The Language of Leaders

How Top CEOs Communicate to Inspire, Influence and Achieve Results

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• Publisher: Kogan Page
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9780749468132
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business Communication
• Index: Business

Inspiring communication can make the difference between poor performance and exceptional results. This is why CEOs and HR professionals now believe that the ability to understand, motivate and inspire others is the characteristic that is most important when recruiting senior leaders. Many leaders wrongly perceive they have to become inspired orators if they are to inspire others. Wrong.Language is a system of communication, so the issue is: what system should leaders use to inspire brilliant results?This is the question Kevin Murray answers in The Language of Leaders. Based on original interviews with an extraordinary list of more than 70 top leaders from a wide range of business and public sector organizations, this book provides a unique insight into how these leaders have responded to the demands of a transparent world. It reports on what they have learned and creates a lexicon for successful communication. The message from these leaders is resoundingly clear - communication is now one of the most crucial skills of leadership.Filled with actionable lessons and insights from leaders of high-profile organizations, The Language of Leaders is an invaluable book for anybody in a leadership position, or who aspires to lead.

PART ONE

Why you need to be a better communicator if you want to lead

01

Napoleon’s leadership legacy

Jena is a university city in central Germany, on the river Saale. Population: 103,000. It is home to Zeiss, a manufacturer of optical systems. The world’s first modern planetarium was built in Jena in 1926 by Zeiss, whose slogan is: ‘We make it visible.’ Being able to see clearly, and far, is a speciality of the city.

Even so, the city is most famous for being the site of the Battle of Jena-Auerstedt, fought on 14 October 1806, a day when lack of visibility was the key issue. Hardly anyone knows that Jena actually has a much more important claim to fame, one that has relevance for all leaders everywhere.

When the sun rose on the fields near the city that fateful October morning in 1806, a mist rolled in to obscure the vision of the 200,000 nervous soldiers lined up to do battle. However, the thick natural mist was nothing compared with the blinding fog of gun and cannon smoke that followed. On the one side, massed on the plateau west of the river Saale, were the forces of Napoleon Bonaparte of France. On the other side was the even mightier army of Frederick William III of Prussia. A little further north, near Auerstedt, thousands more soldiers of the two leaders were also preparing to attack.

The battle of Jena-Auerstedt began tentatively that morning, with the crack of musket fire and the roar of French artillery. The day ended with two spectacular and bloody victories for Napoleon, whose forces were significantly outnumbered in both battles. The Prussians were routed. The decisive victory left King Frederick William III shattered. His kingdom was cut to half of its former size. He was subjugated to the French empire.

The shots that echo through time

You might, at this point, be wondering why I’m telling you all this. It is because the sounds of those shots at Jena still echo through time – in the form of a military command philosophy – a legacy left for all leaders by Napoleon. Lessons learned from that battle are still being used today by military leaders around the world – and an increasing number of business leaders.

In 1810, the Generals Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, who fought in the battle, and Prussian military philosopher Carl von Clausewitz sat down to examine what went wrong at Jena. The crushing defeat led them to conclude that their armies needed to be organized and commanded differently in order to cope with ‘the fog of war’. Until then, soldiers were subject to a rigid command-and-control leadership philosophy. Nothing could be done without orders from the top.

They observed that the commanders behind the battlefield were unable to see or understand what was happening at the front, in the chaos of combat. The people who really knew what was happening were the subordinate officers fighting in the middle of the gun and cannon smoke. Key opportunities were missed by the Prussian commanders. Small opportunities were exploited by Napoleon’s men, who were faster and more inventive on the battlefield. In the end, it was individual genius that had soundly beaten them. Why was that?

They concluded that the French leaders on the battlefield were reacting much faster to the situation at hand and took the initiative independently and without consulting high command. Thus they could quickly exploit any unexpected favourable situation or respond immediately to an unfavourable development.

‘Create leaders everywhere!’

The Prussians knew they had to find a new system of command – one that would enable them to deliver the same degree of flexibility. It had to be a far cry from the rigid and hierarchical command philosophy of the time. What they birthed was Auftragstaktik: tactics focused on accomplishing the mission.

This new line of thinking was based on the premise that strict rules and rigid plans had no place on the field of battle. It was blindingly stupid to have to wait for orders at times when no orders could be given. It was better that commanders in the field should be able to act independently, but within the framework of a senior commander’s intent. Auftragstaktik encouraged commanders to exhibit initiative, flexibility and improvisation, and actually enabled them to disobey orders so long as the overall intent of the commander was maintained. Competitive advantage could only be maintained if you did not have to run decisions up and down the chain of command. Once the commander’s intent was understood, decisions had to be devolved to the lowest possible level to allow front-line soldiers to exploit situations as they developed.

