The Impact of a Great Leader?

It's Sunday, been watching all the morning news shows discussing Newt Gingrich's big victory in South Carolina and learned of the death of Joe Paterno, the legendary coach at Penn State. So I decided to take a break from pension investments to discuss what makes a great leader.

Patrick Alain of Industry leaders Magazine reports, The Impact of a Good Leader and Good Leadership in Society:

When people talk about leadership, they mostly want to learn how to be good leaders at work. leadership in the corporate context is one of the hottest topics in the world, and everyone wants to learn how to become a billionaire and be the best possible boss. However, leadership is not just limited to the work frontier, it extends to all of society. In fact, leadership began as a societal phenomenon much before it evolved into a professional one. In fact, many of the present-day leadership qualities that corporate and professional leaders aspire to are based on the social and political leaders of the yesteryears.

Human beings are social animals and living together in large groups naturally meant that people needed to adopt different roles and accomplish different groups. In order to give structure to society and help society grow and develop, people were naturally divided into leaders and followers. The leaders paved the way and moved from one frontier to another, directing the others, while the followers completed the tasks assigned to them and helped bring the changes about.

Understanding the role and impact of good leadership in society makes for an interesting study. While it’s easy to break down the effects of leadership in the work environment into small, easily identifiable structures, analyzing how positive leadership affects society is somewhat complex. Society is a multi-phenomena structure, with a myriad of social forces, elements and factors at play all the time. Society is not limited to a few defined goals, and hence, leadership in society is a vast, and often intangible, phenomenon.

Leadership For Adopting Social Change

Leadership is instrumental to achieving social change. All through history, whether it was for abolishing social norms, overcoming social evils or modernizing history, social change has been impossible without the right kind of leadership. When it comes to mobilizing the masses, igniting passion in people towards a common goal and motivating people to act towards the said common goal, it isn’t possible to unite the people and inspire action without leadership. One person has to spear the movement, and he may not professionally be a leader, and does not have to be a political leader, but he should have the charisma to inspire people and motivate them. A great example from recent times would be that of Anna Hazare, and Indian citizen who inflamed thousands of Indians against the injustices of the Indian political system and the rampant corruption in society and politics and launched one of the biggest civil movements Asia has seen in a long time. In terms of social change, the leader is the face of the movement as well as the backbone of it, while the people form the heart and soul.

Leadership For A Positive And Content Society

It is interesting to note that one person or a small group of people has the power to influence how millions feel. A society that is bereft of competent leaders is invariably thrown into dissatisfaction at a small scale and turmoil and anarchy at a larger scale. A leader who is good at what he does, is able to keep people motivated and inspired, works for the greater good of society and not just his own personal gains, and is able to respect his people will be successful in creating a positive and happy society. When people have faith in their leader and feel that they are taken care of, be it economically or socially or politically, they are in a better frame of mind on the whole. Good leadership creates a happy society, and a happy society can build a strong nation!

Leadership For Improved Professional Performance

It is quite remarkable that even when leadership is effective in the social, not corporate, context, it has an impact on people’s professional lives. When a society is led by a powerful, positive and forward-thinking leader, one of the main areas of focus is people’s professional development. It goes without saying the professional progress is required for economic growth and no society can do well without financial stability. Hence, good leaders are those that take all factors into consideration, even if their role is ostensibly limited to one niche. A positive leader will always be mindful of the fact that people need to be achieving something in their professional capacities in order to lead the society forward, and hence the leader will emphasize the importance of education, picking the right career, working hard and focusing on performance.

Leadership For A Strengthened Identity

Most people fail to appreciate how a common leader is often the face of the society and a symbol for it. When people elect a leader they are proud of, or they are placed under the care of a leader who does a good job, there is a sense of pride and identification with the individual that also ties the society together. An effective leader is one that people of the society are happy to call their own, and in turn, the leader ends up bringing the society together and giving them a common, positive identity that the people are all happy to have. Societies are often remembered by their remarkable leaders and not the people, and it is a unique social phenomenon that one man or woman can not only shape the future of several people but can also make them feel closer to one another and strengthen their bonds with each other and with a common identity by virtue of being an effective leader.

Sara Jacobi of the Wakefield Patch reports, Three Tips for Great Leaders from Laura Sen, CEO of BJ's Wholesale Clubs:

Laura Sen, a Wakefield native who has gone on to become the chief executive officer of BJ's Wholesale Club, returned to town on Jan. 18 to speak to the Chamber of Commerce about the qualities of successful leaders.

The most important factor of what makes a great leader is the individual's underlying set of values, according to Laura Sen, president and chief executive officer of BJ's Wholesale Club, Inc., a Wakefield native who returned to town on January 18 to speak to the members of the Wakefield Chamber of Commerce.

Sen, who grew up in town has spent the last three decades working in, managing and leading the retail business, and has served as CEO at BJ's since 2009. She got her start working for Jordan Marsh, and continued on to the Zayre Corportation in Natick.

Throughout her distinguished career, Sen has had the opportunity to learn and grow as a leader, and has fine-tuned her own personal approach to leadership. She said she doesn't just look to businesses and business leaders, but also to sports and coaches.

She said one of the stories she's most inspired by is how Tony Dungee, coach of the Indianapolis Colts, reportedly scouted his players. Sen told how Dungee first employed all the regular means, including stats, performance, history, etc. But he also wanted a way to determine the player's underlying character as a person. He asked an unlikely scout: the equipment guy.

"This says, what's most important isn't your uniform or your number, but what's on the inside," Sen said.

It's this focus on personal character and values that Sen says most influences her leadership style.

1. Establish a set of values: Sen said that although strategic plans and financial plans and all kinds of other business plans are important, the most important plan that seeks to inform all others should be a set of values.

