I read this short little book called, Anything You Want, and I loved it!
It is a perfect example of Derek Sivers’s journey as a Values Based Leader.
He needed to be able to distribute his music. He didn’t have a record label and the whole internet digital age was yet to come. So he figured out how to set up a website, take credit cards and began. Then he decided to “help his friends.” This became one of his guiding values.
He didn’t intend to create a big business; he intended to help musicians get their music distributed. He had a simple guiding principle, which he stated:
“Helping the musicians is our first goal, and making a profit is second. Make sure everyone who deals with us leaves with a smile.”
He empowered his employees to use this simple statement to make decisions about customer care.
Was he a perfect business man? No.
He made lots of mistakes. He didn’t manage his employees well. He failed to set up many structures for a growing business.
But this blog is not about management. It is about leadership.
Derek was a leader. He had a clear vision of what he was doing and how he would serve his “friends.” He held the environment for the work to be done and he stepped back. He used his guiding principle every day to make decisions and taught his employees to make decisions about serving their customers.
I have worked with so many business leaders that say they can’t get their employees to take initiative. They don’t see how their own leadership sets the stage for employee indecision.
Derek had the opposite problem. He was clear, he was consistent, and he had an unwavering values proposition. He never lost his commitment to his purpose. He offered the guiding principles and let them run with it. And his employees took his lead to the extreme, in fact, leaving him behind and out of a job.
OK, perhaps that was a little too far. With leadership and management in balance, it doesn’t have to go that far in your company. Most businesses get the management and don’t understand that is not leadership.
Are your employees running away with your lead or are you dragging them along?
-Jan
