WHAT IS THE ESSENCE OF LEADERSHIP?

I've been pondering the above, a classic 'imponderable', which you can slice and dice in countless ways. Some reflections:

I've been hearing about horrific airline delays, miscommunication, rudeness, apathy and outright chaos over the last week in the United States. The primary complaint of frequently long-suffering travellers? Being treated as a 'token', as a 'cog', as an 'irritant' -- it is feeling IGNORED. Far from personalised service, this is 'dehumanisation' in classic stripes.

Exhibit number one.

A few days back, I went with my wife and her parents to Toronto Island. A quick ferry ride away from Toronto, it's a summer park, replete with boating, biking, frisbees, walks and more. Feeling a tad 'peckish', we sought out lunch. As we arrived at the first cafe, no one was around. This seemed odd, a major lunch site, middle of summer, teeming people all around us. Finally, someone came up to us and told us they had had a 'big event' the night before and it would be 15-20 minutes. The look on her face broadcast: 'Don't count on it.'

As we were gearing up to make our way to an alternate venue, another family walked up and asked us what we had been told. As we let them know, they shook their head in disbelief: 'But they told us 15-20 minutes, 15-20 minutes ago, and so we waited!'

Exhibit number two.

At the other end of the spectrum are my friends at The Strategic Coach, a wonderful focusing program for entrepreneurs. I missed a scheduled session and had written to them asking for a time when we could reschedule. When I arrived at their offices, all the arrangements had been made, I was treated with lavish and genuine warmth. People came by to say 'hi', cards of welcome from those who couldn't be there were left, and I was treated to an experience of both care and professionalism. There wasn't a 'false note' anywhere.

Exhibit three.

One of the true legends in the hotel industry is Kurt Wachtveitl, legendary GM of the Oriental Bangkok for over 35 years. The Oriental is arguably the most famous and 'garlanded' hotel in the world. Kurt fully admits that part of the hotel's success derives from the extraordinary grace and gentleness of the Thais themselves. I asked him if there was a hotel he admired in the West, perhaps in a culture where 'service' wasn't ingrained as an integral part of the local culture. He smiled and replied, 'The George V' in Paris.

My friends at the extraordinary hotel chain, 'The Four Seasons' have taken over the historic George V in Paris. Kurt explained that there are superb hotels in Paris, but from an eastern perspective, the service while highly sophisticated can seem a bit impersonal. Not so at the George V! Here he reports, the highest levels of style and tradition mingle with extraordinary friendliness and responsiveness. He said that all staff, at all levels, when hired on, go through FIVE interviews, including one with the GM. Talk about a true TALENT-BASED strategy! He says they are interviewed primarily for attitude and proactivity, THEN for experience and technical ability.

This is part of The Four Seasons' culture. In Toronto, they know when I land from overseas, to have an ottoman put in my room, a DVD player set up, the air filter that I like plugged in and ready to go, and a listing of current movies and exciting restaurants sent up right away. I've found you truly can feel 'homesick' for a hotel!

Exhibit four.

Benjamin Zander is a premier conductor (of the Boston Philharmonic), an exceptional writer and speaker. I tip my hat in appreciation to he and his wife Roz, for reaffirming my love affair with the word 'possibility'. I have long adored the word: juicy, plump, inviting, catalytic, romantic, arousing, abundant and literally 'tingling' with creativity and promise. Ben teaches music as a 'masterclass' in possibility. He invites musicians to move beyond fears, dogmas, certitudes, conventions, and to come ALIVE to the music, to express the passion behind and WITHIN the music, and to 'stand in possibility' as a conduit of an experience that can awaken, enliven and possibly even...transform! To hear his rendition of Beethoven and Mahler, is to participate in this expansive vision.

Exhibit five.

So, back to the question, the essence of leadership?

1) COMMIT TO POSSIBILITY

-- Always look for what 'can' be done, how to enable things, what problems to limit, what openings to exploit, what new 'design' to get behind and vitalise, what new frontiers (however temporary or modest) to manifest.

2) TELL THE TRUTH -- Empower everyone with the facts. Don't give them confusing information, don't demoralise them with apathy or confusion, don't give forecasts you won't commit to. Admit to not knowing and suggest how together you can arrive at the 'next best' that's possible given what you're facing. Use truth as a platform for possibility, not a barrier to hope.

3) TRY TO HELP -- Seemingly self-evident, but so POWERFUL as a genuine paradigm, orientation, default-setting, and conviction. Look for ways to lighten someone's load, ease a grief or aggravation, pave a way. Commit to responding as helpfully as you can when in 'leadership' and 'service' mode (virtually the same thing at times). We help make, remake and shape our world(s) accordingly.

4) EXCEL AT CREATING 'EXPERIENCES'

-- Work backwards from the experience you want people to have...both those working with/for you, as well as from your customer's perspective. That experience transcends the 'commodity' nature of any business and helps you ENGAGE people in way that FULFILLS and CAPTIVATES them, not merely 'satisfies' them.

5) GET THE BEST PEOPLE, DESIGN SYSTEMS AND PROCESSES TO HELP THEM 'WIN' -- Hire the best, arm them with the best, get their inputs on what can legitimately help them win. Back up their passion. Let systems 'institutionalise' the best of their and your vision and passion and service values -- nothing less.

6) DECIDE TO MAKE AN IMPACT, INVITE EVERYONE ELSE TO DO THE SAME -- Decide you and your company will be a beacon, a contribution, a generous co-creator of a world made better by the existence of your business values, your service culture, your leadership, and your value-creation. EVERYTHING is then 'challenged' to reinforce this calling.

