When the going gets tough, it is time to show real leadership

Leaders. Overused, abused, misunderstood?

Possibly, although I think these words are more apt when they apply to the term leadership. Never in the field of business education has there been a more analysed and yet arguably more poorly taught discipline. Many would-be business leaders on leadership courses end up being put through all sorts of self analysis tools, pumped full of the most up to date leadership theories and encouraged to seek their examples from the sporting and military world. And yet in spite of this, leadership in the UK remains of varying quality, and most business failures tend to be the result of poor leadership.

I recently attended a Surrey Chamber of Commerce breakfast which had leadership as its theme, and featured Simon Hazeldine of Mentor Group as its main speaker. Simon’s theme was that leadership was about results and that basically without great results, you cannot have great leadership. He noted that the quality of a leader was reflected in the quality of the team that they led, and that an employee’s behaviour will often be determined by that of their leader. He saw employee engagement as the key to avoiding the not insignificant costs of poor performance, and that leaders needed to use logic and emotion to win the hearts and minds of their people. All very good stuff, and well worth the early morning trip to Epsom Downs racecourse.

As highlighted by Simon above, the best leaders invariably have the best teams, and it is often how these teams develop their own leadership qualities that will shape their success. Regardless of position, job content or (dare I say it) salary level, nearly everybody is expected to show leadership in some way, and it is organisations that recognise this, and train their people accordingly, that are more likely to be successful in the long run.

But leadership training should not just be the preserve of big corporates. Dealing with SMEs as I do, I am often struck by how the assumption that entrepreneurs are natural leaders is accepted without question. Sure, some entrepreneurs do show the right aptitude for leadership, but many begin to flounder the moment their businesses start to gain any sort of momentum, or worse, they believe that because they are the boss, and that it is their company, they will automatically have leadership status conferred upon them without the need to do anything to justify it. Such businesses invariably underachieve, which is a shame, as they often have the potential to become real contributors to the future growth of our economy.

Leadership has probably been quite easy over the past few years as it has been relatively simple to be successful. However, given that success is much harder to come by in the current climate, now more than ever good quality leadership will be the key, not only to surviving, but to being well prepared for the upturn when it arrives.