{"id":1461,"date":"2010-08-18T01:00:00","date_gmt":"2010-08-18T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/?p=1461"},"modified":"2010-06-14T17:06:30","modified_gmt":"2010-06-15T01:06:30","slug":"leadership-the-elusive-skill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/?p=1461","title":{"rendered":"Leadership: The Elusive Skill"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/08\/leadership.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-1468\" title=\"leadership\" src=\"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/08\/leadership-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" srcset=\"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/08\/leadership-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/systematichr.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/08\/leadership-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/systematichr.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/08\/leadership-60x60.jpg 60w, https:\/\/systematichr.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/08\/leadership.jpg 500w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px\" \/><\/a>In cycling, there is the concept of a pace line.\u00a0 Just as in auto racing (if you\u2019re a NASCAR person) if you inches are behind another cyclist, you\u2019ll save in the neighborhood of 25 to 30% of your energy as the cyclist in front of you fights the wind for you.\u00a0 That person in front has a lot of pressure. \u00a0S\/he is the leader both physically and in other ways as well, and everyone behind expects her to exhibit certain skills and qualities. \u00a0It&#8217;s for good reason too. \u00a0One bad move by the person in front, and the people in back who can&#8217;t see the road ahead all go down on top of each other. \u00a0This is not a complete list, but here are some of the qualities we&#8217;re looking for in a cycling leader:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>First, they have to keep a strong pace.\u00a0 If they don\u2019t, they will get passed too early, or the line of cyclists behind them get disrupted.\u00a0 When everyone\u2019s front tire is literally 2 inches away from each other, slowing down can be catastrophic.<\/li>\n<li>Second, They have to know when to let someone else lead.\u00a0 You can\u2019t lead forever \u2013 burning 30% more effort means that there is always someone fresher than you are.<\/li>\n<li>Third, you have to be stable.\u00a0 Just as mentioned above, stability is a major part of the safety equation just as consistent speed is.<\/li>\n<li>Fourth, you have to call road hazards.\u00a0 This can either be done with a flick of the hand that most non-cyclists would never see, or sometimes I verbally call out hazards as well.\u00a0 If you\u2019re behind 3 guys, you literally can\u2019t see the road in front of you.<\/li>\n<li>Lastly (probably not last really), you have to be aware of the wind and which direction it\u2019s coming from.\u00a0 A cycling pace line is not always a straight line \u2013 it is often a diagonal line echelon as riders attempt to hide from the wind more effectively.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Management programs always have things like accounting and finance, structured strategy courses, technology, etc.\u00a0 MBA programs have almost been able to commoditize these courses and structure how to formulate thinking and process in their students minds.\u00a0 However, management programs have found it harder to teach leadership and actually build future leaders.\u00a0 As organizations hire MBA\u2019s, they know they will come with the requisite base of skills and knowledge.\u00a0 But often, the leadership capabilities are completely unknown until mid career.<\/p>\n<p>Back to cycling, I can teach a guy to ride strong, and ride a straight line, and to call out road hazards. But it actually takes experience to know when to let someone else lead, and it takes awareness to know how to position yourself properly so the guys behind you that you can\u2019t see can ride a proper echelon.\u00a0 For some reason, there are leadership skills in cycling that confound many cyclists \u2013 yet they are easy and obvious to others.<\/p>\n<p>We in HR realize the leadership problem.\u00a0 Most of us have a good set of leadership competencies that we attribute to our leaders and HiPo\u2019s.\u00a0 The problem is actually measuring leaders.\u00a0 Sales or production growth is often misinterpreted as leadership.\u00a0 Similarly, financial management and sound budgeting or project management is misinterpreted as leadership.\u00a0 I wonder how many of us are correlating employee engagement scores from manager teams to these other measures?\u00a0 Are we looking at employee achievement and promotion ratios?\u00a0 Often, it\u2019s not the obvious and quantifiable measures that tell us if a leader if a good one, but it\u2019s the judgment of the employees \u2013 those following behind \u2013 that give us the best picture.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In cycling, there is the concept of a pace line.\u00a0 Just as in auto racing (if you\u2019re a NASCAR person) if you inches are behind another cyclist, you\u2019ll save in the neighborhood of 25 to 30% of your energy as&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1468,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8,49],"tags":[142,104,202,204,203],"class_list":["post-1461","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-strategies","category-talent","tag-cycling","tag-leadership","tag-managers","tag-mba","tag-pace-line"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1461","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1461"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1461\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1464,"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1461\/revisions\/1464"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1468"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}