an entertainment company; instead they describe themselves as being in the “business of happiness.”

Who’s at the top of the food chain in your business? For most companies, it’s the leader. And the job of everyone below the leader is to be responsive to their wants and needs. 

But this kind of setup is a mistake. Why? Because leaders shouldn’t be at the top of the pyramid. The top spot belongs to someone else: your customer. 

Bad leaders are a lot like seagulls – when their colleagues aren’t making enough progress toward their goals, they swoop in, make noise, dump on their team, and then make a quick exit. 

Luckily, making the transition from seagull to great leader is easier than you might think. It all comes down to a secret weapon: praise. 

As you’re probably aware, humans make mistakes. And your staff are no exception! As a leader, it's your duty to pay attention when mistakes are made – and to make sure the same mistakes don’t happen again. 

How you react when an employee makes a mistake should depend on how experienced they are. If someone’s underperforming but has the skills to do better, then a short reprimand is in order. When you reprimand the person, make sure you criticize their behavior rather than them as a person. 

Once a leader has developed their own style of leadership, they usually stick to it. In fact, half of all leaders never vary their leadership style at all. But the best leaders know that flexibility is important; to get optimal results, they lead different team members in different ways. 

Instead of having a one-size-fits-all approach, look at the profile of each of your subordinates before deciding how to lead them. Specifically, ask yourself how competent the person is – and how committed they are to their job. Then lead accordingly. 

Most leaders understand that their company’s customers should be their top priority. But great leaders know that the most important customers sit inside – not outside – their organization. That’s because they consider every single person who works for them to be a customer, too. 

This might sound bizarre, but when you think about it, it makes perfect sense. After all, customers are so precious because they create profits for your business. But isn’t that exactly what your staff members do, too? It's only thanks to their capabilities in areas like sales, marketing, product development, and customer care that you even have external customers. Therefore, your staff are actually your most important customers; their hard work drives your bottom line. 

Some leaders think that empowering their people means giving them the freedom to do whatever they want. But great leaders know that the best way to make their people autonomous . . . is to give them boundaries. 

Not convinced?

Trust is an essential part of leadership. When your people trust you, they’ll be more creative, work more efficiently, and enjoy better levels of morale. On the other hand, if you're viewed as untrustworthy, then your team will meet you with resistance, lower productivity, and disengagement. 

But what qualities does a trusted leader embody? First off, they’re competent. Everyone in the team believes that the leader knows how to do their job. Second, they have integrity. When they say they’re going to do something, their people know that they’re actually going to do it. Last but not least, they’re warm. These leaders can be trusted to make their employees feel safe. Not only are they friendly, they also demonstrate real care and concern for their people’s well-being. 

Some leaders treat fear as a leadership technique; they believe that people work harder for leaders they’re a little afraid of. These are the leaders who shout at people, criticize them, and highlight every little mistake they make. But great leaders know that instilling fear doesn’t get good results. In fact, it's the opposite. When people are afraid of their leader, they don’t perform better. Instead, they simply work harder to hide their mistakes. They also avoid taking on big, challenging goals because they know that failure will not be tolerated. 

On the other hand, great leaders work hard to minimize or eliminate any fear their employees might feel toward them. But how? 

Great leaders all have one quality in common: integrity. The word integrity originates from Latin and, roughly translated, means whole or not fragmented. When you have integrity, your whole self is aligned, and your words match your actions. When you act without integrity – when you talk the talk but don’t walk the walk – the trust crumbles between you and your employees. Why? Because they can no longer trust a word you say. 

You can act with greater integrity by staying true to the Five P’s of Ethical Leadership. The first P stands for purpose; leaders with integrity use their overall purpose to drive their daily behavior. The second P stands for pride; rather than being egotistical, good leaders have a healthy sense of pride that’s based in self-confidence. This self-confidence comes from knowing that they’re competent. The third P stands for patience; leaders with integrity believe that, as long as they stick to their guiding values, things will eventually work out. The fourth P stands for persistence; every good leader has the grit to stay the course when things get tough, and they stay loyal to their principles. The last P stands for perspective; leaders with integrity not only keep their whole self in alignment – they keep their actions aligned with their company’s bigger picture, too. 

It’s sad but true: at one point or another, we all break someone’s trust. Although this break can feel irreversible, there’s actually a simple thing you can do to get a relationship back on track. You can apologize. That being said, there’s an art to making an effective apology; if you want to restore the relationship, you have to say sorry in the right way. 

When making an apology, start by taking responsibility for what you’ve done. Don’t try to excuse it or use conditional words like “if” and “but.” These words imply that you’re shifting the blame. Second, make it clear to the person that you understand the pain you’ve caused them; don’t try to minimize this pain to make yourself feel better. Give the person space to tell you about this pain, too. Listen to the impact that your actions have had on them. Finally, be sure to end your apology by committing to not repeating whatever you’ve done. Remember, your apology is only worth something if you don’t duplicate the trust-shattering behavior.