"At BJ's, our values are permanent, and we use them to hire the right people, to make decisions, to steer our personal conduct and to create value every day," Sen said.

Those values are to respect others, speak with truth and candor, act with integrity, to succeed as a team, to impress members with great service, to embrace diversity, and to give back to the community.

2. Stand by the values: "I would argue these values are what we've all been taught by our teachers, coaches and parents, but unless you hold them up on a regular basis, things get in the way," she said. "We remind people that there's no business decision that will take priority, and that we will not win without insisting on both."

Sen mentioned she's been in situations where she's had highly skilled people in specialized areas that she's had to part company with along the way due to conflicts over values.

"You just have to say, sorry, I'll find somebody who can produce the results I want, and also buy into the set of values," she said. "If everyone else looks at me as someone who is supporting somebody who is not the right type of person, it's just a bad apple situation."

3. Succeed as a team - Sen said when she was faced with some underperforming stores, she brought the issue before the entire team.

"It's much better for ten brains to work on something than for one to have all the answers," she said.

The idea everyone came up with was to implement a buddy system, to pair underperforming stores with successful stores, and allow them to work together and advocate for one another.

"Those buddy clubs turned around and outperformed the company in sales and growth and never looked back," she said.

Sen said what she loves most about leadership is the opportunity for it each and every day.

"There's an opportunity to lead every day by example," she said. "And yes, the equipment guy is watching."

I like what Laura Sen says about values and hiring the right people. I've seen firsthand the positive effects of hiring the right people and the destructive effects of hiring the wrong people.

In running a pension fund, an investment fund, a corporation, or any organization, it's crucial to have the right leadership and to have the right people around at leadership roles. The worst thing you can do is place someone in a position of power who will rot your organization from the inside out.

It doesn't matter if this person is a great "individual achiever," an asshole is an asshole, and if you place them in a leadership role, you will suffer the consequences. It will totally demoralize and demotivate your employees, sucking away all the positive energy, and severely impact the culture and performance of your organization. I write this because I've seen enough assholes being placed in positions of power and watched organizations suffer huge losses and employees being totally demoralized and demotivated.

How do you recognize a weasel in a position of power? Easy, they take all the glory when things go right and look for scapegoats when things go terribly wrong. They never own up to their mistakes.

When you're running an organization, you have to evaluate your leaders properly and ask a lot of hard questions, not just whether this person is a good performer, but is he or she a good leader, mentor, someone who owns their decisions and motivates their team to come into work and rise to the challenge.

Sadly, in my experience, very few leaders are able to do this properly and consistently. The very same people that have given me the best opportunities in my professional career are also the same individuals who disappointed me the most. They were unable to see past my personal flaws/ circumstances and understand my strengths, building on them to bolster their team and organization.

A true leader will recognize the value of someone who is fearless in making a call and willing to stick their neck out. A real leader doesn't want someone who only praises them, but wants and needs to be challenged. That is my idea of loyalty and that is my idea of what makes a great investment analyst and a valuable employee.

At this point of my life, I should have been the CIO of a major pension fund. Instead, I lost years of great income, great benefits because those leading me failed to take me under the wings and groom me to the position they knew I was more than capable of doing.

Very few senior investment analysts have been exposed to public and private markets in the pension industry. Very few understand the big picture. None of them would ever have the balls and brains to start a blog from nothing and bring it up to a financial blog that has now been read by almost a million people around the world.

But while I enjoy trading and blogging on markets and pensions, it's not providing me with a steady income. I need a job and most importantly, need to interact with others. I am calling upon leaders from my past and present to step up to the plate and help me. You do not need to see my resume. This blog is my resume. Don't worry about my health or attitude; see it as an asset, not a liability.

I have no regrets in my life. We all have different life paths. I've made my share of mistakes and been subjected to my share of gross injustice, but I am not angry or bitter about the past. I am disappointed with certain individuals because they failed to understand my frustration and why I acted a certain way. Empathy is one of the most important leadership qualities and they don't teach you that in business school. It's either in you or it isn't.

Above all, great leaders are great motivators. No matter how difficult my circumstances are, every day I try to read inspiring stories of others to motivate me and stay positive. Last night, I tweeted on a Sudbury lady, Rachel Proulx, who despite battling MS, is still active in the cause to end violence against women. I also shared the story of Kevan Brininger, who is is not letting his MS stop him from participating in an Arizona Marathon. And shared the stories of Sandy Henson Corso who went on a raw vegan diet to tackle her MS and how MS sufferers are praising the new controversial angioplasty therapy for MS (I know I feel much better after undergoing the Liberation treatment last year and look forward to seeing the results of clinical trials).

All these stories motivate me and make me realize how lucky I am to be able to walk and live a relatively normal life despite battling MS for over 14 years. Sometimes I get down. It's only normal, but I get back on to climbing the mountain and try to focus my energy on positive things.

And when I need inspiration, I find it. This past week, I felt a little down and under the weather and watched a movie called Soul Surfer, the inspiring true story of teen surfer Bethany Hamilton, who lost her arm in a shark attack and courageously overcame all odds to become a champion again, through the love of her family, her sheer determination and unwavering faith. I was also touched by the tragic death of Canadian freeskier Sarah Burke, who was too young, too smart to go that way. As tragic as her death is, she lived her dream and her life is inspiring.

Below, watch the final scene of Soul Surfer and some clips on Bethany Hamilton and Sarah Burke. And on a day where we learn of the death of a great football coach, take the time to listen to listen to Vince Lombardi, one of the greatest football coaches of all time. In his famous keynote speech, he laid out the principles that brought him to greatness.

Remember, life is short. Stop focusing on what you don't have and be grateful for what you have. And great leaders need to motivate us into believing in ourselves and the common good, rising above our expectations and playing our part in making this a better world.