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By Roberta Holland
After a decade of teaching leadership courses at Harvard Business School, Robert Steven
Kaplan addresses the question again in his new book, What You Really Need to Lead. His answer: an emphatic yes. Leadership is a skill, not some genetic trait inherited by a lucky few, Kaplan says. In the book he provides practical suggestions, exercises, and anecdotes of executives facing different challenges to illustrate what makes a good leader and how to become one.
The first step, Kaplan says, is ditching the idea that you’re either born a leader or not.
“I feel strongly that it doesn’t work that way,” says Kaplan, who left HBS this month to take over as president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. “This would be like you’re either fat or you’re thin. You’re either in shape or you’re not in shape. Well, you’d never say that. You’ve got to work at it.”
Like getting in shape, becoming a stronger leader requires doing things that might make you uncomfortable. That includes taking inventory of your strengths and weaknesses, seeking feedback from subordinates, and asking questions. Executives seeking Kaplan’s advice find themselves on the receiving end of his rapid-fire questioning, ranging from what’s distinct about their company to who holds what particular job and why. If they don’t know the answers, they need to ask, he says.
“They’ll say OK, I didn’t know I was supposed to do that, or they’ll say, gee, if I do that, I’m going to look like a weakling,” Kaplan recounts. “I say, I hate to break it to you, I think your people probably think right now you’re a weakling. If you don’t know the answers to these questions, I’m not impressed myself.”
While the executives coming to him for counsel face unique challenges, ultimately all the issues connect to the subject of leadership, Kaplan says.
Part of the difficulty is that people often can’t articulate what leadership is. Academics don’t agree on a common definition either. Rather than try to move people toward a specific definition, Kaplan lays out what he calls a “framing” for the leadership journey.
At the heart is taking on an ownership mind-set—thinking and acting like an owner regardless of your job title and maintaining an unwavering focus on adding value to others, whether it’s to customers or the community. That ownership mentality also includes being willing to take responsibility for good and bad outcomes, acting on your beliefs, and creating an environment in which employees adopt an ownership mind-set themselves. Leaders need to communicate their priorities and then get their employees in alignment.
“What is the vision, how do you add value that’s distinctive, and what are your top three or four priorities,” Kaplan explains. “That is the prism through which you judge every action you take—who you hire, how you sit, where you spend money, what markets. Everything flows from that.”
Who I Am
The other key, which ties in with Kaplan’s two previous books, is understanding who you are. That includes knowing your strengths and weaknesses, passions, and boundaries.
Kaplan recounts the story of a founder and CEO of a multimillion-dollar tech company who was concerned about his firm’s market position eroding and frustrated by a lack of input from senior executives. When Kaplan interviewed the CEO’s business partner, he learned the CEO had a habit of cutting people off and criticizing suggestions to the point that people no longer bothered. These situations, Kaplan says, happen all the time.
“Everybody has blind spots. People who work with you know what your blind spots are. They just can’t believe you don’t see it,” Kaplan says.
Bosses need to be aware of the power asymmetry between themselves and subordinates—it causes people to hold back from mentioning things they think their superior doesn’t want to hear. As a result, bosses need to ask questions to elicit feedback—and listen.
The path to becoming a strong leader is not a one-shot deal, Kaplan adds. Would-be leaders need to continually analyze situations, themselves, and their organizations and tweak their approach as needed to fit their new reality.
“Businesses fail because they can’t make transitions. The paper every day is about businesses that were once effective that are no longer,” Kaplan says. “That isn’t a story about apparatus. That’s a story about people. And yet there are other businesses that have adapted incredibly well, it’s amazing what they’ve done—and that’s about people. They went out there and they tried to figure out what’s going on, and then they tried to adapt to it.”
Kaplan, who before joining HBS in 2005 was vice chairman of the Goldman Sachs Group, acknowledges it’s possible for executives or companies to have success without this approach, but he doesn’t believe they would reach their full potential without it.
In his book, Kaplan stresses that leadership is not limited to the boardroom or the upper echelons of an organization. Anyone, regardless of position, can be a leader, but people often think they’ll wait for a promotion or another opportunity to try it. Not a wise move.
“If you want to be a leader, you need to act like it today. If you don’t want to or you’re not game to, then stop dreaming about it because you can forget it,” Kaplan says. “It would be the same way if [I said] I’d like to be a world-class athlete, but I don’t want to train. Well, you’d laugh. That’s stupid. It’s exactly the same.”
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