Leadership

It is with great thanks to all the authors and speakers from whom I have learned that I offer you a shortlist of references on this important subject.  I do so with hope that those not included in the shortlist will not take offense for that, if they actually ever see this list.  This list is only some of the highlights from the greater set of books I have read.  There are plenty of other good ones I have read and not noted here, and I know there are piles that I have not yet read.  I have numerous in hand from when I had a monthly subscription to a leadership group, but at that time I was finding others on my own that were more related to what was then going on in my life.  I have numerous others on my Amazon wish list too.  I look forward to getting to them in time.

Some in the list below are referenced in the books of The AGAR–M2M Project, whether in the chapter devoted to leading (Chapter 10 in Math to Mettle, my broad-brushed, starting-point, scratch of the surface; a short excerpt is offered below this list) or in various other contexts.  Some are written as stories (tales, allegories, fables, or parables as various of their authors refer to them) and are a very easy and enjoyable read; I have noted those at the end of their entries with “[STORY]”.

  1. How to Win Friends and Influence People, Dale Carnegie
  2. The World’s Most Powerful Leadership Principle: How to Become a Servant Leader, James C. Hunter
  3. Launching a Leadership Revolution, Chris Brady and Orrin Woodward
  4. Visioneering: Your Guide for Discovering and Maintaining Personal Vision, Andy Stanley
  5. The Centurion Principles: Battlefield Lessons for Frontline Leaders, Col. Jeff O’Leary
  6. The Compassionate Samurai: Being Extraordinary in an Ordinary World, Brian Klemmer
  7. Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win, Jocko Willink and Lief Babin
  8. Developing the Leader within You, John C. Maxwell
  9. First, Break All the Rules: What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently, Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman (Gallup Press)
  10. The Energy to Lead: The Thermodynamics of Leadership, Terry Woychowski
  11. The Servant: A Simple Story about the True Essence of Leadership, James C. Hunter [STORY]
  12. The Go-Giver Leader (previously It’s Not About You): A Little Story About What Matters Most in Business, Bob Burg and John David Mann [STORY]
  13. The Go-Giver: A Little Story about a Powerful Business Idea, Bob Burg [STORY]
  14. The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable, Patrick M. Lencioni [STORY]
  15. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen R. Covey (or as a shorter and easier read, yet quite useful … The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens, Sean Covey)
  16. The SPEED of Trust: The One Thing that Changes Everything, Stephen M. R. Covey
  17. The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership: Follow Them and People Will Follow You, John C. Maxwell
  18. The Advantage: Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else in Business, Patrick M. Lencioni
  19. Lead Like Jesus: Lessons from the Greatest Leadership Role Model of All Time, Ken Blanchard and Phil Hodges
  20. Wooden: A Lifetime of Observations and Reflections On and Off the Court, John Wooden
  21. The Score Takes Care of Itself: My Philosophy of Leadership, Bill Walsh
  22. LeaderShift: A Call for Americans to Finally Stand Up and Lead, Orrin Woodward and Oliver DeMille
  23. Peaks and Valleys: Making Good and Bad Times Work for You — At Work and In Life, Spencer Johnson [STORY]
  24. The Four Obsessions of an Extraordinary Executive: A Leadership Fable, Patrick M. Lencioni [STORY]

Another suggestion is to consider reading biographies.  Biographies of great leaders are great to read, and are a story in themselves.  If you more so enjoy learning via stories, these are a good complement to those noted above.  The list below is a selection of historical figures who are known for their leadership and/‌or overcoming of adversity (if you lead, you will face adversity).  With the exception of a couple books about Ernest Shackleton, the leader of the cross-Antarctica voyage on the Endurance, which is the subject of a fantastic and inspiring story, I have not read many books that are dedicated to the life of any single individual noted below.  But I have heard numerous audios/‌talks by others who have studied these individuals extensively.  From what I have learned through those speakers, I suggest them to you; and for me… I hope to get to reading more about them someday myself.

