Leadership with a mission: the four essential acts of strong leadership.

Imagine that you have just been given a leadership assignment. You take the time to get to know your employees and focus on getting them to live up to the company's mission statement: Amaze and delight each and every customer.

But after a while you come to the realization that the employees who report to you aren't doing that. There's little delight and even less amazement.

Despite inventive attempts to encourage change, the results stay the same. Sound familiar?

The truth is, despite the complicated nature of leadership, there are four essential acts that good leaders must master if they are to have a fighting chance at capturing the hearts and minds of their employees.

Essential Act 1: Give clear direction

Why is this so important? Because employees have a fundamental right to know where their organization is heading and the specific role they can play to help make the achievement of that direction possible.

Indeed, when that direction is missing, workers will typically fill in the blanks with their own interpretations of where they think their firm is going and then let those interpretations drive their own behaviours. Their collective actions, however, usually result in high levels of confusion and chaos throughout the ranks as different individuals and groups work at cross purposes to one another.

Left unchecked, a sense of malaise and lack of purpose will set in. To avoid this situation, good leaders often turn to their organization's mission, vision and values statements for communicating direction. As the most popular management tool in the world, these statements have been much maligned over the years. But without them, it would be very difficult for a leader to create the sense of direction, collective understanding and unity of purpose among the troops which, in turn, helps defeat competitors.

Essential Act 2: Lead by example

According to the ancient warlord Sun Tsu: "One must lead with actions, not just words." Wise leaders must constantly look for ways to reinforce and reflect back to the organization through their own behaviour the priorities contained in the mission.

Case in point: In 1988, when Arthur Church took over as CEO of Brampton-based Champion Road Machinery the company was losing money and Church, a home grown executive who was raised in Woodstock and earned degrees from the University of Waterloo and McMaster, knew one of his top priorities was to stem the flow. On his first day at work, his assistant asked what supplies he needed. He quickly rhymed off a list of items including a "cup to hold my pencils". A short while later, his assistant returned with the items, including what had to be the finest cup ever designed for holding pencils. When Church saw it, he blurted out: "What's this?" When the assistant explained, the new leader told him to "get our money back" and get a cup out of the cafeteria for his pencils. The story, of course, spread like wildfire throughout the plant. He later remarked: "You can be sure I wasn't going to get any gold-plated proposals after that incident."

Church understood that employees look to their leaders' actions for cues as to what constitutes acceptable and non-acceptable behaviour. His simple act sent a strong message. And the employees caught on.

Employees also look for leadership acts that inspire them. Any resultant imitation becomes more than just flattery. It is how organizational culture is developed and shaped. So, make sure you are sending out the right messages in your behaviours and that they reinforce the organization's stated strategic direction.

Essential Act 3: Practice open, frequent and focused communications

If employees do not know what exactly it is that they have to do when it comes to helping their organization achieve its purpose and vision, they cannot make effective contributions to the cause. They cannot get excited about it. And by definition, they cannot feel good about themselves in terms of what they actually do.

It's important that leaders concentrate on the few high-priority messages that everyone needs to understand thoroughly--and remember--to create the organization's collective focus.

The most underrated and under-appreciated, yet very powerful, means of communication is by word-of-mouth-especially in those instances when a manager has to introduce and explain the mission to subordinates or other stakeholders. There is a straightforward reason for the powerfulness of word-of-mouth communications: once a manager begins to speak about the organization's mission statement, a moment of truth is reached in the minds of listeners. It is at this point that stakeholders judge whether the leaders themselves believe and understand the mission.

In Hamilton, the leaders of St. Joseph's Hospital developed a unique program called "I make a difference" which involved sessions with every single staff member to ensure that everyone understood their specific role and the behaviours required to support the mission and values statement of the organization. Such intense and clear communication left no room for confusion. Today, the hospital is renowned for the care it offers patients and the innovative medical research it performs.

Is there some magical equation for determining the frequency of communication with employees? Not likely. Every situation is different. The extent to which a company is able to intersperse key phrases from its mission into everyday conversations, however, will demonstrate the mission is not a flavour-of-the-month program. When it comes to communication, all you can be sure of, to paraphrase Jacquelyn Suzanne, is once is not enough.

Essential Act 4: Measure success and give rewards on the basis of the organization's mission, vision and values

It's a truism of business that you can't manage what you don't measure. And it's a truism of psychology that what gets rewarded gets done. But many organizations that claim to be "mission-driven" don't measure their progress against the mission and fail to reward employees for helping to make the mission a reality. I know of one company which prompted its employees to deliver world class customer service and then rewarded its customer complaints department on the basis of ending the call within four minutes. Small wonder that a lot of customers found themselves hearing a dial tone half way through their call!

Thus, the final step in making a mission statement part of your company's internal fabric is to make sure all company systems and processes align with the statement. This includes hiring, firing, promotions, bonuses and salary adjustments, just to name a few.

Smart leaders also understand that there is more to rewarding employees than money. This is not to say that money is not important to employees. But when money is the only reward, an organization can quickly run out of the amount it needs to reward its employees' accomplishments. Rewards that truly make employees feel good about themselves, on the other hand, are in greater supply and are longer lasting. That's why wise leaders make generous use of non-monetary rewards--especially praise and respect--to motivate their employees. And that's exactly what Mary Kay meant when she said "We praise our people to success." She claimed that it was this philosophy which helped her to build a billion dollar enterprise.

Dr. Chris Bart, C.A. (bartck@mcmaster.ca) is a Professor of Strategic Market Leadership (Strategy and Governance) at McMaster University's DeGroote School of Business and the President of Corporate Missions Inc. Dr. Bart is the author of the best-selling mission implementation and leadership book A Tale of Two Employees and the Person Who Wanted to Lead Them. His website is www.corporatemissionsinc.com.