The Essential Intangibles
An Introduction
Leadership books, seminars, conferences, and consultants provide us with a wealth of information to make us better leaders. We learn how to better manage priorities, how to focus on a few narrow goals, how to cast vision, how to lead meetings, how to get the right people on the bus, how to lead down, how to lead up, and how to lead sideways while standing on our heads, I suppose. These skills have become so valuable to our everyday lives as leaders that we breathe them in and out unthinkingly. These skills have become as important as learning to read an expense report or operating a computer. Without these skills we would feel unable to lead.
However, you can learn all these skills and still fail. It is possible to be an incredibly skilled leader and still fall short. Superiors can give you an evaluation based on sheer facts and you’ll get a good report—but you can still be on their hit list for future “transition off the team.” Your followers may respect your abilities and your hard work—but they may not really want to be around you, and so your team dwindles or paid staff lack motivation. You can master nearly every leadership skill in the book and know the 21 Laws of Leadership better than the Ten Commandments, and you can still lack essential qualities that weren’t on your leadership development checklist.
BAD NEWS AND GOOD NEWS
The bad news is that the little things can make or break a leader. If you don’t have the intangible qualities you may be very skilled and still stink at what you do. This is really bad news. We’ve heard all the great leadership trainings and developed ourselves like crazy and sometimes things still don’t work out. More often than not it’s an intangible issue.
When the leader of a non-profit organization seems to be doing all the right things but the Board of Trustees think there’s something that holds him back—it’s usually one of the intangibles.
When a pastor of a church is a great communicator, a good leader, runs good meetings, but a huge chunk of the church is still voting against her—she’s missing one or more of the essential intangibles.
When the owner of a small business is doing everything right to execute a perfect business plan but the company still just can’t get over the hump—more likely than not the intangibles have been neglected.
You get the point. When all else is failing even when all else makes sense, look to the intangibles for the clue to the problem.
The good news is that the intangibles can be learned just like the leadership skills we know so well. The intangibles can sometimes be innate qualities in some while others have to work harder at them. More good news is that you don’t need to go to a conference or hire a consultant to learn the essential intangibles either. The workshop for learning them is your current environment. In fact, the smaller the environment the better the workshop. The better people can get to know you the better you can practice the intangibles.
WHAT ARE THE ESSENTIAL INTANGIBLES ALREADY?
I’m dangling the carrot here overmuch, so let share the essential intangibles:
Selfless ownership, showing up, taking risks, having fun, being transparent, keeping secrets, faithfulness, and reward-sharing.
ARE THEY REALLY INTANGIBLE?
Yes. Each area involves an intangible that can’t be very easily measured or quantified. You can measure how many people you recruit for a new team you’re forming. All that is involved is a head count. It’s harder to measure how well you humbly distribute the rewards of that team’s success. The only way to know is to ask what each team member thinks about that in an environment where they would be completely honest with no other motivations to alter the truth (which is hard to create). However, just because that intangible is hard to quantify doesn’t mean that it is meaningless. Let’s say that you recruited that team of eight which you recruited and led them to success. But then you take all the credit for the success and forget them and climb the ladder. In the short run you may get ahead, but few of them will want to work with you again and they may go so far as to begin under-cutting your success behind closed doors. Others that weren’t even on that team will begin to question your motives and in no time multiple essential intangibles are in question when it comes to your reputation. This all stems from not doing something that was hard to quantify or measure at the time: sharing credit when credit is due (the eighth intangible).
ARE THEY REALLY ESSENTIAL?
Yes. The key to this is playing out what it looks like to not have any one of these intangibles. Very few leaders have zero evidence of the intangibles showing up in our lives, and in fact most successful leaders just naturally exhibit several of the intangibles. Maybe we were brought up right or we learned to play nice in school or we just figured out by social customs that these things are how people should act. But most people also have some blind spots. When you play out what the absence looks like the contrast is stark in just a few examples of the intangibles:
If a leader only cares about their own areas and supports no other areas they will create a turf-mentality in their organization that affects everyone around them. At first they will just be isolated. Eventually they will be beaten or pushed out by a team that wants to work together.
If a leader changes their mind all the time and follows whatever fad or book they have read recently then others will begin to lack faith that their current interest or decision has lasting consequence. They will be seen as flighty or non-committed.
If a leader simply does what is required and never takes any risks or bravely tries new things eventually they will not be followed. Their lack of brave action will not get them fired but people will stop following them because they know they are just “doing the job” and not going anywhere. They may get things done but they are not really leaders that people want to follow.
If a leader only shows up to their own events and meetings and never shows up to anything else they will be seen as selfish and uncaring. If they are rarely in the office when most other people are or aren’t accessible to others then they stop being a factor in the organic elements of the organization.
The intangibles are hard to measure but can make or break a leader. It’s important for every leader to find out what intangible blind spots they have and to work on those areas. These intangibles are essential, but they can be learned.
This is the introduction to The Essential Intangibles. Come back here for more on each intangible, and subscribe so you don’t miss out.
It has been interesting over the years as you and I would see qualities in people -- for good or bad -- as we would notice if they have the intangibles or if they don't. They are important! More important than people realize.
Your writing reminds me of God's description of David's leadership qualities in Psalm 78:71-72..."71 From the care of the ewes with nursing lambs He brought him to shepherd Jacob His people,
and Israel His inheritance. 72 So he shepherded them according to the integrity of his heart,
And guided them with his skillful hands." It seems as if leadership is divided into the two (2) areas of "shepherded" and "guided". One originates in the "integrity of heart"...maybe that which you have so well described as "intangibles"... and the other originates in the "skillful hands" or learned / acquired leadership skills. I personally have found that while these are two very specific and quite different parts of leadership, that each part is dependent upon and totally interacts with the other. Therefore, a developing leader will grow in skills and as a person continually.