For years now I’ve heard so many senior managers attribute their company’s failure to the acceptance of substandard behavior and the inability of their management teams to lead their employee populations to success. I’ve watched so many talented people fall by the wayside and blame external factors when in reality it was they who stopped moving forward and forgot the responsibilities of leadership. So much has been written on the subject of leadership that I dare address it myself for fear of falling short.

But my responsibility to you, the reader, takes over and my brain starts the inevitable speed rushing with thoughts about my own definitions of leadership that have led to both successes and failures. As Samuel Goldwyn of MGM said on his death bed when asked what the key to his success as, he replied, “I won more battles then I lost.”

That is the consequence of leadership. Losing is a direct result of leading as is winning. It’s the fear of losing that keeps most individuals from even entertaining the idea of leading. While it’s the confidence or arrogance of those who view leadership this way that drives them back into the game to win and withstand the attacks of others. For winning more than you lose brings on the jealousies of others that forces you into the separateness of leadership and causes you to stand alone in the glory and criticisms.

A Journey of Winning and Losing

Leading a team is a never-ending journey of trial and error, of focus and intensity, of energy and urgency, of patience and love, of acceptance and support, of frustration and failure, and of the recognition of reality and having the strength to deal with it regardless of the personal ramifications.

Leadership is the most difficult task of all human kind because it requires more than what the textbooks can ever offer. It requires daily victories over your own internal fears. It requires you to take a stand each and every day even on those issues that you would prefer to hide from. It requires you to separate friendship and loyalty from performance and expectations. It requires you to stand alone and gives birth to your adversaries.

Learning to win with humility and lose with dignity is the cornerstone of all great leaders and is evidenced by the way they sit the saddle. For the price they’ve paid has taught them that it is the team that allows them to lead and it is their respect that keeps them leading.

Leadership is not something that’s given to you; it’s something that others allow you to do. Therefore, in order to lead, one must set themselves apart from the others and set the standards to be followed. And without ensuring that the standards are met, the leader will fail and the organization will fall.

So at the very least the leader must be willing to commit and reach a level that others aspire to. Given this principal, one can then see that sacrifice becomes the ultimate price of every leader. It is the willingness or ability to sacrifice that determines how far a leader will actually go. Whether it is relocating against their family’s wishes, or continuing your education on top of the responsibilities of raising a family, or putting in long hours, or traveling, or disciplining and even terminating a long-term friend who works for you, or just putting up with the stress.

A close friend of mine once said, “The person who can put up with the most stress makes the most money.” Quite possibly it is the avoidance of stress or conflict that tends to limit one’s ability to lead.

Mistakes of Leadership

One of the biggest mistakes I’ve seen over the years in leaders is not merely the acceptance of substandard performance, but the actual proliferation of it by allowing it to continue from company to company all under the banner of friendship, or their own inability or lack of strength to deal with conflict and modify behavior, or quite possibly just their own insecurities...especially if it widens their sphere of influence and increases their stature.

Obviously then, one of the most difficult parts of being a leader is modifying your team’s behavior, maintaining and reaching expectations, and separating friendship from responsibility. At the end of the day, the acceptance of substandard performance merely puts off the inevitable and, in fact, does more harm than good for the individual, for corporate America, and for our industry. Allowing it to continue not only breeds negative opinions of our industry and cost millions of dollars, but it is also a clear sign of a leader not taking his or her responsibility seriously enough to face the difficult task of either truly developing an individual or ensuring that they take a hard look within themselves to find something that they are suited for and can excel at.

Leadership is a double-edged sword. As much agony comes with it as glory. But at its core is the never-ending commitment of being grounded in doing what’s right each and every day regardless of the personal or professional outcome. At the end of the day, doing what’s right in each circumstance overrides any potential loss, whether perceived or real. It is the power of right that touches the soul of each human and that can overshadow any incidental loss or mistake. The ability of the leader to stand and admit mistakes is what defines the soul of not just the leader, but of the entire team they lead because the leader personifies the team and the team gives birth to the leader.

As a leader one must be concerned with the future and stay focused on the direction towards the future you wish to obtain. It is the actions of the day that determine the existence of tomorrow. Therefore, a leader must have a clear vision of tomorrow and maintain the course by responding each day in a consistent and clear way that the team not only understands, but eventually expects and can predict due to the consistency of the leader’s response. If doing what is right is the consistent message and action, then the team at some point will virtually lead itself in the right direction.

It is deviations from this path where most problems come from. Where leaders make split-second decisions for personal gain, or to avoid responsibility, or merely chose to hide from the reality of their mistakes, or due to a moment of weakness chose not to lead.

Responsibilities of the Team

Where the team, wishing to emulate and please its leader, duplicates the leader’s actions...or lack thereof...and lose the focus of tomorrow’s goal and become inevitably intertwined in surviving the daily dysfunctions of life and consequently lose their commitment to doing what’s right each day.

One of the saddest aspects of this situation is that most teams in these situations, who have an obligation to its leader to call such actions out, are either blinded by their own loyalty and friendship with the leader or muted by their own insecurities and therefore unable to confront the leader.

The point here is that it’s the leader’s responsibility to ensure that when the leader has a moment of weakness, the team is conditioned to be there for the leader, pointing out the weaknesses and the mistakes, and helping to pick up the pieces regardless of the personal or professional ramifications.

This is where the power of the group truly gets its definition, for being a good leader requires a degree of humility that allows for open criticism from the team. And this social dynamic actually solidifies the team even further and allows the leader to be human.

Good Listener

All good leaders share the common trait of being good listeners. It is this trait that allows them to be insensitive to the needs of the individuals and organization and then modify or change the daily direction they give without sacrificing the long-term future goals.
This sensitivity injects the human element in daily leadership. Without it the team is destined to lose more than they win.

The social dynamics of a team is an interesting thing to study. Having built LP teams for the last twenty years has required me to study and research the success of both individuals and teams. At the heart of every successful team there has always been a good leader, someone who is an intelligent, caring, and sensitive individual...not the typical profile of a loss prevention professional. It is those individuals who understand that sacrifice and commitment go hand-in-hand. Those individuals have taught me a lot and this article is dedicated to them.

The two most important things about leadership that I have learned is that you must learn how to lose before you can truly feel the adrenalin of victory. And second, that being a good leader is a never-ending internal daily struggle. As a leader, all you can ever hope for is that you win more than you lose.

Turning your Retail Loss Prevention, Audit & Safety Human Resource Questions into INFORMED DECISIONS!