The Intelligent Leader

Unlocking the 7 Secrets to Leading Others and Leaving Your Legacy

John Mattone

• Verlag: Wiley
• Jahr: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781119566335
• Auflage: 1
• Thema: Commerce
• Thema: Leadership

Grow Your Leadership. Enrich Your Life. Leave a Lasting Legacy.

What is great leadership? What separates the merely competent leaders from those rare individuals who leave a lasting impression on everyone around them?

As one of the world's most in-demand CEO coaches and top leadership gurus, John Mattone has worked with some of our brightest business minds—Apple's Steve Jobs, Pepsi's Roger Enrico, and Nielsen's Armando Uriegas—and he's identified the key qualities that, together, make up the mindset of great leadership.

In The Intelligent Leader, Mattone lays out an accessible, practical, and compelling path that anyone can take to become the kind of leader that brings enrichment to the lives of others, enjoys a more fulfilling life, and leaves a lasting legacy. Each chapter uses a variety of real-world examples, tools, and assessments to explore one of Mattone's 7 dimensions of Intelligent Leadership, including: • Thinking differently, thinking big
•Having a mindset of duty vs. a mindset of entitlement
•Leveraging your gifts and addressing your gaps
•Having the courage to execute with pride, passion, and precision

Readers will have complimentary online access to the Mattone Leadership Enneagram Inventory ($110 value), which offers a personalized assessment of your leadership style and maturity.

CHAPTER 1
Getting to Know Thyself

If you’ve ever taken an introductory philosophy class or spent any time reading the wide variety of personal development books available today, you’ve probably run across the phrase “Know thyself.” This ancient Greek aphorism was popularized by Socrates, who, according to his pupil Plato, expanded upon it to make the famous claim “An unexamined life is not worth living.”

I bring this up not to bore you with a review of the history of Western philosophy, but to orient you to the kind of inquiry that lies at the heart of Intelligent Leadership. If you want to develop as a leader, which means developing as a human being, it’s crucial that you examine yourself as deeply as you can. You need to understand what drives you, what tends to get in the way of your success, and what latent gifts you might possess.

As we discussed in the introduction, the key to making sure your self-inquiry leads to real, lasting results is knowing what you’re examining. Are you looking primarily at accomplishments, skills, and behaviors (the part of the iceberg that’s above the surface—the outer core)? Or are you examining the deeper structures of your inner core, which comprises character, values, thinking patterns, and beliefs? The Intelligent Leadership model is focused on developing your knowledge of all these dimensions of yourself. More specifically, the IL helps you to understand the relationship between your inner and outer core.

I love models. They help us to visualize the invisible structures that make up the subjective dimensions of who we are. Figure 1.1 is the model that I’ve developed to illustrate the relationship between our inner and outer core that is at the heart of transforming our mindset. The model represents the sum total of who we are and, like an onion, has layers. The deepest layer is our “inner core”—our character and values, our thinking patterns and beliefs. The inner core has its own layers, which we’ll explore further below. The surface layer of the model is what the world sees in us: our personality, behavior, skills, and capabilities.

Figure 1.1 The relationship between the inner and outer core.

Now let’s explore the model in more detail, starting with the inner core.

Getting to the Why of Things

So what exactly is the inner core? This is a very good question, and a very difficult one to answer. The inner core is fundamental to who we are, and yet it is completely invisible to us most of the time. I like to think of it as the “why” of everything we do. It’s a kind of blueprint, constructed by our upbringing, life choices, and experience, that shapes our lives and determines the kind of person we are.

While the inner core is, in its essence, very difficult to define, I’ve dedicated much of my career to understanding and measuring its influence in leaders all over the world. And I’ve broken it down into four primary components: your character, your values, your self-concept, and your beliefs.

Let’s start with character. The word “character” is usually used to describe the moral qualities of an individual. Someone with character possesses a kind of integrity or inner strength that reverberates through every aspect of who they are. One of the best definitions of character I’ve ever encountered came from an unlikely place: an eighth grader I met while giving a talk at a middle school in Orlando, where I live.

A close friend, Judy, is the principal of the school and had asked me to address their 500 graduating eighth graders along with their parents, grandparents, and friends—about 2,000 people in all. Judy wanted me to speak to the young graduates primarily about the importance of character for leadership and success. Following a wonderful introduction by Judy, I stood before the 500 graduates and posed the question, “Does anyone want to propose a great definition of character?”