  • William Wilberforce — He was a politician of England who led the decades-long movement to eradicate the slave trade.  Working for twenty years leading to the Abolishing of the Slave Trade Act of 1807, dying just three days after hearing that passage of the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 was assured, which abolished slavery in most of the British Empire.
  • Benjamin Franklin — He is a Founding Father of the United States of America and an entrepreneur publisher.  Once dislikeable, he transformed himself into one of the key diplomats vitally responsible for the success of the American Revolution through securing the multifaceted support of France.  Yeah, he was an inventor (as many know him to be) on the side.
  • George Washington — He is a Founding Father and the first President of the United States.  Prior to that he was Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army where he was known for his dedication to his troops.  He was later admired internationally for resigning as commander-in-chief at the end of the Revolutionary War rather than seizing power.  He is considered by many as one of the top three U.S. presidents.
  • Abraham Lincoln — As the 16th President of the United States, he is known for overcoming repeated failures and adversity in his career and ultimately for leading the United States through the enormous challenges of abolishing slavery and the Civil War.  He is considered by many to be among the greatest U.S. presidents.
  • Theodore (Teddy) Roosevelt — He was the 26th President of the United States, at the time the youngest president in history at age 42.  He is considered by historians to be one of the greatest U.S. presidents.  His face appears on Mount Rushmore along with Presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Abraham Lincoln (pretty good company).
  • Winston Churchill — He served as the Prime Minister of the UK for the years 1940 – 1945 and 1951 – 1955, where, during the former term, his critical leadership during World War II was pivotal to the survival of the Western World.
  • Horatio Nelson — He was a vice admiral in the British Royal Navy, known as an inspirational leader who was courageously dedicated to his men, commanding out of love rather than authority.  He died in his final victory in the Battle of Trafalgar of the Napoleonic Wars; Trafalgar Square in London is in his memory.
  • Colin Powell — He reached the rank of four-star general in the U.S. Army, serving as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the critical period of the Persian Gulf War, including Operation Desert Shield and ultimately Operation Desert Storm, which commenced January 16 (U.S.), 1991 (I remember exactly where I was when the news broke around dinnertime – working on my Macintosh computer in my grad-student office at U. of Illinois).  He later served as National Security Advisor and the 65th Secretary of State.
  • Mel Fisher — He is known for his tenacity and diligence, never giving up until he eventually found the 1622 wreck of a Spanish galleon (ship), the Atocha, off the Florida Keys, recovering an estimated $450MM of coins and jewels.

An Excerpt from My Writings

The following is the Introduction from the first book of a “short-read” book-series concept. That first book’s content is also included for my engineering design audience as Chapter 10 of Math to Mettle: Supporting, Selling, Struggling, and Surviving in the Practice of Engineering Design, entitled “To Rise or Fall — Leading (for others)”. Neither is published yet, but getting closer by the month.

  PREFACE
  Introduction

PART I: 
The “Why” of Leading
CHAPTER 1:  The Importance of Knowledge
CHAPTER 2:  The Importance to Teaming
CHAPTER 3:  The Importance of Beneath

PART II: 
The “What” of Leading
CHAPTER 4:  Leading ≠ Managing
CHAPTER 5:  Processes and People
CHAPTER 6:  What About the Product?

CLOSING: 
And So Much More
   
  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Copyright © 2017 – 2021 by William J. Endres

Introduction

As I start here, I have to first make a confession, and in that share something I learned before but was sorely in need of a reminder.

1    All Leaders are Readers

That is actually a phrase coined by Harry S. Truman, the 33rd president of the United States of America.  And in spite of knowing that principle for years, I have still slipped off the rails a few times and likely will a few more times in my years ahead — I’m such a human.  Here is a quick story of the most recent time in which I needed a kick in the butt.

Since early in my AGAR–M2M book project I had intended to write a chapter on the subject of leading.  My intentions sat only as intentions for quite some time, time ticking away while the project waited.  It waited a long time for me to get those first thoughts to the screen.  In part I was just really busy with other higher priority things.  And of greater challenge, I also had no publisher cracking the whip on me.  In fact, I had been so busy doing other things that my regular reading on leadership and related subjects had lapsed.  Looking back, it had lapsed for a rather extended period of time.  I cringe to admit it, but I am talking about the scale of months; no, closer to a year — gotta call it as it is.  So what?  In various places within A Game Against Reality I had promoted the importance of continual learning.  For me, and at least some others, it largely comes from reading.  Of course, not exclusively, but to a large extent it does.  And I had gone many months without practicing what I teach, or some may say I preach.

But a stroke of luck and reminding, or perhaps relearning,‌ hit me.  I was reminded of just how important it is to just do it, to just continually make the time to read, even if just a little on a regular basis.  Why?  All it took was opening a book on leadership one Friday evening.  Within a half hour the first words that would find their way into this book were flowing onto my phone in the form of an email to myself.

It was a Friday night at the B and B.  It’s generally a quiet place at that hour, so I walked down for a brief bit of relaxation.  I was looking to a change of environment after a couple days battling it out with something technical that was just not working.  I normally take a couple pieces of paper with me to that venue to jot down notes of my thoughts — what a geek, huh?  But that night, instead, I brought a book that had just arrived in hard-copy; most reading I do is on my Kindle device or phone app, but this one was not available in that format.  I ordered the book not because I said “ya know, I need to get back to some leadership reading.”  Rather, the author was someone I had known of for many years and had the pleasure of getting to know in person over the few months preceding.  It seemed it would be another way to get to know more about him.

