Consumers looking to buy a book on leadership can choose from tens of thousands of titles. The British business consultant and author Mark Seabright has narrowed good leadership down to five key areas. ‘There are only few leaders who ask themselves: “What can I learn from this success?” Or: “What can I learn from this failure?”
Mark Seabright began his career as an accountant and worked his way up the ranks to become CFO. For some 25 years, he worked alongside founders, owners and CEOs of large companies. ‘But I gradually became more interested in “soft” skills: I wanted to find out what really goes on in companies, and why things happen the way they do.’
Seabright enrolled in a part-time Master’s programme in Organisational Behaviour and went on to establish himself as a leadership consultant and coach who combines hands-on experience with a clear interest in scientific facts and theory. His company In the Moment, which he founded six years ago, supports managers in achieving behavioural change, as well as providing traditional business consultancy and training services.
How do you define leadership?
‘If you do an Amazon search for books on leadership, you’ll be presented with around 180,000 titles.
This tells you just how many different perspectives there are on the topic. We define leadership as a process in which an individual influences a group in order to achieve a shared goal.’
And how can a leader make sure this goal is achieved quickly and effectively?
‘A good leader excels in five key areas: strategy, knowledge, communication, trust and resilience. Extensive research has shown that these five areas consistently determine the success of leaders in the corporate world, across all industries and at every stage of people’s careers.’
‘A strategy needs to be straightforward, as this allows managers to keep themselves and their team focused, working toward clear objectives and deadlines. “Knowledge” in this case refers mainly to self-awareness and knowledge of your team. We have found that leaders benefit immensely from feedback they receive from people outside the company, people with whom they can let their guard down and who have a fresh, unbiased take on things. Communication is, without any doubt, the lifeblood of leadership: good leaders communicate clearly, carefully and consistently. They’re always reminding their team of the importance of their shared goal, and are also able to answer the question why this goal needs to be achieved.’
American Airlines
‘Trust and communication are two sides of the same coin. Trust is an essential component: how safe and secure do people feel in the workplace? But it extends beyond that: how do you maintain the trust of your customers? In this day and age, you can lose people’s trust overnight. Look at the recent example of American Airlines, whose stocks really took a beating after a passenger was forcibly ejected from one of their flights and the video posted of the incident online went viral. Where did it go wrong? The CEO only released a terse official statement saying the airline had been within its rights since the flight was overbooked. He should, of course, have apologised right away instead of two days after the fact. But we all make mistakes. It’s a fact that we learn more from our mistakes than we do from our successes. And the extent to which you’re able to bounce back from those mistakes and get back in the ring after experiencing setbacks is a major factor in determining your success as a leader.’
How do you help leaders to improve this aspect of their work?
‘We ask them to describe their processes to us, for example their decision-making process. This often reveals that they unwittingly have all sorts of assumptions, preconceived notions which we then challenge. Or we might ask them: how do you think you will look back on this x number of years down the line? There are only few leaders who ask themselves: “What can I learn from this success?” or: “What can I learn from this failure?”, when in fact it’s the answers to those questions that can really lead to groundbreaking new insights.’
