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A Different Sort of Leadership. A Different Sort of Company.

In recent Posts I have referred very positively to Servant Leadership (Servant Leadership—Robert Greenleaf) and the idea of "decency" as a deep cultural trait (The Manager's Book of Decencies: How Small Gestures Build Great Companies—Steve Harrison, Adecco).

Key words (very powerful per se, per me):

Servant.
Decency.

Now, in Utrecht, I have bumped into another pea from the pod: "hostmanship." I shared the stage with Swedish management guru Jan Gunnarsson. And he gave me his two most recent books (co-written with Olle Blohm):

Hostmanship: The Art of Making People Feel Welcome.
The Welcoming Leader: The Art of Creating Hostmanship.

Once again, I am enamored, even mesmerized, by this "simple" idea. Here are the authors speaking from the dust jacket of The Welcoming Leader: "Welcoming leadership is about inspiring people to want to achieve common goals. For a welcoming leader, the emphasis is on the person. ... It requires an honesty and authenticity from you as a leader that has been lacking in many of our bosses in the past. In a world where everything looks similar—products and places, companies and countries—a guest or employee makes his decision to participate and commit based on how welcome he feels. To provide hostmanship ... we have to rejoice in serving others and provide leadership that reflects this."

Add to the Key Words list:

Host.
Hostmanship.
Welcoming leader.

Jan performed a wonderful little riff on stage about the person in charge walking into a meeting:

The "boss" brings a PowerPoint presentation.
The "leader" brings a polished Vision Statement.
The "host" brings a box of chocolates. (Hey, we were in Holland.)

If the point is to engage and seek the voluntary commitment of others in pursuit of a worthy goal, this strikes me as spot on.

We have, then, added to our for-profit, experience-obsessed enterprise:

Leader as Servant.
Decency as the bedrock of effective corporate culture.
Host, hostmanship, and Welcoming leader as metaphor for those who would seek the wholehearted engagement of others.

I like all that a lot. I suppose I naturally would, as the inventor, with Bob Waterman, of: "Hard is soft. Soft is hard."

The numbers turn out to be the "soft" stuff, abstract and subject to fudging. The "tangible," "hard stuff" of infinite importance for performance is the depth and breadth of our relationships with others within or outside the firm.

I rest my case.

Tom Peters posted this on 03/26/07.

Comments

Tom -Although the word's a little awkward, I like the notion of "hostmanship".My question is how the qualities of hostmanship (or servant leader,etc.) can be acquired by those for whom they don't come naturally. Nothing's worse than the autocratic, imperious manager who's been told by HR that they should bring a box of chocolates to the next meeting. Unless someone is REALLY open to the possibility that there may be another way to get things done, and allows themselves a conversion experience of sorts, the gestures become phoney and empty - and just flat out don't work.

Posted by Maureen Rogers at March 26, 2007 9:52 AM

Amen!! Tom, Just bring home the chocolates!

Maureen, a leader always has to lead from a place of authenticity. I am one to bring the candy, chocolate shoes, etc. People know this about me. I think people can learn how to do this, but it will take consistency and the right attitude. When people see how the little intangibles can make a big difference, they can learn to lead from the heart. Otherwise, it will appear to be an empty gesture.

Posted by Val Willis at March 26, 2007 10:18 AM

It is amazing to me how we assume to know something when we can describe it to multiple decimal places. It was Whitehead, I think, who called that the illusion of false concreteness. I've always been thankful that I built mathmatical models of processes early in my career. The experience taught me that underlying all the numbers and formulae are assumptions, many of which are not even stated.

Posted by Wally Bock at March 26, 2007 3:31 PM

We seem to admire strong leaders. Of course, we seem to like high calorie foods as well. And this might be one of the most difficult things - getting the followers to appreciate how much better they'd feel with some autonomy. We dis strong leaders but I wonder how often they're just responding to demand.

Posted by Ron Davison at March 26, 2007 7:50 PM

Val,
"A leaders always has to lead from a place of Authenticity " well said but not well practised in the corporate world right ?
When every situation /conversation is laden with agenda , Motives and Smart talk the notion of authenticity itself is a little inauthentic don't you think ?
My experience in working with Awareness seeking leaders is , by a combination of Training / Coaching /Role modeling /Crisis they get to shed a lot of falsity and phoney assumptions about Self and others ..
Authtenticity as a Leadership Trait has to be supported with Humility and Vulnerability ( positive for me!)

SOme of the Questions that I deal with are :

Who needs who more ?
The Leader needs the Talented Follower / Knowledge worker or the Knowledge worker is dependent on the Job / Role that the leader offers ?

Who Is Really Serving Who in this Value Creation game ?

Can I simultaneoulsy be (Confident and Vulnerable ), be (Knowledgeable and 'ignorant or empty ') to listen and learn ?
Can I serve as a Leader , truly serve without being Servile ?

