The
central principle of leadership is that a leader has to be certain of their
beliefs, and stick to them no matter what, according to former New York City
mayor Rudy Giuliani.
Speaking
at the Power of Executing Greatness conference by the Institute of Leadership
and Management, Giuliani laid out the principles he believed were fundamental
to leadership and said that if ideas and beliefs dominated what people think
then others would follow them.
The
former mayor said that leaders had to be optimists, as nobody followed a
pessimist, and a positive outlook would inspire others to effect change.
Giuliani
said he believed that leaders had to have courage to succeed and that leaders
could not afford to fear losing.
“If
you are afraid of something it is probably because there is an opportunity in
front of you,” he said. “Feel the fear – it will help you succeed, just don’t
let it immobilise you.”
He
went on to say that relentless preparation would mean that when something
unanticipated happened, other plans could be tailored to solve the problem.
He
used the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center to illustrate this by
saying that there were no crisis scenarios for an airborne terrorist attack
before the event.
However,
he said that a combination of emergency measures for an air crash and an
explosion in a building had enabled rescue services to respond in the quickest
possible time.
“Plans
for the unanticipated will come from the anticipated,” he said. “If you can
prepare for the worst, everything else becomes easy – you just need to vary
plans you already have to fit the happenstance.”
Giuliani
said that leaders had to recognise their own weaknesses and be willing to put
their faith in their team.
“Once
you balance your own weakness, you will balance those of others,” the former
mayor said. “You have to remember that leadership is about everyone – your
people execute your actions for you.”
He
also told delegates that communication was the key, adding that the phrase that
typified a failing organisation was ‘we don’t know what’s expected of us’.
Finally,
he stressed that a leader had to love people and it was compassion and caring
about people that really made a leader.
“If
you don’t love people, please, please, please do not become a leader,” Giuliani
said.
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