After three or four seconds, a young man put his hand up. I called on him and he softly muttered some powerful words that only a few of his classmates and I could hear. His words so impressed me that I asked him his name and he said, “Amant.” I then asked him if he would share his definition with everyone (this time using the microphone). “Yes,” he replied.

“Parents, grandparents, friends, everyone,” I announced, “Amant would like to share his definition of character.” With that, I turned the microphone over to him. Amant stood up and with pride and eloquence, stated, “Character is what you do when no one else is watching.” The crowd erupted in applause. I was awestruck, not because I had never heard this definition, but rather because of Amant’s clarity and conviction in sharing this powerful definition. It moved me and the thousands of people in attendance. Clearly, this young man recognized the value of possessing a working definition of character as a guide to his everyday decision making.

How Strong Is Your Character?

In the spirit of Amant, I’d like you to take a moment and consider who you are when no one else is watching. In what ways do you exhibit strong character? Are there ways in which you are lacking character? Again, this may feel like an unfamiliar exercise for you, but it’s the key to unlocking your leadership potential.

To help you with your inquiry, I’ll provide you with some criteria for assessing your character. I define character as having six elements, which I’ve outlined below. They are quite literally the map of your character, which is an essential component of your inner core. As you read through them, consider how strongly you exhibit each element and where you might have room to grow. See if you can see any patterns emerging.

Courage

When you think of courage, it’s easy to imagine some kind of mythical hero slaying a dragon or rescuing someone from danger. And while this grandiose version of courage may be inspired by the essence of the word, the true definition of courage is usually much more subtle than that. Courage, as a defining trait of character, is simply the willingness to sacrifice oneself for a greater purpose—whether that be speaking truth to power, risking your reputation by making a controversial decision, or doing the “right” thing when there’s a tremendous amount of pressure to do otherwise. Courage doesn’t mean feeling fearless, but being willing to act out of conviction in spite of that fear.

Where do you stand in relationship to courage? How willing are you to sacrifice yourself for others or for what’s right?

Loyalty

When I speak about loyalty, I don’t mean “blind” loyalty to a person regardless of their actions. Loyalty is literally the glue that holds our relationships together—the fabric of our communities and organizations. Loyalty is what allows us to support one another, through thick and through thin, even when it may not be convenient to do so. Loyalty is not a one-way commitment, but must function both upwardly and downwardly. Loyalty directed upward is the loyalty you show to your superiors, tempered by the assumption that the superiors are lawful and ethical. “Downward” loyalty is about leaders’ responsibility to care for their people. It’s “loyalty to the troops” and it’s every bit as essential as upward loyalty.

Is loyalty important to you? Do you find that you are committed to others, even when it’s difficult, and take action on it?

Diligence

Diligence, in its essence, is having the understanding that there are no shortcuts to worthwhile achievements. Anyone settling for the quickest, easiest, shortest way to get an outcome is bound for disappointment. If you’re willing to put in the work, to make sure you’ve done everything you can to succeed, you experience a confidence that can’t be shaken. Diligent leaders are much more resilient in the face of setbacks because they are prepared in advance for the inevitability of a bumpy road, and they are able to steer forward despite challenges. They don’t have that nagging feeling that they could have done more or been more discerning. Diligence provides a kind of bedrock quality to your character that will allow you to remain steady amidst the chaos of the world around you.

How diligent is your approach to life? Do you avoid cutting corners in order to know that you’ve done things the right way?

Modesty

Leaders tend to have a tremendous amount of confidence, which makes modesty one of the most important elements of building a strong character. Modesty, at its core, is about living within limits. It is the antithesis of aggressiveness, presumptuousness, and arrogance. The most effective leaders recognize that they are not “too big to fail,” and they are open to other perspectives in the interest of improving themselves and the organization. To the modest leader, fiscal and operational constraints are safeguards rather than hindrances. Modesty also serves to keep your emotions in balance. If you can recognize that your more arrogant impulses are based in a need for attention, you can cultivate a calmer self-acceptance in the face of challenges.

Would you consider yourself a modest person? Are you able to keep your ambitions in check?

Honesty

It would seem that honesty would be a no-brainer when it comes to character, but the truth is that being an honest person is actually more difficult than one might think. Especially when faced with enormous pressure, it can often be easier to sacrifice the truth in the name of expediency, profit, or personal advancement. The best leaders willingly miss out on deals that would require deception to win. A smaller profit made with honesty is worth more than a bigger profit made dishonestly. Acts of dishonesty—padded expense accounts, shaved tax forms, arriving to work late and l...