So let me start by asking you a question. Why would anybody follow you? Why would anybody pay attention to you?
Why would anybody do what you ask them to do? Why would anybody buy a product from you? Why would anybody follow you? Well, that's a question I want to try and look at for the next few moments with you. It's fundamentally a leadership issue.
Why would anybody follow you? If you look at the academic literature, leadership can be defined in hundreds of different ways, but I think a very simple way of answering the question, what is leadership, would be to ask yourself another question. question.
How would you answer this one? I would know that somebody is a leader because. I would know that somebody's a leader.
Because what? Because what? Well, again, there might be hundreds of things that you might say, but I think the easiest way to answer that question is to simply say, well, I would know that somebody's a leader because he or she has followers. There are people that are willing to do what it is that she asked them to do, to buy the product, to go in that direction, to work on it.
on overtime on this particular program. In fact, I would suggest to you that what defines leaders is that they have followers. In fact, it's hard to imagine that you can be a leader without a follower. If you look around and there's nobody there, then I suspect you're just out for a walk in the park.
You know, if leadership is defined by followers, by having followers, then the question is, why would anybody follow you? What is it then that we look for, what is it that you and I look for in people that we'd be willing to follow, people that would want to follow us? What are the personal values, traits, characteristics you would look for in someone that you would willingly follow?
Now that's an empirical question. More than 30 years ago, we asked that question to 6,000 managers across the United States. Open-ended question, what are the personal values, traits, and characteristics? You would look for in somebody that you would be willing to follow, and people told us hundreds of different things. You think about what's on your list.
We followed that study up the next year by asking several thousand people in the federal government that same question, because, well, maybe people in the federal government look for things differently than they do in the private sector. And over these last three decades, we've continued to study that question by asking tall people and short people, thick people and thin people, blue people and green people. Americans, Europeans, African-Asians, young people, old people, people in engineering or health care or the legal profession, all those things haven't made a fundamental difference in what people say they're looking for in the people that they'd be willing to follow. It's not about who you are.
It's not about where you are. It's not about what you're doing. There seem to be some...
Universal, fundamental things that we look for if we're going to follow somebody. Four seem to dominate the list, everybody's list. Think about your own list. We want to follow people who fundamentally we experience as being honest. They tell the truth.
Now, don't get me wrong, not everybody tells the truth, but you know what happens to your level of motivation when you find out that you've been lied to. It deteriorates pretty quickly. What else do we look for in people we'd be willing to follow?
We look for people who are competent. A lot of different words you could use. Competent, smart, capable, experienced, have good judgment.
How many of you want to follow somebody that's stupid? Now, you know, some of you have some personal candidates in mind here, but you can think about what happens when you don't believe that somehow you're working for somebody that really knows what they're talking about. And again, you're not as motivated to do what they ask you to do.
You don't follow through, perhaps, with as much energy as you might otherwise. We also want to follow people who are inspirational, who are energetic, who are enthusiastic, who are optimistic, who are passionate about whatever it is that they're pursuing and that they want us to pursue. I mean, how'd you like to follow somebody that was dull, tired, boring, unenergetic?
You know, that's just not what we want to do. And the fourth characteristic that we look for in people that we're willing to follow is we look for people who are forward-looking. Again, you could say it in a variety of different ways. We look for people who have a point of view, people who have a vision, have a purpose, have a sense of direction. Again, how many of you would like to follow somebody that was lost?
I have no idea where I'm going. Would you like to go with me? Well, you know, not willingly. Honest, competent, forward-looking, and inspiring.
I suspect they're on all of our lists. There may be some other things that are also important to us. But these four seem to be on everybody's lists.
They're the things we look for in people that we'd be willing to follow. And so we've got to ask ourselves, what do they mean? Taken together, social scientists call this credibility. We believe some people more than others.
Social scientists say, conceptually, we believe some people more than others. They're credible when we believe that they're trustworthy, when they have a sense of expertise in their domain, and when they're dynamic. And now that's just the other side of the coin.
Honest, trustworthy, competent, knows what you're talking about, dynamic, enthusiastic. And if you will, what's the difference between a credible individual and a leader? A credible leader is a leader who has a point of view, wants to do so, has a meaning and a purpose behind all of that.
And so, credibility is the foundation of leadership. If you want to lead others, they've got to believe that you're credible. They've got to believe that you're honest, competent, forward-looking, and inspiring. And you can ask yourself, how would people describe me?
And you can ask yourself, in my behavior and in my actions, do I demonstrate to people my honesty? Do I demonstrate to them my competency? Do I demonstrate to them my enthusiasm, my passion? Do I demonstrate for them what it is that I care about? See, what you and I need to be able to do is we, you and I need to be able to, well, Tell the truth.
We need to be clear about what's important and why it's important. And we need to be able to make sure that we act in the ways that we say, if we say this is important, we follow through with that. We need to continue to develop ourselves, our competency.
You know, competency is an asset that depreciates over time. You've got to keep filling it up. And leaders are great learners. They're always open to wonderment and always open to trying to learn more, thinking that they can get better.
Good enough never is. You've got to be willing to show your enthusiasm, to show your passion. It's hard to imagine you can sustain love for very long in an impassionate way, not taking things for granted.
Show your enthusiasm. Be willing to say, I'm excited about this. This is important.
This is significant. And you've got to be willing to take a stand. You've got to be willing to express an opinion. A credible person, a credible leader. Take a stand.
It doesn't necessarily mean that everybody's going to vote for you, but the truth of the matter is you don't need all the votes. You need to believe in this. You need to believe in this in such a way that other people will believe that you believe and will, in fact, be infected by your enthusiasm.
So here's the simple truth. The simple truth is this. People will not believe the message if they don't believe in the messenger. Thank you.