Becoming a Mature Leader

Last week we discussed the importance of knowing yourself, getting out of your comfort zone and learning new skills, willingly accepting responsibility, and delivering more than is expected of you if you want to begin the process of becoming a leader. I want to once again emphasize the word process as it relates to becoming and to being a leader. Leadership is not a destination one reaches at a certain point in one’s career. To committed leaders who are dedicated to excellence it is a constant journey of learning and experience, of stretching one’s self and of relating to others.

This week we’re going to take a look at moving to the next level—becoming a mature leader. What are some key traits of mature leadership? Is there a rite-of-passage? What role do others play in creating a seasoned leader? Let’s go back to our panel of experts for some answers. (For brief biographies of our panel of experts please refer to column XLIII, which can be found at: http://ihned.cz/index.php?p=0019J0.)

With characteristic insight, and evoking the memory of world-class leaders such as Winston Churchill and Vaclav Havel, Senator Schwarzenberg begins our discussion of becoming a seasoned leader with this gem: “You have to have the courage to be unpopular and the character to be honest.” Why? One good reason is this: you can’t be a leader unless people are willing to follow you. People willingly follow those whom they trust and believe in. “Mature leaders realize that they need to compete for the best people, and they must create an environment that attracts and retains those people,” according to Ron Gerevas, “A key component of this environment is building a reputation based upon your daily actions of being trustworthy, honest and caring.”

Many of the leaders I have worked with over the years have mentioned something that they felt was very important to their development, and our group of experts, too, is in agreement on this point. It may even be looked at as a rite-of-passage by some. What is it? In a word: failure. Yes, failure is an important part of success. Dr. Meyer: “Some say that to be a successful entrepreneur you must experience at least one failure. There are some very fundamental reasons for this: If you haven’t experienced a failure and managed yourself through it successfully, chances are you will fall apart when a crisis comes your way later on in your career. Another reason is explained by Ron Gerevas, “You can learn so much from mistakes because they hurt so much, they get your attention and force an intelligent person to ask themselves, ‘What happened?’, and to modify your actions accordingly. They also teach us about our ‘humaness’. Some leaders get so carried away with themselves that they need to be reminded they are human. This experience can also teach a leader a lot about tolerance of others and their mistakes.”

Tomas Sabatka adds his own take on this: “Failures are extremely important to a leader’s development. Facing and dealing with a failure builds confidence and gives one courage to face other challenges in life. Let’s face it, if you can’t manage yourself through something like this, how will you manage others through it when the time comes?” He also concurs that failure can bring out more of a sense of tolerance and acceptance for others’ idiosyncrasies. The real message here is this: Expect to make mistakes, but learn from them.

Another key area of agreement among our experts is the need for a mentor in growing as a leader. Senator Schwarzenberg: “I am what I would call an observer of people. Since my youth I have watched leaders whom I respected and I have tried to emulate them.” This is an important insight because it points out that by merely observing people we can learn from them if we are observant and want to learn—we don’t have to personally know people, or to interact with them in order to learn from them.

Our panel members also talked about the importance of finding mentors in a corporate environment with whom you could interact on a one-on-one basis. These are people who give us objective feedback as to what specific skills we should be working on in our current environment. They are the ones who show us things like how to run a meeting or how to polish our presentation skills for example. Just as we would seek out a teacher if we wanted to learn to play golf or tennis, we should seek out teachers, or mentors, to help learn to become seasoned leaders.

Next week, in the final installment of this series, we will look at the moral aspects of leadership.

Good luck on your way up!