Ken Blanchard speaks exclusively to LeadershipZone about his spiritual approach to leadership. He's also generously offered to answer readers questions. Don't miss this unique opportunity to get some advice from the One Minute Manager himself!
Into his three-score and ten years, spiritual head of a global management training and consulting business (and recovering from hip surgery) you might expect Ken Blanchard to be taking a rest. You would be wrong. Blanchard seems busier than ever thinking new thoughts about love, spirituality and the need to be a servant leader. He is also still actively engaged in speaking engagements, broadcasting webinars, writing new books to build on the seminal 'One Minute Manager' and being (according to his own website), 'one of the most influential leadership experts in the world'. He co-founded the Ken Blanchard Companies with his wife in 1979 and has built up a considerable business of which he is now its designated chief spiritual officer.
"Leadership should take into account the needs and concerns of everyone in the business and not just thinking that profit is a worthwhile goal"Lead like Jesus
Spirituality is central to Blanchard's vision of leadership and he likes to practice what he preaches. "I define leading at a higher level as a process of helping people achieve worthwhile results," he says. The keyword in Blanchard’s lexicon is 'worthwhile'. His notion of corporate worth extends far beyond stark profit and asset value. "Leadership should take into account the needs and concerns of everyone in the business and not just think that profit is a worthwhile goal," he says. Is he anti-profit? Profit, he says, "is a reward for being a good corporate citizen in your community." Though for Blanchard, the term spirituality does have a personal religious dimension (he has started a 'Lead Like Jesus' ministry), his definition of that word is much more general: a desire in business to do the right thing for your customers and employees. Says Blanchard, "Profit is the applause you get for taking care of your customers and creating a motivating environment for your people."
Set the right goals
Leading at a higher level, says Blanchard, involves setting the right goals: "Your business wants to be the provider of choice, the investment of choice. It is also crucial to set a compelling vision that tells people who your are, where you are going and what is going to guide your journey. The first part of leadership is showing direction. If people do not know where you are going then your leadership does not matter. A bureaucratic organisation does not have clear goals except to protect the hierarchy through rules and regulations." Blanchard's contention is that many leaders forget about people and that leads to a vicious circle of decline and stagnation. "If you don't treat your people right, they will not take care of your customers."
Servant leadership
Blanchard has written a lot (and still thinks even more) about 'servant leadership.' He acknowledges that it is a concept which leads to a lot of misunderstanding. "A lot of people think it's about the inmates running the prison or trying to please everybody. This is not what I mean. 'Servant leadership' is about setting clear vision and direction, what you could call, 'strategic leadership'. The next stage is operational leadership where you serve the vision and not your own self interest. This is the servant part." The idea of servant leadership is behind Blanchard's next book due out in May this year, "Don't mark my paper, help me get an A". He has written this with Garry Ridge, the Australian head of the worldwide company WD-40 and to Blanchard, a very good role model of servant leadership. "At WD-40 if a manager comes to the boss and says that they need to get rid of somebody for not doing a good job, Garry asks: 'OK, but what did you do to help them get an A grade?' If they cannot show that they did anything, then they fire the manager. I think that the new book will have a major impact on the whole area of performance review: rank ordering of people just takes away trust. In WD-40 they have clear and measurable goals and a philosophy that if one person rises, the whole organisation rises."
As with Ridge, Ken Blanchard loves to work with inspirational leaders of highly successful companies and unpick the way they work. Another of his forthcoming books "Leadership is Love" sees him working with Colleen Barrett of Southwest Airlines. "This highly profitable company is a great example of servant leadership. They have never laid anybody off, over 2/3 of employees are union members; they have a clear set of goals and a compelling vision.
"They are mean and lean and hire people to take care of customers and that means great team effort – even the pilots will help clean the plane if necessary. It all stems from the vision provided by the leaders."
Chief spiritual officer
As chief spiritual officer, Ken Blanchard's focus is on providing a set of clear values for his own servant leadership. Faith is a key issue for Blanchard. "It is no coincidence that a lot of very successful companies have a faith base." He cites the US fast-food company Chick-fil-A who won't open on Sunday and says that if they can't outsell rivals in six days then they are not doing a good enough job. Their turnover at management level is around one per cent. Their mission is to use the talent that God has given us to have a positive influence on anyone who comes into contact with Chick-fil-A." Blanchard - a deeply religious man - is not concerned about which faith should provide direction, "Any faith as long as it provides a spiritual dimension – we are not trying to convert people."
He is also a strong believer in organisations being cause generated and points to Ben and Jerry's where a large proportion of profit goes to good causes. "We try to model our company on these excellent role models. As chief spiritual officer, it's my job to help people get out of their own way and have something which is more loving, powerful and caring."
People are your greatest asset
Are these spiritual goals tougher to achieve in these dark economic times? "No, Jim Collins says that great leaders think about people and results: not either/or. The problem with leaders who do not have a values-based business is that when the bottom line doesn't look good, they care less about people. The companies such as Southwest Airlines open their books and say to their people: 'we have a problem here, how can we face it together?' It is nutty that in hard times managers get more insular. It's the people out facing the customer who know where the costs can be cut or the revenues raised. It is unbelievably naïve to think that in hard times people are unimportant."
Can servant leadership be taught or is it a natural gift? "You have to teach people in the heart not just the head," says Blanchard. "Most MBA courses don't talk about leadership models and when they do it is a purely intellectual thing. In our graduate programmes, we take people on a journey first looking at themselves. One of the reasons why people make lousy leaders is that they don't know who they are." Blanchard ends the interview with a statement that goes to the very core of his thinking: "If you don't have your heart right, you don't realise you are here to serve, not to be served."
Mike Levy is a freelance journalist, author, writing and presentations coach
www.writestart.co.uk
