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Leadership
Attributes
 Jack
Welch
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The world will belong to
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passionate,
driven leaders – people who
not only have enormous amounts of energy but who can
energize those whom they
lead. |
Jack Welch
GE |
To spark others to perform, you must lead by
example.
Jack Welch
mastery of
the 4 E's of leadership
– Energy,
Energize,
Edge, and Execution – was always in evidence.
"He had great energy, sparked others, had
incredible competitive spirit, and had a record of execution that was second
to none. This is a key of the Welch phenomenon. Had he been lacking in any
of the traits he espoused, he would not have commanded such acclaim."
Though many at
GE have
been good at their jobs, and have been able to motivate and explain,
but no one has Jack Welch's ardor. He was GE's number one
cheerleader and called himself "the advertising manager of our
company." He had the zeal and the optimism and a lexicon of a
winning football coach: "exciting", "remarkable", "staggering",
"incredible". These are the words Welch employed to describe one of
the powerful enterprises in the world.3
As W. James McNerney Jr.,
head of GE Aircraft Engines, noted: "The excitement comes from
within him and is extremely contagious. He's a tremendous motivator.
He's excited and he gets you excited and you're always moving
forward.
He keeps it simple. The differentiator between GE and many other
companies is that there are more people moving in the same direction
and with the same enthusiasm. Jack might like this on his tombstone.
'I wasn't smarter that anyone else, but I helped 270,000 people make
me look smarter than most.' "
The revolutionary massive
changes introduced by Jack Welch worked. By the mid-1990s GE had
become the strongest company in the United States and the most
valuable company in the world, as measured in market capitalization.
→
25 Lessons from
Jack Welch
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Alexander The
Great
Alexander the Great, the king of Macedonia, was one of the most superb
leaders of all time. He became king at the age of 19, when his father,
Philip II, was assassinated. In the next 11 years, he conquered much of the
known world, leading his armies against numerically superior forces. Yet,
when he was at the height of his power, the master of the known world, the
greatest ruler in history to that date, he would still draw his sword at the
beginning of a battle and lead his men forward into the conflict. He
insisted on leading by example. Alexander felt that he could not ask his men
to risk their lives unless he was willing to demonstrate by his actions that
he had complete confidence in the outcome. The sight of Alexander charging
forward so excited and motivated his soldiers that no force on earth could
stand before them.1
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An army of sheep led by a lion is
better than an army of lions led by a sheep. |
Alexander
the Great |
Xenophon
Xenophon authored
the first systematic book on
leadership, two
thousand years ago, and it is still one of the best.
Xenophon was a general. His book 'Our Military
Expedition to Persia' tells the story of the fight to
return to the Black Sea against overwhelming odds. It is
a story of courage, improvisation, and discipline,
self-sacrifice, and above all leadership. Xenophon
practiced leadership in a different time and a different
place, but the lessons of his experiences, the
principles or laws of integrity, commitment, duty and
the others have eternal value.
The Greeks
were superior fighters, both tactically and technologically. They knew how
to fight as a team, and their swords and shields were uniquely adapted for
their phalanx warfare. They also possessed the most salient edge of all:
leadership. Xenophon, like all Greek commanders, led from the front; he was
seen in the thick of combat, never flinching, always seeming to do the right
thing. Historian Victor Davis Hanson attributes Xenophon's success to the
superior Greek culture – not superior in a racial sense, but superior in the
sense of what we today would call shared values, common purpose, and genuine
leadership.2...
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