Wow; the lesson…  I spent more time typing on my phone than I did reading.  It was a good book for sure.  I nearly finished it by that Sunday night. And I would have finished it had I not spent so much time fleshing out some parts of this book and a pretty full outline of the rest of it.  But clearly it was more than just a good book.  It was revisiting things I had previously learned, now presented by that author from a different perspective.  I had read and studied quite a bit on the subject of leadership, and in doing so learned an important truth — there is much value in reading similar things from multiple sources with their differing perspectives.  This book I cracked open that Friday night got my mind rolling, and with that, pieces of this book were suddenly on “paper” after being just an intention for well over a year.  Most people appreciate how hard it is to start with a blank sheet.  Indeed, it is.  On the other hand, it is much easier to edit something already written and also much easier to add to something already started.  Sidenote: sometimes change in direction does require a blank sheet, so don’t avoid the challenge of that blank sheet at all times; this is not a leadership thing specifically as it applies quite broadly.  Sidenote 2:  if you are not a big fan of reading, which defined me until my late 30s as well, keep in mind there is a lot of fantastic leadership content out there in audio and video format; but, “fantastic” means you should be selective — not everything with the ‘L’ word in it will be rooted in sound principles and examples.

Anyway, with that bit of a reinforcing reminder to me in regard to “keep reading/‌learning,” hopefully also serving as evidence to you on the same, let’s get into this enormously important subject.  But, an important disclaimer… this is indeed only a scratch of the surface by one who considers himself to have more of the leadership learning and experience curve to go.  The purpose of this book, as indicated by the book’s subtitle, is to inspire my audience to engage a lifelong journey.  My approach is to illuminate just how important sound and true leadership is to the world around us and across multiple facets of life.  I will not go long when measured in relation to how important the subject is.  Nor will I go deep or to its extremities since scratching the surface keeps on point and should be enough to give the reader who is new to the subject some inspiration to dig deeper.  And that digging is to go beyond the ‘L’ buzzword you will see and hear far and wide these days.  To help facilitate that digging deeper, beyond the “L” “buzzword” that is.  To help facilitate that, on this website [above] I provide a select shortlist of sources from which I have learned in my studies thus far.  Any of them would be good to include in your next steps in leadership study and practice, should you choose to take them.

2    All People Can and Should Lead

If you choose to embark on a leadership journey, I promise you will reap huge dividends; and I am not one to make promises or guarantees often or lightly — my kids and students could attest to that, in hindsight I suppose since we often don’t think about what is not said.  The dividends will show in your life’s work and your relationships, and ultimately your efforts will benefit those around you.  While there is significant knowledge to gain on the subject of leadership, including an abundance of principles (factual knowledge) that underlie leadership and a wealth of examples from great leaders (experiential knowledge), leadership in action is what we need.  That means the knowledge in your head has to be combined with skills that are learned and honed through practice.  There’s an important word in that previous sentence that warrants reinforcement at this outset.

I have learned from countless sources that reality is contradictory to what many a reader new to this subject may inaccurately assume or have been misled to think.  That important word is “learn.”  That’s right.  Leaders are not born as such.  Leadership is not an inherent talent thing.  Sure, some of us have inherent natural abilities and interests that lend themselves to a stronger bent to leading.  But just like one with great height may have that natural advantage over us shorter guys in becoming a great basketball player, us short guys can still get pretty good.  No, not me; I haven’t(!), though I could be better if I learned and practiced more.  But… think about the five-foot-seven-inch winner of the 1986 NBA Slam Dunk Contest, Spud Webb, as an extreme.  Likewise, there are many tall guys and gals who are woefully poor at basketball, volleyball, or the like.  So, while natural abilities or characteristics may give you a leg up in the area of leadership, you need to do something with those inherent characteristics to realize leadership excellence.  And furthermore, all of us, regardless of our natural, innate talents, can become better and even quite good leaders by the simple fact that leadership involves primarily learnable things — factual knowledge, experiential knowledge, and skills.[ † ]  Ultimately, though, mature MIDACKS leadership is about mindset.  And mindset, as I see it, is more about how you think than what you think.  And knowledge, hit upon here — ‘knowledgeable’ being the K in MIDACKS — provides a basis for “what” you think about within the framework of “how” you think.

