Simple Truths of Leadership

52 Ways to Be a Servant Leader and Build Trust

Ken Blanchard, Randy Conley

• Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers
• Year: 2023
• Print ISBN: 9781523000623
• eBook ISBN: 9781523000647
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Leadership
• Index: Business

Fifty-two essential principles that are easy to implement and practice: "The ultimate guide to servant leadership." —Marshall Goldsmith,  New York Times–bestselling author of  Mojo
 
Effective leadership is an influence process in which leaders implement everyday common-sense approaches that help people and organizations thrive. Yet somehow, many of these fundamental principles are still missing from most workplaces. 
 
In this book, legendary servant leadership expert and #1  New York Times–bestselling author Ken Blanchard and his colleague Randy Conley, a thought leader known for his expertise in the field of trust, share fifty-two Simple Truths that will help leaders everywhere make common-sense leadership common practice. Discover profound, memorable—and in some cases counterintuitive—wisdom such as:
 
• Who should make the first move to extend trust
• What role a successful apology plays in building trust
• When to use different strokes (leadership styles) for different folks—and for the same folks
• Where the most important part of leadership happens
• How to create autonomy through boundaries
• Why the key to developing people is catching them doing something right
 
A fun, easy read that will make a positive difference in leadership and organizational success,  Simple Truths of Leadershipshows how to incorporate simple but essential practices into your leadership style, build trust through servant leadership, and enhance your own life and the lives of everyone around you.

PART ONE

SERVANT LEADERSHIP

In this part, Ken Blanchard takes the lead with a focus on his lifelong passion of servant leadership as an influence process in which leaders help their people accomplish goals.

Much of my work in the past was focused on leadership behavior and how to improve leadership style and methods. My colleagues and I attempted to change leaders from the outside. But in recent years, we have found that effective leadership is an inside job. It is a question of the heart. It’s all about a leader’s character and intention.

Why are you leading? Is it to serve or to be served? Answering this question truthfully is so important that I co-edited a book with Renee Broadwell entitled Servant Leadership in Action: How You Can Achieve Great Relationships and Results. In it, forty-five key leaders in our field, including Simon Sinek, Brené Brown, and Marshall Goldsmith, share their points of view about servant leadership. The essence of that book is you can’t fake being a servant leader.

The most persistent barrier to being a servant leader is a heart motivated by self-interest that looks at the world as a “give a little, take a lot” proposition. Self-serving leaders put their own agenda, safety, status, and gratification ahead of others who are impacted by the leaders’ thoughts and actions.

The shift from self-serving leadership to leadership that serves others is motivated by a change of heart. If leaders don’t get their heart right, they will never become servant leaders. A misguided heart will color their thinking, impact their behavior, and cause them to begin every day by asking “What’s in it for me today?” That’s certainly not servant leadership.

In this part, you will learn more about servant leadership and the power it has to make the world a better place by focusing on the greater good.

—Ken

The Essence of Servant Leadership

SIMPLE TRUTH #1

Servant leadership is the best way to achieve both great results and great relationships.

Organizational leaders often have an either/or attitude toward results and people. For example, leaders who focus only on results may have trouble creating great relationships with their people and leaders who focus mainly on relationships may have trouble getting desired results.

Yet you can get both great results and great relationships if you understand the two parts of servant leadership:

• The leadership aspect focuses on vision, direction, and results—where you as a leader hope to take your people. Leaders should involve others in setting direction and determining desired results, but if people don’t know where they’re headed or what they’re meant to accomplish, the fault lies with the leader.

• The servant aspect focuses on working side by side in relationship with your people. Once the vision and direction are clear, the leader’s role shifts to service—helping people accomplish the agreed-upon goals.

MAKING COMMON SENSE COMMON PRACTICE

This one-two punch of the aspects of servant leadership enables you to create both great results and great relationships:

1. Let your people know what they’re being asked to do by setting the vision and direction with their help. In other words, vision and direction, while the responsibility of the leader, is not a top-down process.

2. During implementation, assure your people you are there to serve, not to be served. Your responsibility is to help them accomplish their goals through training, feedback, listening, and communication.

It’s important for servant leaders to establish this both/and mindset toward results and relationships.

SIMPLE TRUTH #2

Every great organization has a compelling vision.

