Setting a unit path through leadership, proud vision

TYNDALL AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. -- How do leaders do the path finding that leads to vision, value, and stability?
The answer is relatively simple: By finding a way to give the organization a sense of pride. 

Path finding starts with leadership, but it is not just the job of a small group at the top. Habits are comfortable, and so is, probably, your office. It's cozy there, behind your desk, in your niche on the organizational ladder, in meetings with a group of likeminded, congenial colleagues. It's a support base, and we all need that, not only to get things done but in some larger sense to keep us all sane. 

Now, let's add to that the comfort of your internal duties. There are those people reporting to you; they need a piece of your time. The boss (you hope) needs a piece of your time. Then there are papers to process, email to read, meetings to attend and so on. 

Without ever intending it, your preoccupation with internal affairs, regardless of your position, can take up your whole work day and still leave you feeling that the day's work is never done. 

Result? Office isolation. You become an island amongst your co-workers. The best way to avoid that loss of touch with reality is to ensure the habitat of the leader's office is infused with the real world. 

Because of de-layering, reductions in the number employees on staff and radical decentralization, people at almost every level are finding they have more freedom and more flexibility. But with freedom comes the responsibility for choice. Like it or not, leaders at all levels are becoming the renewers, the planners and the strategists. What they do collectively will affect the destiny of an organization almost as much as the decisions made by top leadership. 

If you stop to think about it, how many books, seminars, courses and successful people have for years talked about things people can do to make themselves successful leaders? Never mind your own beliefs. If you do certain things, you are going to be a successful leader. Leadership has to come from the top, but it's a kind of leadership that creates the environment. 

It's the kind of leadership that nurtures, nudges, supports and inspires people everywhere in the organization. At some very important level, it is counting on the totality of individual initiative. Good leaders never pretend to know all the answers; they rely on others to share their expertise. So stop worrying about looking dumb, out of control, and "not really in charge" to those who report to you. 

First of all, you probably already look that way. Second, your role as a good leader is a galvanizer and a catalyst, not a roadblock. Micromanagers strangle initiative. By managing boundaries, you maintain control over what matters most - outcome. 

Start with the attitudes of the people who report to you. Do they feel as if they're part of a winning team? If not, figure out why. They may feel insecure about their ability and what is expected of them, or the team may have an embarrassing track record looming in the not so distant past. Their shaky self-concepts may mirror the way you have been treating them. 

Counteract uncertainty. Hang your aspirations on the wall. Create high standards for achievement, and let people know you believe they can live up to them. Give your people a little courage to test their limits. Think Pygmalion. People succeed if someone they respect thinks they can. Expect people to be trustworthy and competent, and they will be. 

Consider this: failure is not an absolute; it's a mind-set. Your program for making a top priority happen ought to include ways you can show that it is your priority. One of the best approaches is to spend a lot of your time on it. Everybody knows your time is scarce resource. If they see you investing time in a priority, they will too. A successful leader can use causes and commitments to forge a common bond among the diverse people who work for them. 

Continually examine the causes and commitments that engage you,and the ones you ask of your employees, to ensure their basic worth, humanity and integrity.