Marcus Buckingham & My Legendary Leadership Secrets

A few days ago my assistant sent me an email message making me aware of an upcoming Oprah show. Though I am a fan of Oprah, I hardly ever have a chance to see her show when it airs. For many reasons we record it and hope to find the time to watch it at a later time. In this particular case we made time that same night. Donna said it was about a guy doing a lot of the things we are doing and suggesting in our Legendary Leadership Program.

The show featured Marcus Buckingham, one of the rising stars in business and leadership coaching/consulting. He basically made it his mission to teach people to find their strength and then act on it. Those who have a hard time taking action should get a coach to help in the process. Marcus has written a number of successful books explaining in detail how his philosophy works

Why am I telling you this? Well, it all starts with a statistic revealed recently, which showed that 84% of people in the United States hate or dislike their job. That’s a lot of frustration, unhappiness, and flat out hatred.

Are you one of the 84% who dread going to your job in the morning or attending another meeting you know won’t solve anything?

Are you one of the people who entered a profession full of hope, enthusiasm, high flying plans, etc. and wonder what happened to them?

Have you sacrificed untold hours trying to complete projects the boss ordered, covering for your team, or just following rules and procedures you know are antiquated?

Do you feel that things should and could be so much better, but don’t know how to start the change process?

Does all of this frustration make you grumpy and irritable? Do you take your moods home after work and catch yourself transferring what happened at work onto your spouse and children?

These are all indications that you are influenced and made to do things you don’t like, aren’t really good at, and don’t believe in. Marcus Buckingham would say: “You are not playing to your strength!” – and I agree…

Question is: How did this happen? –and more importantly, What can you do about it?

I have been in a situation like this some years ago. I had a leadership role and a great team of folks working for and with me. We had big goals and the ability to reach them. I saw my main role in providing the guidance for the team towards a better, brighter future, and the individual supervisors where trying to manage the team members by using their strengths to achieve the best possible results in the quickest way.

That sounds pretty perfect, doesn’t it? In reality, the more we were beginning to accomplish our goals the more we were hampered by the leaders and owners of the company. Instead of providing support and resources, they installed more and more meetings, more and more measures to make sure we stayed in budget, and impacted our ability to be flexible and creative.

Initially I tried to intervene by myself. When that didn’t work, I asked for the other directors to help. Ultimately we held a directors summit and came up with a plan to save the organization, allow for its strength to prevail and reach the better future we were all craving. Happy ending here we come – or so we thought…

Instead of taking our suggestions, the owners and leaders of the organization decided that our initiative was undermining their standing. They decided not to take any action. As you know, leadership has a lot to do with trust, honesty and integrity. We, as the directors, wanted to take a step towards the better future, but we also knew that we would have to be able to live with the consequences, if denied. We were absolutely sure that we needed to apply our strength and no longer be forced to operate from a source of weakness.

Consequently, when our pleadings fell on deaf ears, half of the directors, myself included, resigned. Needless to say that the company only took 6 more months to file for bankruptcy – and I am glad to say that all the employees found new jobs quickly, applying their strength for new employers.

We shouldn’t have to let things come to that kind of a pinnacle.

That’s why it is so important to make the distinction between management and leadership and learn what legendary leaders do to be admired and help their people and organizations to succeed.

As I have said and written several times in the past, management is the execution of the goals and vision of the organization by identifying the strengths of the team members and putting them to good use. In this way the managers’ task is to ask the right questions to learn what people are really good and excited about, and then provide them with the resources to put these abilities to use towards the strategic goals of the organization.

In contrast, legendary leaders provide guidance, visionary ideas, ambitious strategies, and a clear picture of the future. It’s more like telling a story about how great things will be like when this future is achieved. This story is exciting for the followers, it’s energizing and motivating, and allows them to see themselves in it. The story shows the big picture, combined with a positive outlook.

I am pretty sure Marcus Buckingham would agree with my assertion that the path we still use in most organizations to reach leadership positions isn’t really sensible. For individuals showing early leadership potential, they get put into management roles, even though they may not be good at identifying people’s strength and weaknesses, and apply them as best possible.

At the same time we use the success of managers as a performance measurement and qualifier for leadership positions. Someone who was able to create and maintain successful teams who are motivated to work, achieve goals, reach targets, numbers, and deadlines, does not necessarily have the qualities required to be a great, or even legendary leader.

What we should do is identifying the strength and abilities of individuals and help them hone these skills. As they progress it will become obvious if they are management or leadership material, in rare cases maybe even both.

If you are a leader, distinctly identify your role, provide clarity to your people, show them and tell them the story of the better future you envision, and invite them to come along on the journey. Should you encounter a hard time finding the right words or take action along this path, get a coach and use him or her as a guide with an outside perspective to help you. My team and I at AMC are happy to help you.

If you are a manager, ask yourself if you know the strengths of your team members. If not, develop a process to find out by asking positive questions like: “What was the best day at work in the last few months, and what made it so great?”

There is much more to learn about applying strength and legendary leadership. I will try to explore and reveal more in future articles. For now, make sure that you don’t focus on the things that don’t work well, or mistakes someone made, but on the things that did go well, and how to strengthen the strength of those around you.

If you are interested to learn more and like to find out about the secrets of Legendary Leadership I am teaching my clients, feel free to comment or contact me at AM@Meierhoefer.net

Axel Meierhoefer, AMC LLC