And we all can think and we all can learn — we humans are amazing, aren’t we?  This means anyone can do it.  And anyone with diligent and continual growth through learning and practice can get continually better and excel.  So, if anyone can, the question is then, should we?

To be straight, learning and practice and growth takes time, so the question of should is not rhetorical.  We are all busy.  We all need to prioritize, including you.  In any priority list, near the top should be those most important things, the things you should do.  The most important should reside at the top more so than the most urgent things, to the extent we can keep most activities from rising to urgency.  In fact, by prioritizing the most important things we often have a better shot at minimizing how many things elevate to urgency.  Well, leadership is one of those very important things.  And as it turns out, sound leading itself also helps to minimize how much of life elevates to urgency.  Sound leading also allows those urgencies that simply appear out of nowhere to be handled with relative ease, composure, and even compassion as the case may be.

And anyone can benefit from that.  This is indeed for all — engineers and non-engineers (i.e., the Non-normals and the Normals)[ ‡ ] — and we all need everyone to get on board and lead in one or more places and at one or more times in their respective lives.  Sound leading is important to your family, your community, your church, your company, etc.  It is important to teams… to every team, whether it is actually called a team such as in sports, or not.  Even a “team” of two is better when one serves the other in a leadership role.  And regardless of team size, and whether the team is recognized as such or simply “a group of people” working together toward a goal, I am not talking about “leadership” as the “buzzword” it sadly seems to be turning into.  I am talking about meaningful, intentional, dedicated, authentic, caring, knowledgeable, and skilled (MIDACKS) leadership.  MIDACKS leading is a journey of regular, practical, non-theoretical study matched with continual implementation toward continual improvement.

3    A Look at the MIDACKS Pieces

Let’s take a look at those seven adjectives, definitions chosen, from the multiple definitions the dictionaries provide for each, for their best fit to the context here.

  • Meaningful:  “full of meaning, significance, purpose, or value; significant.”  Meaningful leadership focuses on significant/‌valuable impact; it is leadership that makes a difference, addressing something others care about, including those being led — the other team members — and certainly those whom the entire team aims to serve (like the “meaningfulness” of a problem that is discovered through the activity of problem understanding[ § ] — it is a problem that others really care about, one that matters to them).
  • Intentional:  “done with intention or on purpose; intended.”  Intentional leadership is founded on purposeful forethought and reflection in regard to all aspects of the leader’s work on behalf of those being led — the other team members — and those whom the entire team aims to serve.
  • Dedicated:  “wholly committed to a cause, ideal, or purpose.”  Dedicated leadership puts it all on the line — the leader for the benefit of others — for the cause of leading others toward realizing a mutually embraced vision; the cause of dedication here is the leading of others and is foremost to the cause for which the team/‌organization exists — dedication to the latter (those whom the entire team aims to serve) derives from the leader’s dedication to the former (the other team members).
  • Authentic:  “true to one’s own personality, spirit, or character.”  Authentic leadership is true and from the heart with transparency to those being led, leaving no room for doubt that it is those being led — the other team members — who are being served for their good and the good of those whom the entire team aims to serve.
  • Caring:  “feeling or showing concern for or kindness to others.”  Caring leadership is first and foremost done with concern for others, those being le — the other team members — and, through them, those whom the entire team aims to serve.
  • Knowledgeable:  “exhibiting an acquaintance with facts, truths, or principles, as from study or investigation.”  Knowledgeable leadership regularly studies the subject of leadership from multiple perspectives, repetitively over time, and, without ceasing, pursues excellence in mindset.
  • Skilled:  “having acquired mastery of something.”  Skilled leadership continuously pursues excellence in doing by way of deliberate practice with and for those being led.

Intentional, dedicated, authentic, and caring (MIDACKS) are the products of mindset.  Mindset is foundational here.  Leadership mindset and its products (IDAC) are prerequisite to achieving MIDACKS leadership.  But those products, and the leadership mindset from which they flow, depend on having sound knowledge (K) from the study of leadership — both principles (factual knowledge) and others’ experiences (experimental knowledge).  That knowledge feeds the mindset; in fact, while factual knowledge is no doubt important, it is experiential knowledge that more greatly evolves “how” you think, the facts landing a little more on the “what” you think about within your mindset.  So… Mindset is about “how” you think, not “what” you think, and knowledge provides a basis for what you think about within the framework of how you think.  Skills (S) are the means of implementation, turning “what” you think into doing… into action.

