What do all great leaders have in common | Matt Beeton | TEDxOxbridge

according to recent research 80% of leaders today fail to impress in the first two years of their leadership roles 70% admit to be an incredibly stressed over 70% admit to not enjoying the job and gone are the days when we used to have a job for life today people stay in a job for four years and within the Millennials that's only three years when I saw those statistics I was terrified I'm in the middle of my career but that doesn't mean that great leadership isn't around us it's all around us so I've been writing a book about leadership about emotional intelligence trying to find what the common denominator the X Factor of great leadership is and I did I started this a couple of years ago and I started where everybody starts researching that's on Google and I typed in great leadership and these are some of the faces that came up on the very first page of Google couple of observations firstly you'll know them all probably secondly if I'd have given you an intelligent audience the opportunity to think of a category or a heading where you could sandwich Captain Kirk between mother Teresa and Martin Luther King I bet you couldn't have done it but there he is so excuse me so these are all the people that we that we know and love I've got twin boys nine years of age and I asked them in the kitchen the other week who do you think is a great leader and all of us had Barack Obama he's nine years of age and he picked probably one of the most influential leaders of our time William pick me 50 pages are searched in Google couldn't find a single picture of me anywhere but I take take solace in the fact that they're twins you know they're pretty similar and follow us so right William can't be so wrong but great leadership isn't reserved for those famous people that we see here you know you'll all know great leaders I've been privileged enough to work for a couple of great leaders I've got friends and peers and some of those are great leaders have had a great leader whose work for me so what is the the x-factor of great leadership well according to the research I've done I'll tell you what it's not contrary to popular belief great leadership isn't IQ it's an entry point it certainly helps but it's not IQ I know some really clever people have failed in a number of leadership positions it's not privileged some of those people weren't born into money privilege they weren't born into educational privilege it's not job title as nice as it is to have CEO or chairman next year named job titles actually listed as one of the top ten reasons why leaders fail because they rely on that title for respect so within my research I've been looking for the common denominator and how do we categorize that emotional intelligence and it's frustrating because it's been stigmatized for so long it's wooly it's a black art it's soft management you can't measure it well maybe you can't measure it and just because it's emotion doesn't mean it's not important some of the most significant events on earth happen because of emotion so what I'd like to do today is pick three of those common denominators just three and offer it to you as an audience of pointers three pointers for great leadership and I'll start with people now people covers a whole spectrum of stuff but what I'd like to do is concentrate on connection every leader needs a connection with people but if you need a connection with people you have to have a connection with yourself you have to know yourself fully self reflection is one of the cornerstones of great leadership understanding yourself knowing what makes you happy what makes you sad what makes you motivated what gives you those negative feelings that sometimes have a negative output the self-reflections nothing without self-regulation if you can't regulate your your response when your emotions tell you something else well then we have a problem so self-regulation is essential everybody's got an ego the great leaders that you saw there all have a pretty small ego with the exception of Captain Kirk who has a shoot ironically the size of a planet actually but everybody's got an ego I've got an ego you all in this room have an ego and sometimes it's essential to take a tactical bruise on the ego for the betterment of an organization so that's self reflection self regulation and then we have to look at self perception your perception of yourself has to be as close to other people's reality as possible if you think you're great and open and honest and your team don't or then you've got a disconnect and you've got a problem if you think you're really shy and you don't really say what you want to say but your team think that you are quite outspoken you've got a disconnect in your problem your perception of yourself has to be as close to other people's reality as possible so we're working those three things and it's a never-ending journey you'll never master it you know it's something that you'll carry on and on doing and then you have to create a safe environment and I'm not talking safe in the traditional sense hard hat and boots I'm talking about creating a climate where people are able to say and do what they need to say and do but the leaders that's terrifying because it means feedback now we all know that feedbacks a gift but if we're honest with ourselves it also hurts but it's essential in great leadership you also need to create this climate to share ideas no leader should think that there is no exhaustive list of