When I explain what a compelling vision is to some leaders in organizations, they either give me a blank look or say something like “I’m sure we have one on the wall somewhere.” So what is a compelling vision?

According to my book with Jesse Stoner, Full Steam Ahead! Unleash the Power of Vision in Your Work and Your Life, a compelling vision includes three elements: your purpose (what business you are in), your picture of the future (where you are going) and your values (what will guide your journey).

A compelling vision is alive and well in companies that are leaders in their field, such as Disney, Southwest Airlines, Nordstrom, Wegmans, and Starbucks.

MAKING COMMON SENSE COMMON PRACTICE

Here’s how you can incorporate the three elements of a compelling vision in your organization:

• Make sure the people in your organization know what business they are in. For example, when Walt Disney started his theme parks, he said, “We are in the happiness business.”

• Confirm that your people know where they are going—what good results would look like. At Disney, the picture of the future is that all guests of the parks would have the same smile on their faces when leaving as when they entered.

• Find out if the people in your organization are clear on what values will guide their journey. Disney’s first value is safety. Its next values are courtesy and “the show,” which is about everyone playing their parts perfectly, whether they are a ticket taker or Mickey Mouse. Disney’s final value is efficiency—having a well-run, profitable organization.

If you can share your compelling vision as clearly as Disney does, congratulations! You have just made common sense common practice.

SIMPLE TRUTH #3

Servant leaders turn the traditional pyramid upside down.

Most organizations and leaders get into trouble during the implementation phase of servant leadership if the traditional hierarchical pyramid is used. When that happens, whom do people think they work for? The people above them. The minute you think you work for the person above you, you assume that person—your boss—is responsible and your job is to be responsive to your boss’s whims or wishes. “Boss watching” can become a popular sport where people get promoted based on their upward-influencing skills. As a result, all the energy of the organization moves up the hierarchy, away from customers and the frontline folks who are closest to the action.

Servant leaders know how to correct this situation by philosophically turning the pyramid upside down when it comes to implementation. Now the customer contact people and the customers are at the top of the organization, and everyone in the leadership hierarchy works for them. This one change makes a major difference in who is responsible and who is responsive.

MAKING COMMON SENSE COMMON PRACTICE

To make servant leadership come alive, implementation is key:

• Communicate to your people that you work for them, not the other way around. Your job is to serve, not to evaluate.

• Empower your people by letting them bring their brains to work. In this way, they become responsible—able to respond—to their internal and external customers. Your job is to be responsive to them, helping them accomplish their goals.

This creates a very different environment for implementation and makes it clear to everyone who is responsible and to whom.

Secrets of the One Minute Manager

SIMPLE TRUTH #4

All good performance starts with clear goals.

Leadership is about going somewhere. If you and your people don’t know where you’re going, your leadership doesn’t matter. Although most managers agree with the importance of setting goals, many do not take the time to clearly develop goals with their team members and write them down. As a result, people tend to get caught in an activity trap where they are busy doing tasks—but not necessarily the right tasks.

To manage your team’s performance, have one-on-one meetings with your people to establish observable and measurable goals around their key areas of responsibility. Then you and they will have clear performance indicators to help determine whether they are making progress or need coaching to improve.

MAKING COMMON SENSE COMMON PRACTICE

To focus on what is important, set SMART goals with your people. “SMART” is a tried-and-true acronym for the most important factors in setting quality goals:

• Specific—A goal should be clear about what needs improvement and what good performance looks like.

• Motivating—People want to know that what they do makes a difference.

• Attainable—People like challenging goals that stretch them but are not impossible.

• Relevant—A goal should make a difference in overall performance.

• Trackable—A record-keeping system is necessary to regularly measure performance.

Effective performance management always begins with clear, observable, measurable goals.

SIMPLE TRUTH #5

The key to developing people is to catch them doing something right.

When I ask people in organizations around the world how they know whether they are doing a good job, the number one response is “Nobody has yelled at me lately. No ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Introduction: Simple Truths
• Part One: Servant Leadership
• Part Two: Building Trust
• Making Common Sense Common Practice in Your Leadership and Life
• Simple Truths of Leadership Discussion Guide
• Works Cited
• Acknowledgments
• Index
• Services Available
• Join Us Online
• About the Authors