7) DON'T BELITTLE, LIBERATE -- Grow the business, grow each other, grow yourself. That's the 'triple win'. Always speak to the 'better angels' in everyone. In Zander's words being a 'relentless architect of the possibility that others can be'. In my words, help everyone EXPERIENCE more of who they can BE by calling on them to EXPRESS more of who they ARE.

How important is this? Each day is an 'exhibit' in either possibility or cynicism, vision or despair. Choose POSSIBILITY! Happy leadership!

FESTIVALS THAT INSPIRE

Each year, my wife and I 'take the waters' so to speak at the Shaw and Stratford Festivals. These wonderful Festivals in Niagara-on-the-Lake and Stratford in Canada represent an exceptional selection of cultural fare.

We saw two Shaw plays this year that were powerful on various levels. The first was the time-honoured Pygmalion (the fount from which the later musical, MY FAIR LADY, sprang). Pygmalion, as most of us know, is about a linguistics professor who seeks to make a 'duchess' out of a flower girl. It is a story of transformation at various levels.

As Henry Higgins says, 'What could be more important than to take a human being and to make her into a different human being by creating a new speech for her?' By 'speech' here, he means all the attitudes, expansive paradigms, and possibilities that come in tow.

What happens however, is that Eliza eventually 'transcends' her teaching, finds her OWN voice, and gives this new speech meaning through her own heart and head. And like a true teacher or 'Sensei', the swaggering and domineering Higgins, EXULTS! He sees a true equal, a 'consort battleship' emerge. The invitation of Pygmalion is for all of us to 'kick free' of whatever our own limiting 'status quo' may be and engage passionately in our own next step, our own transformation.

The second play we saw at the Shaw Festival is one of my all-time favourites, MAN AND SUPERMAN. In fact, finishing up a client session in Herefordshire on a Friday at 16;30, we dashed to Heathrow, flew to Canada the next day, and made it for the last perfomance on Sunday of MAN AND SUPERMAN that would also include the 'play within a play', 'DON JUAN IN HELL'. With two intermissions, and a lovely picnic lunch, roughly 6 hours of theater! Sheer bliss though.

In the primary play, the 'Superman' (a concept borrowed from Nietzsche) is any man or woman brought fully to life by an idea, ideal, vision or purpose. This gives us the courage to move beyond the strictures of our own society. We then begin to hear the 'different drumbeat' that Thoreau so marvelously exhorted us to march to.

We may watch MAN AND SUPERMAN as a critique of the prudishness of English society in that time. But that would be to miss its larger challenge. All societies have their mores and norms, all have their 'paradigm prisons'. By cultivating the gift of 'impudence' or 'creative audacity' (as opposed to 'empty rebelliousness), we begin to carve out the the 'superman' or 'superwoman' inside all of us, by inventing a purposeful 'freedom' of thought, feeling and action.

In the 'play within a play', Don Juan debates the Devil. The concept of Hell and Heaven here is of two realms that are separated by the ultimate gulf...a different way of thinking and feeling. Heaven is as much a 'reality' as a 'state of mind'. Heaven is the home of 'the masters of reality'. As Shaw says, 'To be in Hell is to drift, to be in Heaven is to steer.' Hell is about unreality, self-delusion, indulgence, when they become ends unto themselves.

Finally MAN AND SUPERMAN argues that humans are cowards until emboldened by an IDEAL, an IDEA, something larger than themselves. Then we become heroes, missionaries, artists, warriors, pioneers. It argues that the 'life force' wants us to evolve, to reach the 'next stage' of our evolution. And this next stage is very likely not physical, but mental, emotional, spiritual and possibly moral. As one reviewer said the play is remarkable in that it is as funny as it is wise. Excellent audio readings of the play are available. I cannot recommend its ideas and debates strongly enough. ENJOY!

Among the plays we reveled in, in Stratford, was a wonderful British farce, NOISES OFF! The film version with Michael Caine is also a treat. Act one shows a troupe putting on a play. Act two shows us a later show, but with the pandemonium that happens 'behind the scenes' as the relationships unravel. Act three shows us the same scene put on weeks later, as the backstage deterioration renders the performance both farcical and comically pathetic.

NOISES OFF! is by Michael Frayn, a student of philosophy from Cambridge, translator of numerous Checkov plays into English, and celebrated as the writer of COPENHAGEN (a wonderful award-winning play about the meeting between Niels Bohr and Heisenberg). It seems odd that a man of these intellectual interests would be so accomplished a comedy writer. While he fascinates with this broad array of gifts, Michael Frayn is also making a more serious point with his farce.

Namely, our 'frontstage' selves are what we contrive, project and portray. It is how we would like to be seen and known. The 'act two' backstage pandemonium is sometimes what our 'backstage' selves are like, with our inner demons, vanities, inconsistencies and conflicts. And when we don't integrate the two, when we don't work through the chaos and challenges that lie behind our 'masks', then what often happens is the 'breakdown' or 'collapse' of the ruinous portrayal parodied in Frayn's act three of NOISES OFF!

'Integrity' comes from 'integration', which is about becoming 'whole'. We have to make room for our 'shadow', and learn to let light and dark collaborate to make who we are truer, richer, stronger, and more CAPABLE. Then the farce can become an exciting and inspiring drama and LIFE then GLOWS!

May you have an exciting month of leadership, transformation, comedy and integration!

Yours in possibility,

Omar Khan and the Sensei International Team

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