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Every square in your Organisational Chart should have a Job Description that describes the tasks and results that its incumbent must perform and deliver, if the enterprise is to move forward, and the top square – whether it carries the title of Managing Director, President, CEO, Supreme Commander (my personal favourite) or Grand Poobah – is no exception.
So what should the Leader’s Job Description contain?
You Can Boil the Leader’s Job Description Down To 6 V’s
V1 – Vision
It’s the leader’s job to come up with a crystal clear Vision of the “finished picture of perfection” on the business – the point at which it will arrive when it is a finished work of art. Think of this as a picture of what Victory looks like from where the company and its people presently stand.
While possessing the vision is important, it is useless without the ability to sell it – persuasively – to those who would follow. It must be passionately communicated to all who would undertake the journey towards it so as to ignite the purpose, and engage the energy of the team.
It is the Vision – the idea of what the company or business can become – into which the team pour their energies and from which each team member draws the sense of being part of something bigger and better than they can be by themselves.
A clearly-held Vision provides one essential reference point against which team members can measure their efforts when faced with the question, “What should I do in this situation?” If it moves the business towards the Vision, then it’s one of the right things to do – that is, if it accords with V3.
V2 – Vanguard
As a leader, your Vanguard will comprise “those leading the charge” – your key team members – who are vital to your success. Your job is to do whatever it takes to get “the right people on the bus, the wrong people off the bus, and the right people in the right seats” (Jim Collins, Good to Great).
Remember that your own energy levels at work will be the average of the five people you have most to do with in your role as leader. If you would be a great and strong leader, surround yourself with great and good people to whom you can delegate with confidence.
A Coach assembling a relay team knows that she must select four runners who are each champions in their own right, or her team won’t stand a chance of winning. She would never contemplate including a slightly weak runner for any reason when she knows it would cost the other three (and her) victory!
Use the same mindset when selecting or evaluating staff. It’s part of your Job Description – and probably your most important KPI!
V3 – Values
It’s the Leader’s job to articulate or spell out their Values – the ways by which it is permissible or constructive or good to achieve the Vision. Shared Values keep everyone in step, within bounds and feeling safely and securely within the rules of the game.
Equipping your team with a clear statement of your values automatically provides them with guidance on how to answer for themselves, the recurrent question, “How should I act or what should I do in this situation?” Those answers will be along the lines of, “If what you intend to do is true to our Values, and moves us in the direction of our Vision, then it’s one of the right ways to act!”
Nordstrom’s (a US retailer who has made their name synonymous with “Service”) have equipped their staff with clear Values that include the desire to deliver outstanding customer service and to strive for high individual productivity. They then lay down a single rule for their staff, “Use your best judgement at all times” and manage to deliver on their promise to their customers to a degree that is the envy of every retailer.
As a leader, part of your job is to consciously (and conscientiously) “value” each individual member of your team and to make them aware of the fact that you do.
V4 – Vector
A Vector can be defined as a “force or influence” and part of a leader’s job is to bring about results through influencing their Vanguard towards achieving the Vision in a manner consistent with their Values.
Vectoring implies a certain “indirectness” or “subtlety” to the process of influencing others, and the greatest leaders move their followers to believe that they now want what the leader wants.
A good leader, like a good sailor, will be sensitive to the slightest shift in the breeze and will “vector” their craft to take advantage of that and so, in our context, vectoring also acknowledges the Leader’s responsibility to stay in touch with the marketplace and to continually influence their team to position the business to take advantage of change.
V5 – Venue
The leader has a responsibility to set a standard in terms of venue – the “setting in which your business is carried out.” Venue relates both to the physical environment which you create for your team, and the timing of events critical to your success.
As the leader it’s part of your job to create and maintain an efficient and effective workplace that nurtures your team members in the long term. You are the one who will dictate priorities for investing in the tools that your team requires to perform at extraordinary levels.
As the leader, you also have primary responsibility for “timing”. As the general in this battle, the time and place of battle are of your choosing and, like a good general, you have the responsibility to ensure that your people are prepared when you call upon them to go to war – and that they have the ordinance required to ensure their victory.
V6 – Valiance
It’s an olde word, from a different era, and it means “the quality of mind enabling one to face danger or hardship resolutely”.
Most of the research on leadership comes, at some point, to the characteristics or key behaviours that sustain successful leaders in the minds and hearts of their followers. Those key behaviours include:
- Honesty – Be sure to practice sincerity, integrity, and candour in all of your actions and be aware that deceptive behaviour – whether to team members or others – will always erode trust.
