I had the pleasure of attending Canadian General Rick Hillier’s presentation at the recent WRHBA lunch.

 

What an interesting military leader! What a clear message!

 

 

General Hillier talked about process, technology, structure, and organization.

 

But he was emphatic about the most-important thing...“focus on people”…

• Choose people well
• Give them credit when they do things well
• Your job is to free up people…their bodies and their minds
• One person can make a difference!
• Perpetual optimism translates into the emotion - Passion
• People outside your company can help…don’t limit yourself
• When there are dark days go back to the basics – focus on people.

General Hillier also talked about Action:

• Leaders Actions speak loudly
• Take Actions to back up your words
• Look them in the eye!

General Hillier talked about “being yourself”…he told many stories…and the stories confirmed our famous General has quite a sense of humour.

 

As our General Hillier told one story [about relaying the affection of a young Canadian girl to her soldier sweetheart in the Middle East] I couldn’t help but think about General George Patton. U.S. General Patton had a profound sense of duty and honour. During World War 2 he was disciplined for ‘roughing up’ one of his soldiers who, apparently, did not live up to Patton’s high standards for courage. General George Patton was a leading strategist who illustrated more than enough action to back up his words. Yet, his reputation is tarnished by what was considered to be excessive force on his own people. Our Canadian General Hillier took a different approach during his 35-year career. Certainly, ‘times have changed’. And, that may explain some of it. However, when people are in the battlefields, as our forces are now in Afghanistan, I expect the most-important things, the ‘human conditions’, have not changed… the people still experience the fears, the fatigue, the stresses of warfare as a big part of their daily life.

 

We owe much gratitude to the people of our armed forces…for the risks they take and the work they do to ensure freedom and fairness in our country and around the world.

 

And, we owe much gratitude to our General Rick Hillier for the top-notch service he provided during his military career and the uplifting messages he now shares with leaders in our Canadian communities.

 

Let’s follow General Hillier’s advice: “focus on people”.

To be clear about it up front, I am a big fan of Jeffrey Gitomer. I am able to get over the fact he favours bald people over people who are bald-challenged. And…while it is possible this is off on a little tangent…sometimes I get this strange feeling baldness is creeping up on me from behind…

 

Regardless, the fact is: I am a big fan of Jeffrey Gitomer. As far as I know, I own a copy of every book and every CD he has published. I think the set of ‘LITTLE BOOKS’ is a must-have for salespeople. Terrific sales advice. Terrific sense of humour. Terrific packaging. In a word: terrific.

 

So, I bought his new book ‘Jeffrey Gitomer’s LITTLE BOOK of LEADERSHIP’.

 

At page 18, I read:

 

 

 

Is that really what followers think and want?

 

 

Yes! 

 

And, No!

 

Yes!

• Yes – Leaders need to show people how Leaders go about doing things.
• Yes – Leaders should refrain from setting tight restrictions on followers’ actions. Each follower should be able to use his or her unique talents and personality. Followers should not feel hand-cuffed or micro-managed.
• Yes – Leaders should delegate.
• Yes – Leaders should set and show leading examples.

No!

• No – Followers must understand the desired outcome. So, Leaders must tell them that desired end-point outcome. That applies to the end-point Vision…the Leader gets to tell that to followers. And Goals…the Leader gets to pick at least some of them and tell them to followers. If followers call that ‘telling them what to do’ then…great!  That means they understand their Leader’s direction.
• No – Leaders cannot leave all what-to-do decisions in the hands of followers. Leaders must set some structural bounds on followers’ actions. For example, the Leader must state/demand/tell things like - “You must follow our safety policies.”

The bottom line: Leaders must tell followers what to do…and limit that telling to the BIG PICTURE things.