0. What People Want From Their Leaders
Barry Z. Posner
Dean and Professor of Leadership
Santa Clara University

1. Everything else requires leadership.”
“Only three things happen naturally in organizations: friction, confusion, and underperformance.     
Everything else
requires leadership.”
Peter Drucker

2. feels something like this: Scary Exciting Painful Liberating
“…today’s revolution
feels something like this:
Scary Exciting
Painful Liberating
Disorienting Exhilarating
Frustrating Empowering
Confusing Fulfilling
and Challenging.
In other words, it feels very much like chaos.”
John Huey

4. “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.”
Charles Darwin

5. “Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up.
It knows it must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed.
Every morning a lion wakes up.
It knows it must outrun the slowest gazelle or it will starve to death.
It doesn’t matter whether
you are the lion or the gazelle.
When the sun comes up,
you better start running.”
Thomas Friedman

6. How do you know that someone is a leader?
What is the
simplest definition
of a leader?
----
How do you know that someone is a leader?

7. Leadership is a relationship
Idea #1
Leadership is a relationship

8. The most critical success factor for the top
three jobs in organizations?
“Relationships with subordinates”
Center for Creative Leadership

9. They quit their managers!
People don’t quit
their companies.
They quit their managers!

10. Spherion & Lou Harris Associates
Supervisor’s Rating
Likeliness to Leave
Excellent %
Poor
40%
Spherion & Lou Harris Associates

11. What do you look for and admire in a leader, someone whose direction you would
willingly follow?

12. Person willingly followed must be:
__Ambitious
__Broad-minded
__Caring
__Competent
__Cooperative
__Courageous
__Dependable
__Determined
__Fair-minded
__Forward-looking
__Honest
__Imaginative
__Independent
__Inspiring
__Intelligent
__Loyal
__Mature
__Self-controlled
__Straightforward
__Supportive

13. ____ Ambitious (aspiring, hard-working, striving)
____ Broad-minded (open-minded, flexible, receptive, tolerant)
____ Caring (appreciative, compassionate, concerned)
____ Competent (capable, proficient, effective)
____ Cooperative (collaborative, team player, responsive)
____ Courageous (bold, daring, gutsy)
____ Dependable (reliable, conscientious, responsible)
____ Determined (dedicated, resolute, persistent)
____ Fair-minded (just, unprejudiced, objective, forgiving)
____ Forward-looking (visionary, foresighted, has direction, future)
____ Honest (truthful, has integrity, trustworthy, has character)
____ Imaginative (creative, innovative)
____ Independent (self-reliant, self-sufficient, self-confident)
____ Inspiring (uplifting, enthusiastic, energetic, positive)
____ Intelligent (bright, smart, logical, thoughtful)
____ Loyal (faithful, dutiful, devoted)
____ Mature (experienced, wise, deep)
____ Self-controlled (restrained, self-disciplined)
____ Straightforward (direct, candid, forthright)
____ Supportive (helpful, offers assistance, comforting)

14. Person willingly followed must be:
16% Ambitious
35% Broad-minded
22% Caring
68% Competent
25% Cooperative
25% Courageous
25% Dependable
13% Determined
39% Fair-minded
71% Forward-looking
89% Honest
17% Imaginative
4% Independent
69% Inspiring
48% Intelligent
18% Loyal
15% Mature
10% Self-controlled
36% Straightforward
35% Supportive

15. People Most Expect Their Leaders To Be:
Honest
Competent
Inspiring
Forward-Looking

16. Components of Credibility
Trustworthiness
Expertise
Dynamism

17. = CREDIBILITY LEADERS Trustworthiness Honest Competent Expertise
Inspiring
Forward-Looking
= CREDIBILITY
Trustworthiness
Expertise
Dynamism

18. Credibility is the foundation of leadership
Idea #2
Credibility is the foundation of leadership

19. Benefits of High Credibility: People Feel…
Loyal and committed
Internally motivated
Proud of organization
Empowered

20. Costs of Low Credibility: People feel…
Uncommitted
Financially motivated
Inclined to leave
Afraid and unsupported

21. What does leadership look like. Just what is credibility behaviorally
What does leadership look like? Just what is credibility behaviorally? We know that someone is credible because they (“fill in the blank”)

22. Do What You Say You Will Do
Idea #3
Leaders
DWYSYWD
Do What You Say You Will Do

23. “I couldn’t ask anyone else to make a commitment, until I knew in my heart that I was willing to make that same commitment myself.”
Mary Godwin

24. Air Force Academy cadets who described their officers as “role models” had significantly higher levels of academic, military, and athletic performance.
William Clover

25. Everybody wants to go to heaven……
But nobody
wants to die first.

27. “Hotels where employees strongly believed their managers followed through on promises and demonstrated the values they preached were substantially more profitable than those whose managers scored average or lower.” Tony Simons

28. Lessons for Leaders 1. Create Relationships 2. Build Credibility
3. DWYSYWD

29. First Law of Leadership
“If we don’t believe
in the messenger,
we won’t believe
the message.”
Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner

30. However….. We can’t believe in the messenger if we don’t know what the
messenger believes.

31. Therefore….. YOU can’t be the messenger until YOU are clear about what
YOU believe.

32. “Zoe”

33. What People Want From Their Leaders
Barry Z. Posner
Dean and Professor of Leadership
Santa Clara University

34. What People Want From Their Leaders… or Why Would Anyone Follow You?
Prepared for
ACCCA Annual Conference
© 2008 Barry Z. Posner. All rights reserved. Please do not reproduce without express written permission.