- Competence – Good leaders base their actions on rational and moral principles and avoid acting arbitrarily or inconsistently.
- Intelligence - resulting from both inspiration and the diligent pursuit of knowledge and, eventually, wisdom.
- Fair-mindedness - Show fair treatment to all people, whether team members, clients or suppliers – or members of the general public. Prejudice threatens justice, and a lack of perceived justice erodes a team member’s sense of security.
- Empathy – a sense of common humanity with others is a strong bond-maker, and tends to guide you in being sensitive to the feelings, values, interests, and well-being of others.
- Courage – Followers want to know and believe that their leader has the perseverance to accomplish goal, regardless of inevitable obstacles. Calmness under stress instils others with the courage to bear difficult challenges.
Valiance in a leader inspires the team to believe that the impossible is possible, and takes them beyond themselves. It is the element that drives the saying that “extraordinary businesses comprise ordinary people doing extraordinary things”.
Goals – Your Vision
Questions for Leaders
You might like to tick the boxes, and give yourself a score at the end of this article:
- Do you have a clear Vision of what your business will look like if/when it is “finished”?
- How well have you sold this Vision to your team?
- Could anyone in your team recite your Vision with passion?
- Are you crystal clear on the progress towards the Vision that you want your business to achieve in the next 12 months?
- Does anyone else in the business know that path – or is it a well kept secret?
- Have you ensured that your path accords with your Values?
- Can your team recite the values by which the business abides?
- Have you written out your goal(s) for your business so that you attain clarity, and so that they exist outside of your mind?
- Have you provided each team member with a clear, written statement of your Vision, and your Values, and your Goals?
- Have you negotiated from each member a written statement of what their contribution to the Vision will be this year (these are their Goals)?
- Have you reviewed their Goals and clarified milestones and review dates with each team member to enable you both to measure progress quickly and with certainty?
- Are you Vectoring to make the goals for the year (and the Vision to which they will contribute) a daily focus within your business through your conversation and activities?
- Do you have goals in relation to improving the conditions in which your team works (your Venue) as a step to improving productivity?
- Take a look at the attributes listed under “Valiance” and ask yourself, “Who do I have to become in order to be the CEO of the business I can foresee?” A handy next question could be, “Where will I start in the process of becoming that person – and when?”
And, now that you’ve given yourself a score, let’s look at how that might compare to another score, provided by “an informed reference group” – your staff.
The Boss’s Performance Review
Are you doing a good enough job (in your own estimation) that you would be comfortable (or game) in asking your team to rate your performance? Just remember, “feedback is the breakfast of champions” so if you want to be one, you need to eat like one!!!
Since they don’t do this every day, your staff will need a little guidance (and guidance is just another part of your job description, right?), so how about drawing up a form that reads “Performance Review for (your name)”, the upper portion of which contains a two-column, ten-row table headed “Task or Area of Responsibility” and “Score”, with the instruction to fill the first cell of the ten rows with what they believe are the ten most important tasks you perform (or should perform), followed by their score for how well they think you do each.
If they sit there blankly, obviously not aware of just what it is that you do in the business, you’ve learned something important already – that you don’t communicate as well as you might!
If they write a list of things that have little to do with what you consider to be “vital tasks” associated with your position, again, you’ve gained a valuable insight into an issue that can only benefit from your conscious and directed attention – making sure that the “body” of the business knows what the “head” is doing!
You might consider making it optional as to whether each of your “reviewers” puts their name to their Review – you want to encourage the greatest degree of openness possible, after all.
With all responses in, it would be a good idea to provide each member with your version of your Job Description – and even your self-assessment score – so that they have the other half of the picture to balance with their own.
Next, taking all of the responses, compile a composite picture of your staff’s view of your job description and of your performance. Consider posting the results for all to see (it will provide a strong message that you took their input seriously).
If the divergence between your own picture of your job and theirs varies widely, consider what you need to do to gain alignment: A meeting of your key people to discuss the differences? A general discussion with all of your staff (in a smaller business)? Some deep reflection on your own as to what the differences are telling you about your performance; your communication skills; your priorities and focus; etc?
As a follow up, you could ask key or all staff for suggestions or recommendations on how they feel you could improve your performance as their leader. If you get no response, it will be a bad sign. If you get any response, it will be a positive indication that people care enough and hope enough that they will work for a change that they feel is worthwhile!
Peter Rowe is the Managing Director of ProfiTune Business Systems, one of Australia’s foremost Business Improvement Specialists whose clients include both multinational corporations and small private companies across every quarter of the business arena. Peter’s new book ‘Solving the People Puzzle’ is due for release in 2010.
