Human link is the secret of engagement
With a career spent at the sharp end of the executive search industry, Pepper de Callier knows more than most about what makes a good leader.
The founder of the Prague Leadership Institute and a founding member of the Supervisory Board of Aspen Institute Prague, he was a partner in two major United States-based executive search agencies.
Prague-based De Callier is also an author, having penned two Common Sense Wisdom volumes about career development. Additionally, he runs workshops on leadership.
The 67-year-old believes forming an "emotional" connection with staff is the best way to engage them in the workplace, calling this "the human element of leadership."
The Prague Post sat down with De Callier at his institute in Prague 1 to discuss what makes a good leader.
The Prague Post: What can be done to improve efficiency?
Pepper de Callier: There was an astonishing study done by the Gallup organization in 2010 that discovered almost 70 percent of the global work force was either passively or actively disengaged. That means the global economy is currently working on about 30 percent efficiency. I talk to organizations about engagement. In my opinion, the best way to engage your employees is to establish a human link. It doesn't matter whether that is one person or 1,000 people; it is the only way to make your work force perform.
TPP: In your book Common Sense Wisdom, you mention that important decisions are not made by logic, but by emotion. How do leaders engage their staff through emotion?
PC: Chris Graves, the global chairman of Ogilvy PR, used high-tech machinery to identify the part of the brain that is used when making life-altering decisions, which he discovered was with the part usually used for emotion. Because we are very logical beings we always look to the data to make sense of our decisions. The reason I like this study is because so many of the people I work with have an alpha type personality. I myself am a recovering alpha. These "alphas" are typically very driven and pragmatic in their thinking. The hardest thing I have to do with these individuals is to reach them on an intellectual level. If I can show them that a linear approach isn't necessarily the best approach, using scientific facts, and that emotional engagement is, then it becomes very easy for them to change their methods.
TPP: How does power affect people in a position of authority?
PC: Robert Sutton at Stanford University has done some very interesting studies on the topic. He wrote a book called The No Asshole Rule, which some companies still give to every new employee. What he found was that as people are promoted they begin to disassociate themselves from their staff. He found that they become less caring of social norms, and their negative attitudes actually trickle down into the organization. As you gain power, you also run the risk of falling into a trap psychologists call the "self-enhancement bias." It is a great phrase for people who have a skewed vision of who they really are.
TPP: Can you describe the common mistakes made by leaders today?
PC: I once had a chairman send me a CEO he had fired. He wanted to know if I could help him. The first thing I asked was: "Why do you think you were fired?" He told me it was due to a difference in strategy. Thirty minutes later I asked again, hoping that this time he might be willing to talk. At first, I thought he was going to leap over the table and attack me, but instead he told me the truth. He said the chairman had invited him into his office and said: "No one in our company knows our products better than you. No one here is as smart as you. And no one understands our competitive threats as well as you. But sadly no one cares anymore because no one wants to be in the same room as you. You're fired." I asked the CEO what he thought he had done wrong. He said: "I should have spent more time with that chairman to convince him how great I was rather than with those idiots who worked for me." I called the chairman back and told him that he was not ready to work with me. You see, some people just have to hit a wall, burst into flames and then fall to the floor screaming before they are ready for help. He had not hit the wall yet.
TPP: What characterizes a good leader, and does everyone have the potential to become a leader?
PC: It's the chicken-and-egg question. Are leaders born or are they made? In short, the data shows that leaders are made by themselves rather than external forces. Leaders, in my opinion, are made by resilience. If you go back to the age of alchemists, when the ancient mystics tried to make gold by melting base metals, they used crucibles for their experiments. A crucible is a vessel that withstands a great deal of pressure and heat. As humans pass through their own crucibles some do not make it out alive. Others drag their crucibles behind them. Good leaders are the ones that look at their personal failures and see them as a stepping stone to success.
