The 6 Perspectives of Accountable Leadership

A Blog Series in many parts — PART 1

Note:

This is the first in a long series of posts that will explain what I call The 6 Perspectives of Leadership™. This series will lead up to a book launch planned for the fall of 2018 of the book “The 6 Perspectives of Accountable Leadership.” As a reader of this blog series, you will have a chance to think about leadership in what might be new ways to you. The 6 Perspectives™ is meant to be an easily understood, easily communicated set of ideas that teach you how to be a complete, accountable leader, and to easily teach these ideas to others.

Highlight your favorite part of this article — Clap if you enjoy the read — comment and say why you think these ideas could be helpful to leaders and entrepreneurs.

I remember clearly when I realized that leadership was a real thing. I was a boy of about eight years old. I watched my father, who was the owner of a bar called The Round 2, go and clean a mess in one of the bathrooms.

I asked him when he was done, “Dad, why didn’t you just have one of your employees clean it up?” In my mind, that was a benefit of being the boss.

He looked at me with kind and confident eyes, “I pay all of my employees well, but I don’t pay them to do that. This is my bar and I’m responsible for all of it, even when there’s a mess in the bathroom. I always clean those up.”

I walked away with a lot of information to process. But it didn’t take me long to realize that each time my father made the choice to do one of those jobs that he (doesn’t pay his people to do), they know it, they recognize it, they appreciate it, and it must come to mean something important to them. I realized that every choice you make as “the boss” affects the relationships you have with your people, either for the better, or for the worse. That, in turn, affects how well they will follow you. It took me many more years, to be able to put that into words, but deep down, even at eight years old, I knew it was real and I knew it was important.

I grew to take on many leadership roles throughout my life, including several where it was my responsibility to develop new leaders. Through all these roles I relied on the lesson I learned that day from my father, and many other lessons he taught me as well. I found great fulfillment from sharing those lessons with others, helping them to become stronger leaders themselves.

Over the years, I found that in many instances I needed to find quick, efficient ways of teaching others to be effective leaders. I found that I was able to help others make strong connections and deep understandings when I utilized some simple strategies as a teacher:

1. Use visual representations for complex ideas

2. Use metaphor to relay a wealth of information with one idea

3. Use a model that is cohesive, and all parts can be imagined at once, easily.

The way I taught and spoke about leadership had evolved to reflect these ideas. Very specifically, I started using the idea of leading from perspectives. If one were to lead from the right perspective in the right circumstance, they would naturally do the right things.

The 6 Perspectives of Accountable Leadership™ is the model that came out of this evolution of that leadership thought and communication.

The 6 Perspectives builds a mental framework to facilitate thinking about leadership and how to be a leader. (Links will take you to other articles I’ve written that give context and life to those specific perspectives.)

The Foundation — Lead with VALUES and from HEALTHY RELATIONSHIPS in all you do.

The 1st Perspective — Lead from the FRONT with VISION

The 2nd Perspective — Lead from ABOVE with STRATEGY

The 6th Perspective — Lead from the SIDE by EMPOWERING

Even without explaining The 6 Perspectives™ any further, you can probably already see how it works (for the most part). The model is intuitive, the visual aspect is cohesive and flows naturally. It certainly will require more explanation to fully understand it in a truly meaningful way-but you get the idea, and instinctively you know it’s complete.

My father passed away August 8th of 2007. In the following days, a letter arrived for my mother from the former employees of the bar. It was a long letter. It had many different parts and was written by several of their former employees. As I read it, the love they felt for their boss, my father, my mother’s husband, was unmistakable. They spoke with great admiration and gratitude. It was not how most employees speak of their bosses-their words expressed a relationship that was deep and meaningful to them. My family shed our fair of tears as we read their words.

When a leader does their job right, a deep level of trust can be built. Leaders and followers are still human beings, and we are made up of the same parts that desire to build relationships and connections. My father built many powerful connections and meaningful relationships, and he had a thriving business that made him, my mother, their employees, and their customers happy. For a little while, I even thought he was Superman, but I’ll save that story for another time.

This was Part 1 in a multi-part series that will teach and explain The 6 Perspectives of Accountable Leadership™.

Follow me to catch the upcoming posts where I explain in greater details what it means to build a foundation and lead from each of the perspectives. Look for upcoming posts on Mondays.

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