Knoll said if he had eleven Bradshaws on the field at the same time, he would not have won a single game. Knoll was making two critical points about skill and leadership. Each of the eleven players on the field needed the skills to play their position and play it well. Equally important was that the eleven players on the field needed to play the play that was called by the quarterback in the huddle or the audible prior to the snap.
The interchange between leaders and followers makes the difference between good organizations or teams and great ones. Feedback received by Bradshaw enabled him to be better at his position, call better plays, and better position the team to win on the field leading to championships. If he wasn't on his game, his teammates let him know. They challenged him and their fellow teammates alike. This give-and-take of feedback created a championship team. The entire team had a common goal, and they worked together to continue to raise the bar of their performance.
The most effective leaders are driven by something greater than themselves. They intuitively know how to create an environment where their followers are willing to go the extra mile to support them and, many times, adopt a selfless leadership style. Think back over your career and note where you have been motivated to work for a boss who cared more about themselves than they did for others. We aren't typically motivated to follow these individuals.
In their book, The Trusted Advisor, David Maister, Charlie Green, and Robert Galford create the trust equation, which simply states that trustworthiness = (credibility + reliability + intimacy) / self-interest. Increasing self-interest destroys results-oriented traits such as credibility and reliability. In other words, if the individual is self-interested, it doesn't matter how good they are—there is always an element of mistrust that will exist. This mistrust erodes the leader's effectiveness.
Helena Foulkes is a remarkable business leader and true Amplifier. After getting her MBA at Harvard, she joined CVS, where she had a very impressive career ultimately ascending to executive vice president of CVS Health and president of CVS Pharmacy. After leaving a successful career at CVS, she took the position of CEO and a board member of Hudson's Bay Company.
Great leaders like Foulkes understand the power of connecting with people and engaging their ideas and building trust. She would do this in various “skip-level” meetings or when she was interacting in the stores or directly with consumers. One of the followership skills she emphasized was the muscle of “returning authority,” which occurs when the leader delegates certain decisions on strategic approaches that need to be made throughout the organization. The important element of returning authority is that you don't take it back. The teams need to understand the boundaries and general alignment of the top-level strategy or approach, but they are empowered to carry out the activities necessary to bring that element of the strategy or plan to fruition. For new leaders, this is often one of their biggest challenges. Most leaders grew up doing the activities themselves and it's hard to watch teams that report to them work through some of the same issues or do things slightly differently than they would have. Being a good leader is about empowering these teams to learn during the journey while ensuring that the expected outcomes are in fact achieved. The higher up the organization leaders ascend, the more critical it is for those leaders to lead effectively by returning authority and fostering that mutual trust.
The Charisma Trap
Charisma is a red herring in leadership. Merriam-Webster defines charisma as, “i) a personal magic of leadership arousing special popular loyalty or enthusiasm for a public figure (such as a political leader), or ii) a special magnetic charm or appeal.”1 These are not essential elements of leadership. Helpful, yes. Essential, no. Effective leadership does require influencing others to follow. But that influence can come through a variety of ways.
The antonym of charisma is repulsive. In 2020, we lived during a time when we had a political leader whose style simultaneously created an equally large following and a large repulsiveness (detractors). True leadership has to be more comprehensive and capture a greater share of potential followers. It is unrealistic to think that the leader will never have detractors. And the best leaders use these detractors to actually hone their leadership skills.
Another way to look at charisma in leadership is the old saying, “it's all sizzle and no steak.” Individuals who ascend the organizational hierarchy through personality and charisma, but lack competence become ineffective. Because they lack the content or experience to effectively lead, their charisma carries them only so far. Charismatic individuals can stand on stage and engage their audience whether they are speaking truth or not. They tap into what the audience wants to hear and feed off their insecurities or wishful thinking. Perpetuating the delusional thinking or party line becomes the core tool in the arsenal.
Unfortunately, we see too many individuals promoted to leadership positions who lack the necessary leadership skills. Worse, some are elected to high office and lack the leadership skills to capture followers in a comprehensive way. True leaders are able to capture followers, despite differences of opinion or approaches.
In his book, Good to Great, Jim Collins identified his “Level 5” leader as having a paradoxical blend of personal humility and professional will. Charisma and humility can and do coexist for many leaders. Being humble does not mean being a doormat. It simply means lacking the arrogance in belief that they have all the answers and can do no wrong. Individuals who ascend organizations with increasing responsibility typically have received positive feedback and have likely had limited negative criticism. This continuous positive feedback loop can have a detrimental impact on the executive's humility. When surrounded by “yes” people, these leaders run the risk of not developing the kind of humility needed for true leadership as Collins describes.
Some of the best leaders are not well-known charismatic individuals. Take Larry Culp, the first externally hired CEO at General Electric (GE) in decades. Prior to leading GE, Culp was the CEO of Danaher Corporation, having taken the helm at about the same time Jeffrey Immelt took over as CEO of GE from Jack Welch. Whereas the stock of GE fell significantly by more than 30 percent under Immelt, Danaher's stock price rose nearly 500 percent under Culp for the same time period.2 Yet we constantly saw Immelt on magazine covers, high-profile political appointments on committees, major conference speaking events, and the like. Culp had a significantly lower profile and was not heralded as a celebrity CEO. He was simply more effective and possessed a significantly more down-to-earth style. To be sure, Culp is in the early innings of turning around GE and time will tell if he will be effective on that transformation journey. In the two-and-a-half years on the job GE's stock is up a modest 1 percent, trailing the broader averages.
Another Level 5 leader Amplifier is Dan Calkins, the president and CEO of Benjamin Moore & Co. He started at the company nearly 30 years ago as a sales correspondent, a job that no longer exists. Shortly after Calkins was promoted onto the executive team, there was a change at the CEO level. All his peers in the executive suite applied for the CEO job, except Calkins. He got a call from the HR leader and Warren Buffett asking him why he didn't apply. He explained that given where the organization was at the time and what was needed to transform the culture and operational performance, he did not feel he possessed the skills necessary to be successful in the role. The organization had gone through significant turmoil over the previous six or seven years and he felt like they needed a leader who could calm the waters and take the craziness out of the day-to-day. He emphasized that he did think he could be the CEO of the company someday, but he personally didn't feel like that time was now. He recognized that if it had been him at the time, it would have been about him and his agenda. Bringing in someone else provided the opportunity for a fresh and unbiased view that was not threatening. This new leader and Calkins worked together to shore up the gaps he had in order to be successful in the CEO position he now holds.
Calkins is self-actualized. He has a realistic and