Rajan

Posted by Rajan at March 26, 2007 10:43 PM

Sorry but all I read was:

stuff stuff stuff stuff stuff stuff stuff stuff stuff stuff stuff stuff stuff stuff stuff stuff stuff stuff stuff stuff stuff stuff stuff stuff stuff stuff Chocolate stuff stuff stuff stuff stuff stuff stuff stuff stuff stuff stuff stuff stuff stuff stuff stuff

Re-Tox the only diet worth sticking to.

Posted by PaulH at March 27, 2007 2:15 AM

Tom-

Great Post. I have listen/read your material since "In Search of Excellence" (back when I was in High School). I believe in this single post you have hit the quintessential focus of what needs to happen in the business world (as well as the rest of the world). We need to think, servant...host/hostess...hospitality... simply put...putting people before self.
Our natural tendancy is to go into something with "what is in it for me?". People (customers) are observant and will catch on. While we strive to redefine ourself and become a player in the new economy, we have to ask our self, "Am I doing this selfishly or is this actually helping the other person?"; "Does this throw the other person under the bus, or build them up?"; "Does this help my customer's bottom line or just my bottom line?". These can be tough questions in a "me" society, but with a little practice we can become:

Servant.
Decency.
Host.
Hostmanship.
Welcoming leader.

And I would add one more... Humility.

We can have humility and still be a strong leader. No matter what your background is, there is no argument that Jesus, who walked this earth 2000 years ago, showed this type of leadership and his legacy continues today. Not tyring to preach here, but history proves that being a leader with a servant attitude, with some humility thrown in, has a lasting postive impact. Think about this. Who do you appreciate more, the teacher or person that believed in you and encouraged you or the one that tore you down and embarrased you? Which one had the lasting postive impact? Which one brings a smile to your face?

I am not sure who stated it but it is so true "People don't care how much you know, until they know how much you care". If we can learn these things that Tom is on to and do them well, we can make a positive impact in what we do everyday! That is true leadership!

Thanks Tom for your works over the years that have focused me and looking forward to what is yet to come!

Posted by Cyle at March 27, 2007 7:47 AM

I just spent a challenging yet engaging day with a client assessing their efforts toward building their leadership bench strength. This client is fully aware of the war for talent and for years has been working on the "employee experience" as a key for retaining their high potential talent. A fundamental factor in keeping this talent is their immediate supervisor, so much attention is paid to the leadership relationship. The founders of the company embraced Greenleaf's ideas in a very real way and have built a marvelous community. Alas, market conditions and pressure to produce short term results has changed their lens a bit to maximize efficiencies and operational excellence. Resources are damn tough to come by. The environment seems to be a bit strained with ever increasing demands to do more with less and growing work weeks. Just a thought, but my guess is that the good folks at this company would say "keep the damn chocolates, give me some head count"

Posted by Mike Neiss at March 28, 2007 6:32 AM

It boils down to "heart" or "HEART", relationships that matter and making relationships matter. Engage the heart and make relationships matter.

Posted by Dan at March 28, 2007 1:49 PM

uk viagra sales online I would consider adding the word 'Grace' to this list. Paradoxically, the more leaders exercise their power, the less power they really have. A graceful leader exercises power without really exercising it.

Posted by Abu Noaman at April 1, 2007 8:01 PM

I see your point; a simple idea such as hostmanship is something we all tend to look over today. The idea of Hostmanship is something that extends to all aspects of our lives. Reading your post reminded me of another book that touches on an aspect of this simple idea, but in a business sense. I was fortunate enough to come across a copy of a new book- The Enlightened CEO: How to Succeed at the Toughest Job in Business. This book is genius for people who are CEO's or plan on making it that far in their career. The authors really focus on how to approach being a CEO and making decisions in all aspects of your business to truly succeed. One of the books chapters focuses on candor, and respect, another simple idea. If you are business savvy, I encourage you to read a copy of the Enlightened CEO; the book is a relaxed read and just flows the whole way through. I included the link below to the book; I read somewhere that it is only available online. viagra united kingdom

http://www.amazon.com/Enlightened-CEO-Succeed-Toughest-Business/dp/1934380105/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/002-3343959-8055254?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1175279849&sr=8-1

Posted by Victoria Flemish at April 4, 2007 10:44 AM

Your posting inspired me to order the books. I'm very impressed, and am doing a serial book review of them. This week, Hostmanship, and next week, The Welcoming Leader. Here's the link to the first posting - http://edbrenegar.typepad.com/leading_questions/2007/04/hostmanship_a_s.html
I think it is highly important that Gunnarsson and Blohm move the discussion from the personal to the national. Thanks for the tip.

Posted by Ed Brenegar at April 22, 2007 8:07 PM