Leadership is about getting things done, and getting things done is about people. Most of the time, the more results that happen, the closer the people and the leader are.
But most leaders and the people they lead see these relationships as one-way streets. For example, charismatic leaders are often judged by how the people feel about them. But great leadership is really a two-way street, also involving sentiments going from the leader to the people.
We'll never know how good of a leader we are until we find joy in the people we lead and use that joy to help them get better results while they get better as leaders and as people.
For example, my old company commander just sent me an email asking me to come to a reunion. He put down, "I was the luckiest rifle company commander in the Marine Corps when I was surrounded by the best group of infantry officer lieutenants I had ever met. And all of them were with us!"
I hadn't talked to him in a long time, but what I remember most is what he did, not what I did. He was different from the way some officers I knew led and acted. These were officers who got the job done by mostly thinking about themselves and their careers.
My old company commander, on the other hand, got the job done not because of himself but because of the troops.
I've seen other civilian leaders enjoy and be inspired by the people they lead in the same way, and I've come to realise that this is a powerful, but rarely used, leadership tool.
To use the tool well, though, you need to keep three things in mind.
- High expectations for results must be present for delight to happen. Don't let low expectations get in the way of your happiness. My company commander was known for giving his men the hardest assignments and making them go through the hardest training. He was proud of his soldiers not only for what they wanted to do, but also for what he asked them to do. After all, being a leader isn't about getting other people to do what you want them to do. If they got what they wanted, they wouldn't need a leader like you. Leadership is about getting people to do things they may not want to do and be committed to doing them.
- Pleasure must be useful. My company commander would always talk about how happy he was with the troops and how they had taught him lessons and shown him how to do things better. His joy wasn't meant to make people feel good about themselves. Instead, it was meant to push them to do things to get better. We became closer by trying to be better and getting better as a result. We were often miserable because we had to go where we had to go and do what we had to do. But through it all, at least in the back of my mind, I felt like I couldn't let him down or let us down.
- Happiness must be real. Don't try to get people to do what you want by being happy. When the situation called for it, the leader of my company was very honest with us. If we weren't living up to his high standards, he would let us know in strong, clear ways. His honesty was a lesson in leadership: make the troops see themselves as they should be seen, not as they want to be seen. Yes, he did get us angry more than once. But because he was honest, it made the Marines better, so eventually it was accepted and even welcomed.
You might not have thought of delight as a leadership tool, but it is one of the best because it gets to the heart of getting results by making sure the right relationships are strong. Keep these three things in mind when expressing your happiness, and every day will bring you new chances to lead.