Auftragstaktik was not only about more effective delegation; it also required a comprehensive reorganization and retraining of the Prussian army. It meant that military leaders would have to ensure that all ranks – from top to bottom – were always completely clear about the objective of any mission. The lowest ranks would have to be trained in how to lead. Senior commanders would have to make sure they gave no more orders than were absolutely essential. To do this they had to be extremely succinct in their articulation of commands. The objective was to create capable leaders everywhere; if they could do that, victories would follow.

They succeeded. The new command philosophy was perfected by Helmuth von Moltke the Elder, a German Field Marshall who, in the 19th century, embedded auftragstaktik deeply into the organization of the German Army.

After the Second World War, American and British military analysts began to ask the question: Why were the Germans able to move with such speed and flexibility in the early stages of the war? What they discovered was that ‘initiative, flexibility and mobility’ were the essential aspects of German tactics. They studied the German leadership philosophy, and both the American and British Armies adopted the concept of mission-oriented planning, which they still practise today.

The importance of understanding the commander’s intent

In the course of my interviews for this book, I was lucky enough to be able to speak with three former British army generals. I also spoke to Tom Enders, who was, at the time, chief executive of global aircraft manufacturer Airbus, himself a major in the German army reservists.

Each of them referred to the concept of commander’s intent, and mission-oriented command, and related it to the needs of modern management. They made the point that in today’s transparent world, where the business environment is more turbulent, fast and unpredictable, and more like the conditions faced in battle, long-term strategic plans are inadequate. Success depends on how quickly leaders throughout the organization are able to deal with difficult and unforeseen circumstances. They have to be able to take the initiative, while all the time mindful of the key strategic goal of the organization.

But what makes this possible? Using commander’s intent, leaders focus on defining with crystal clarity the problem to be solved and the manner in which it needs to be solved. They then empower others to determine how. Empowering people throughout the organization to make decisions and trusting them to do the right thing require an extraordinary focus on communication.

‘Mission command’ is the name given to the leadership philosophy adopted by the army. ‘Commander’s intent’ is the articulation of the mission’s key goal. Everyone in the organization needs to understand the commander’s intent and know exactly where they are going and why. Absolute attention has to be paid to articulating and communicating the why and what, while resisting the temptation to dictate the how. Teams must determine for themselves what they need to do to help the commander achieve his goal. Trust is a key ingredient in enabling this concept to work. The entire team needs to understand how those above them, below them and alongside them are going to behave and operate. And above all, they need to have a very good view of what is happening around them. All of this requires communication, communication, communication.

Communication is the glue that binds strategy and delivery together

General Richard Dannatt, the Baron Dannatt, is a former senior British army officer and former Chief of the General Staff, the professional head of the army. He has now been appointed to the ceremonial position of Constable of the Tower of London. He says: ‘A leader doesn’t just operate in a vacuum. A leader is leading something, some project, some enterprise, some mission. So the first thing the leader has to do is think through very carefully for himself or herself what it is that they’re trying to do, what they’re trying to achieve. The next thing they have to do is communicate that to those who are going to achieve it. In the military, we talk in terms of mission command.’

‘Mission command has three elements. Thinking through what it is you need to achieve and setting out your Intent. That’s Intent with a capital I. The second is then delegating tasks to subordinates. Third, it is supervising appropriately. The most important part is the communication of the Intent. A leader must discipline himself to set down his Intent and make it as clear and unambiguous as possible. People must know how they fit in the big picture. This is why, throughout their careers, officers are given so much training in communication. It is the glue that binds strategy and delivery together.’

Then, says Lord Dannatt, it comes down to the personality of the leader, and that is all about character and integrity. ‘Success in the enterprise will be defined by the followers, the workers, the foot soldiers, who will look at the leader and decide whether this is the kind of person that they’re attracted to, whether they’re the kind of person that they want to follow. Their understanding of that person’s integrity will actually determine the degree of enthusiasm with which they follow that person. Is that person to be trusted? Is that a person who’s got their best interests at heart or is he or she only interested in short-term success or getting the right figures on the bottom line? So communication and character are both really important.’

Lord Dannatt is clear that, in addition to communication and character, courage is something a leader needs more today than ever. ‘Courage is a word that everyone understands. Physical courage is tackling the guy who’s about to score the try that’s going to win the match, or charging into a machine gun nest. But that’s physical courage. Moral courage – knowing what the right thing to do is and doing it even though it will be unpopular and lead to a great deal of criticism – is almost more important than physical courage.’

‘The great thing is that people’s stock of physical courage is a finite asset. But the more often you dig into your own reserves of moral courage, the greater the reserve in the bank is and the easier it is to do next time. Moral courage is born out of honesty and truthfulness, allied to self-belief, and means you will s...