Teachers Lead - and Leaders Teach!
I’m always surprised that people don’t see the connection between teachers and business leaders, but perhaps that’s because most people haven’t experienced both roles. Because of my experiences at Morgan Stanley and as a teacher—and because I tend to obsess about these types of things—I’ve become aware of the remarkable similarities. Before working at Morgan Stanley, I struggled to find the most effective way to run a class. Afterward, I found that I could draw on my experiences and apply them to teaching. I had an advantage that most teachers lack: I had been a business leader, and I could translate lessons learned at a company to the classroom.
The best leaders and teachers listen deeply, communicate empathically, and motivate adroitly. Command-and-control leaders and strict, punishment-wielding teachers are stereotypes of the past. Today, leaders and teachers need to relate to their audiences, influencing actions rather than dictating them. Both must be brave enough to make themselves vulnerable and admit mistakes.
In addition, teachers lead and leaders teach. Again, this may not be obvious, but think about how teachers model behaviors they want students to adopt, how they motivate by telling stories, how they make decisions that affect all students. Similarly, leaders have become teachers in knowledge-centric environments; they can’t just tell people what to do but must help them acquire ideas, information, and skills so they can be more innovative, agile employees. Like teachers, leaders mentor. This is a role that has gained a lot of importance in recent years.
Finally, the best teachers and leaders build relationships. As organizations have flattened and moved away from the pyramid model, leaders have recognized the value of relationship building. When leaders create meaningful relationships with their people, they also create loyalty and an environment where employees feel secure enough to take chances and suggest innovative and sometimes disruptive ideas….
When I speak of leadership, I’m referring to the process of bringing others together and accomplishing three central tasks. The first role of the leader is to set direction. Humans are born goal-directed. They want to move forward. Most become antsy or anxious when they lack direction. Ultimately, if there is no direction over an extended period of time, they can shut down and become isolated. But with direction, ordinary people can accomplish extraordinary things. That is the magic of bringing people together and witnessing them accomplishing goals. First, leaders must articulate a direction and involve their people in creating that direction.
Second, leaders must create buy-in or commitment to the direction. This is no small feat. The process of getting humans to commit sounds rather simple, but the reality can be challenging. This is a critical task; if commitment is absent, there is little to no chance to accomplish the task at hand. When this lack of commitment affects hundreds or thousands of employees, entire organizations vanish. The vanishing act cannot be blamed solely on competitive forces. Most organizations that self-destruct experience failure because employees were not committed to the mission and direction of the organization….
Third, leaders must facilitate execution or implementation. By facilitating execution, leaders drive growth and innovation. While some leaders define themselves by how much they accomplish, they don’t always get employees on board when it comes to getting things done. They may be great strategists and come up with terrific ideas, but if they fail to engage their people in implementation tasks, they’ll come up short, as will their people.
All three of these elements are unwritten promises leaders make to their people: I promise to set direction with you, to secure your commitment, and to help you execute. If I do these things, you’ll succeed and so will the company. This is the covenant leaders establish with their employees, and it drives performance far better than salary and perks.
Leaders seal this covenant personally. The kind of person you are matters. The kind of environment you create matters. The kind of relationships you forge matters. In reality, the art and practice of leadership are deeply personal for the leader and those being led. They are deeply personal because molecules are stirred when a leader has an interaction with another person. Energy is transmitted. Something transpires between two humans.
Tom DeLong is a professor at Harvard Business School. This is an excerpt from an article in the “HBS Alumni Bulletin” of March 2020 about his new book, “Teaching By Heart: One Professor’s Journey to Inspire” (Harvard Business Review Press, 2020).