Learn to Lead from the Back of the Boat

If you are like most leaders your style has changed over the years. Most of us start out (myself included) thinking that getting that new title meant having to be out in front — leading the charge. Driven by our inflated ego and not knowing any better, we expect our people to buy what we’re selling and support us. If we are lucky we eventually figure out that we’ve got it backwards.

In a recent interview with Adam Bryant of the New York Times, Anne Berkowitch a young CEO shares some of the lessons she has learned about what works and what doesn’t when it comes to leading others.

Q. How has your leadership style evolved?
A. If you think about how you steer a boat, it’s always from the back, and I’ve moved toward the back of the boat. Initially, my sense of leadership was to be a military general out in front of the troops and the first one rushing into battle. People have to know that you’re in charge, but I think it’s got to be almost more of a support role.”

Q. What else have you come to understand about leadership?
A. Ask a lot more questions and make a lot fewer statements. Leadership is really about asking questions and letting people answer them. I think it’s the only way you get your team to think. If you’re constantly talking at them, they don’t have to think. And as important as it is to ask questions and not make statements, you’ve also got to make the decisions, and faster.

So, you might ask: What are the questions I can ask from the back of the boat that will get my team thinking? I’ve found open-ended questions are the best. Questions starting with “who, what, where, when, why and how” require a thoughtful response (and can’t be answered with a “yes” or a “no.”) When I want to recall those words I think of a poem by Rudyard Kipling:

I keep six honest serving-men
(They taught me all I knew);
Their names are What and Why and When
And How and Where and Who.

Be happy. Enjoy your week.
2010 © Barbara Burke. All rights reserved.