Leadership Short Course

Timeless principles by Dee Hock, founder of Visa:

Management Principles

Leader presumes follower. Follower presumes choice. One who is coerced to the purposes, objectives or preferences of another is not a follower in any true sense of the word, but an object of manipulation. A true leader cannot be bound to lead. A true follower cannot be bound to follow.

Associates

Hire and promote first on the basis of integrity; second, motivation; third, capacity; fourth, understanding; fifth, knowledge; and last and least, experience. Without integrity, motivation is dangerous; without motivation, capacity is impotent; without capacity, understanding is limited; without understanding, knowledge is meaningless; without knowledge, experience is blind. Experience is easy to provide and quickly put to good use by people with all the other qualities.

Employing Yourself

Never hire or promote in your own image. It is foolish to replicate your strength. It is idiotic to replicate your weakness. It is essential to employ, trust and reward those whose perspective, ability, and judgement are radically different from yours. It is also rare, for it requires uncommon humility, tolerance, and wisdom.

Compensation

Money motivates neither the best people, nor the best in people. It can move the body and influence the mind, but it cannot touch the heart or move the spirit; that is reserved for belief, principle, and morality. As Napoleon observed, "No amount of money will induce someone to lay down their life,but they will gladly do so for a bit of yellow ribbon."

Form & Substance

Substance is enduring, form is ephemeral. Failure to distinguish clearly between the two is ruinous. Success follows those adept at preserving the substance of the past by clothing it in the forms of the future. Preserve substance; modify form; know the difference. The closest thing to a law of nature in business is that form has an affinity for expense, while substance has an affinity for income.

Leadership

Here is the very heart and soul of the matter. If you look to lead, invest at least 40% of your time managing yourself - your ethics, character, principles, purpose, motivation, and conduct. Invest at least 30% managing those with authority over you, and 15% managing your peers. Use the remainder to induce those you "work for" to understand and practice the theory. I use the terms "work for" advisedly, for if you don't understand that you should be working for your mislabeled "subordinates," you haven't understood anything. Lead yourself, lead your superiors, lead your peers, and free your people to do the same. Al else is trivia.

True Leaders

True leaders are those who epitomize the general sense of the community - who symbolize, legitimize and strengthen behavior in accordance with the sense of the community - who enable its shared purpose, values and beliefs to emerge and be transmitted. A true leader's behavior is induced by the behavior of every individual choosing where to be led.

PhD in Leadership, Short Course

Make a careful list of all things done to you that you abhorred. Don't do them to others, ever. Make another list of things done for you that you loved. Do them for others, always.