ideas because nobody is create this climate this open climate if you can concentrate on those three things have an open climate then you have every chance of connection with connection comes creativity and nothing amazing happens in this earth without creativity so that's people second vision Nelson band Nelson Mandela said action without vision is passing time vision without actions daydreaming but vision and action can change the world and that's a Mandela changed the world if you want your company to drive if you want your sports team to drive if you want your performing arts center to drive you have to give them a destination because driving without a destination means you just get lost so give a vision make it compelling make it out there make it exciting make it challenging it can't be easy if it was easy chances are people have already done it put it out there design some stops and celebrations along the way because it's hard to stay motivated for what might be three four or five years what a vision isn't is meet your end of year results your revenue and EBIT darin cash it's not be Everton on a Wednesday night it's not Dancy socks off in a matinee on a Saturday they may may be all essential things that you need in order to reach your vision but that's not a vision your vision needs to be compelling and when you have a vision I always say to companies draw it there's no secret as to why in a company Christmas quiz you'll always get that question right down your vision and mission and everybody's going on I wish bill was here is revised that for three years it's probably just about nailed it nobody remembers strings of words so write it down draw draw where you are today draw where you want to be tomorrow draw the path of how to get there frame it put it on the office wall or the Sports Center or your dance studio everybody will know what the vision is it might verbalize it differently but they'll know what it is I forget my birthday every year but I can draw you a picture I saw ten years ago so that's people vision final one passion a leader without passion and enthusiasm lacks credibility you don't believe them and we've all seen them they stand there in front of the board and they say I'm very passionate about this you think don't feel like it feels like you're lying to me give people that passion and there's the thing passion and enthusiasm is an emotion like every other emotion when you see somebody laughing on TV you want to laugh with them when you watch Titanic and you see that guy sing can he drowns you want to cry those films are designed to play on your emotion give people emotion Martin Luther King didn't say we've got the people who'll get us to the promised land you didn't say it like that he belted it out and talked about films being designed to trigger the emotion Braveheart he didn't say it can take a large but they won't take a freedom he shouted it and everybody shouted with him and when you are watching it you were compelled even Kylie Minogue belted out I should be so lucky lucky lucky lucky we all felt lucky and final thought on passion and it comes from a mindset these leaders that you know the leaders up there all do strategic mental rehearsal they've all imagined reaching the goal in the mind they've probably done it 10 or 20 times they've imagined the steps on the way that tasted it they felt it research suggests people who do SM are are more likely to achieve their goals you see sports people do it I was talking to Duncan good.you he did it before his gold medal I am I flew into an airfield about six months ago with my uncle and I was sitting there having a cup of tea as you do when you British and and there was an air display going on and there was this guy he was probably sixty experience pilot one piece flight suit and he closed his eyes he didn't know we were watching he put his arms out closed his eyes he started to move he started to do this with his hands altering the throttle moving the yoke he was rehearsing it was fat it was honestly fascinating to watch and I went up to him and I said you know we are you doing the display a reflection a crazy thing to ask a guy in a juanzi pretended to be a plane with his arms out but when we got over that he said yeah and I said do you do that often he said I can't fly I can't do a display unless I rehearse it in my mind he's probably them those moves 20 times before in the air but he can't do a display unless he's rehearsed it and that's where he gets his drive and passion from strategic mental rehearsal so there's my three things people vision passion the great leaders that you know the great leaders up there are bold enough to be the people who they are not the people that think they ought to be on one last bit of food for thought is great leadership sat sipping point so when you start your leadership role you're developing yourself and it's necessary you're developing yourself developing yourself and then there's a tipping point to where you start developing others and you're happy developing others and you're happy giving people the glory of success and that's where you start getting motivation and that's when you start getting high-performance teams and getting high-performance teams is great leadership thank you very much

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 629,352

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, United Kingdom, Business, Leadership

Id: KgmKNKM0i1g

Length: 12min 22sec (742 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 05 2016