That brings us to “meaningful,” or more specifically mutually meaningful.  We turn back to the start of the acronym, the ‘M’ word.  We turn back to the start of the acronym, the “M” word.  Meaningful is about the end product, a characteristic of the outcomes of the activity being led.  Or, rather, the activity undertaken by the team being led.  If meaningfulness is about the end product, then why is it not at the end of the acronym?  Well, placing it first makes for a pronounceable acronym.  Okay, that’s true, but really… even though it relates to the end outcomes, it represents the “why” behind the activity being led.  And the “why” is where it all starts, or where any activity to be led should start.  That is, nothing of substance should start — the solving of a problem or the leading toward a vision — without the problem/‌vision being compelling… being captivating… being meaningful in the very first place.  The meaning is realized in the outcome, but must be the driver from the start; as Steven Covey says, “begin with the end in mind.”  And while MKIDACS leaders don’t take on meaningless causes and visions, they also avoid wasting time on meaninglessness in the pursuit.  That is, they continuously work to cut out the unimportant so those they lead can focus on the important.

The C should really be C² (C squared).  It includes caring for others — the people — but also the purpose; caring for characters and cause if that bit of alliteration helps to remember this important point.  And while putting the A of authentic immediately before C again makes for a pronounceable acronym, coincidentally, authentic is also most critically tied to C as a modifier.  Inauthentic caring, whether for the cause or worse yet the characters/‌people involved, is really bad caring, worse than indifferent.  I think we see much of this type of inauthentic caring in those we often call leaders, or who consider themselves leaders… true in terms of position or title, but lacking even a speck of true leading in a MIDACKS sense.  You may know what I mean.  You may have seen it as a follower; you may be one as a leader.  If the latter is the case, and I know that is hard to swallow or see in yourself, the first step to becoming a sound and true leader is to make that C-change from IC to AC.[ †† ]  The move will be unmistakable to those around you just as inauthentic caring is unmistakable, in time at least.  Yes, most people do eventually catch on to inauthentic caring, and once they do, they can become cynical and even carcinogenic to the cause, tumors within the team.  And the longer it takes for them to catch on, the worse the cynicism and cancer to the cause.  Not good!

Regarding the cause or purpose, that is tied up in vision.  Vision is cast by a leader to others, in many cases first crafted by the leader herself; it’s part of the (some of the) doing covered in Part 2.[ ‡‡ ]  If a leader does not care about the cause, I suggest his leading needs some work.  That is, a sound and true leader exhibits humility — knowing she is human — and with that also knows that humans generally excel at what they care about far more so than anything they don’t care about.  Leading is hard, you better have a passion for the cause.  You better care about the cause and of course the characters involved.  Those characters — the people — are really critical and that subject enters here shortly.  If they latch on to the vision, they care about the cause. And the leader should care about what the followers care about, for she is there to support and uplift them in their pursuit of that vision.  The leader’s messaging is a big part of this; it’s of great importance, and the authenticity behind it is even more so.

There is no magic here, but we best start with “why.”

PART I
The “Why” of Leading

It’s really important.  Simply put…

Everything rises and falls on leadership.[1]
–Dr. John C. Maxwell | author, speaker, pastor

CHAPTER 1
The Importance of Knowledge

Continued in the book…

[ † ]  I use this breakdown of “learnable” content from Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman in their book First, Break All the Rules: What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently.  They identify these learnable elements — factual knowledge, experiential knowledge, and skills — in contrast to those characteristics that are not learned but rather are innate within us, what they use the word “talent” to capture.

[ ‡ ]  As I have become better acquainted with the world around my world of engineering, I have begun to refer to us engineers, and those who are not, with terms that are offered in fun and lightheartedness, but at the same time founded on statistical and observed reality. I sometimes refer to us engineers, the minority of the human world, as “Non-normals,” and all the others, the vast majority of the human world, as “Normals.” Most engineers recognize we (most of us, but not all; everything is a statistical distribution) are a bit different than the Normals. We see this in social settings and in work settings. And most Normals who associate with engineers recognize the same. So, let’s call it as it is (having some fun and a dose of humility at the same time) and celebrate that difference, one that brings a lot of good to the world of Normals by us Non-normals, while thanking God that us Non-normals have the Normals to keep us well adjusted and with purpose!

[ § ]  This is the subject of another book in the with Others for Others series.

[ †† ]  The acronym that results with IC instead of AC is purely coincidental.

[ ‡‡ ]  Moving forward, “Part2” refers to the second part of my treatment of this subject, entitled Leading with Others for Others:  Part 2 — (Some of) the Being and Doing.

[1]  John C. Maxwell, The 21 Indispensable Qualities of a Leader: Becoming the Person Others Will Want to Follow, 2007,
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0785274405.