After over three decades of working closely with well over a thousand individuals in leadership positions, in training, qualifying, identifying and consulting, as well as having been both a volunteer and a paid leader for both for- profit and non- profit organizations, I have grown weary of late at the ever- increasing usage of fancy rhetoric, techno- jargon, platitudes, generalities, etc., that seem to be appearing in ever- increasing abundance in far too many organizations and their leadership. True leadership has never been about great words or oratory, nor using impressive technical sounding language. As it has always been, it is what a leader does, what actions he takes, and his personal and professional integrity that makes someone a great leader. It has never been about the rhetoric! Rumi wrote, "It is the inner bond that draws one person to another, not words."
1. Although many wannabe leaders have always resorted to rhetoric, why is it that it seems even more widespread today than ever before? Part of this is that there appears, in most organizations, to be far less competition for leadership positions than in years past. This often creates lower quality leaders, as organizations and their members are thus forced to accept less quality to be their leaders. Because there is so much competition for individual's time, effort, and resources, and because we have observed a diminishing number of individuals who even belong to organizations, both membership rolls and thus the choices for potential leaders have suffered.
2. Far too many of the individuals thrust into leadership positions are either unwilling, unable, or insufficiently committed, to undergo effective training and learning. While in better times, many organizations did not envision the need to professionally train its leaders, in these leaner times, when in many cases there is an apparent dearth of leadership in many cases, this lack of leadership preparation has come back to haunt them. People are not born as leaders, but leadership is a combination of training, personal qualities, traits, and an attitude that makes someone a truly great leader. Many people, unfortunately, have only minimal training, and often only take away from the training some expressions or words that trainers often use. True professional training is multi-faceted, and involves continuous and ongoing work, and development of an understanding that true leaders take action in a timely basis rather than resort to mere rhetoric.
Far too often, this techno- jargon, or rhetoric replaces comprehension. Individuals unready to lead look to a guru and a quick fix, and thus rely on terminology. Some of these dangerous terms that are both overused and misused include: governance; metrics; teams; next level; etc. True leaders understand that they must develop a true caring bond with those they represent, adopting an attitude that a leader's primary responsibility is to provide value and to serve the needs of his constituents.
Richard Brody, with over 30 years consultative sales, marketing, training, managerial, and operations experience, has trained sales and marketing people in numerous industries, given hundreds of seminars, appeared as a company spokesperson on over 200 radio and television programs, and regularly blogs on real estate, politics, economics, management, leadership, negotiations, conferences and conventions, etc. He has negotiated, arranged and/ or organized hundreds of conferences and conventions. He's a Senior Consultant with RGB Consultation Services, an Ecobroker, a Licensed Buyers Agent (LBA) and Licensed Salesperson in NYS, in real estate.
Richard has owned businesses, been a Chief Operating Officer, a Chief Executive Officer, and a Director of Development, as well as a consultant. He has a Consulting Website ( http://tinyurl.com/rgbcons ), and his company PLAN2LEAD, LLC's site ( http://www.plan2lead.net/ ), and can be followed on Twitter
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