Lessons from SCU's EMBA Module on Leadership

This past week I was back in California to facilitate the opening module on leadership for our EMBA program. We met from about 9:00 a.m. until about 10:00 p.m. on Thursday and Friday and until about 1:00 p.m. on Saturday. As part of that experience we held “fireside” chats with several outstanding and insightful leaders.

Rick Justice (EVP, Cisco) told us about his “10 Lessons for Leading in Good and Bad Times” but the bottom line, he exclaimed: “It’s all about the people. If you care about people, it will make all the difference.” He pointed out the importance of “hiring people different than you ... and more capable than you in a number of ways.” Rick also told us that you can’t be a great leader (or company for that matter) unless you’ve been through a crisis (– good news for any of us alive today!). I loved his final point – and a good balance to the previous observation – which is not to take yourself (or everything else) so seriously!

We were also joined by Sonia Clark (former HR SVP for Align Technology and Agilent) and Spencer Clark (former CLO, Cadence Design) who pushed us to think more intentionally, and use that focus to create the future. They also argued that culture rules and is usually more difficult to change than any individual’s behavior. They encouraged people to each out to those they admired as leaders and to ask them for advice and guidance. They believed that with few exceptions mentees had to find mentors – not the other way around – and that they were more than available for the genuine asking.

My final observation from the workshop/class. I had participants either prepare a “personal best leadership” case study or write a case study about how the "best leader they knew behaved." Individuals told their story in small groups, and the groups then summarized the lessons learned on newsprint. The newsprints were simply labeled “Key Actions.” When we reviewed the summaries it was impossible to tell which was which; in other words, the key actions from the consensus of the groups focused on personal bests with those from the groups focused on most admired leaders they were nearly identical. The people we most admire as leaders are the ones who behave the way people do when they are at their personal best as leaders. It would seem that these key behaviors (which we’ve identified as the Five Practices of Exemplary Leaders) are essentially the same whether we look at them from the viewpoint of the leader or from the constituent.

We do know what leadership looks like.