A colleague recently sent me a link to Ben Zander’s TED talk from 2008.  I’d heard of Zander, a talented conductor famous for his inspiring pre-concert speeches.  I’d even read and recommended his book (The Art of Possibility) some years ago.  Zander is always fun and inspiring to watch so I knew I’d enjoy the TED clip.  What really struck me in watching this video this time around was a concept that Zander shares near the end.  Watch the whole video if you can.  If you are short on time, fast-forward to around 17:30 for some fabulous thinking on what it means to be a leader.

To me, Zander’s points illustrate exactly what it means to be an Energizing Leader.  Imagine the impact we would all have if we remembered and lived by his three simple points:

• The conductor of an orchestra (leader) doesn’t make a sound.  He depends for his power on his ability to make other people powerful.

Leaders must be both big picture, strategic thinkers AND able to focus on the necessary details. In this new video Rosabeth Moss Kanter talks about a technique that enables leaders to do both.

As I’ve watched events unfold in Egypt, Tunisia, Bahrain and other countries these past few weeks I have been struck by how these political revolutions mirror a revolution that is happening in corporations today. Quite simply, we are moving to an age where being the leader does not necessarily equate to holding ultimate power. And lashing out and trying to subdue and control people no longer works – no matter whether the stage is a country or a company.

I’m certainly not the only person making this comparison.  Last week management consulting guru Alan Weiss wrote, “We are watching popular uprisings gain traction or fail largely based on whether those in power and the military are willing to turn their guns on their own people or refrain from doing so. In organizations, the ability to change for the best is often a question of whether senior people will listen and offer avenues for communication to do so, or whether they are insulated and aloof, and those with new and bold ideas get “whacked” by the status quo.”

Last fall a client hired me to help design, plan, and facilitate a conference for her organization’s top 60 female leaders.  To be honest, at first I was surprised by the request.  I thought, “Do women leaders really need to meet in a forum separate from their male counterparts? Doesn’t doing so actually marginalize women leaders?”

It turns out, I wasn’t alone in my initial hesitation.  As part of the design phase I interviewed 27 of the women who would be invited to the conference.  Their responses to my opening question, “What is your response to the idea of Women’s Leadership Conference?” ran the gamut.  About 50% of responses were highly positive:

As I work with leaders on change projects and strategy execution I always make it a point to talk with the people on the front lines of the organization.  Whether I am conducting one-on-one interviews, focus groups, or larger input meetings one theme emerges in company after company: “Our leadership makes decisions without understanding what we really do and how those decisions impact us.”

Hundreds of others have said it, but apparently the point bears repeating:  If you want your people to accept and support change, you must first show that you understand the organization from their perspective.

When we try to motivate others or mobilize energy for a change, the most important element is being able to connect with people.  An authentic connection has a lot of ingredients, including understanding:

• What matters to this person;
• What is this person’s reality;
• What is this person trying to accomplish at work;
• What is getting in the way?

On Jan. 2, Fareed Zakaria’s show on CNN was dedicated to the topic of “How to Lead.”  Zakaria’s guests included Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Former Governor Christie Whitman, and Yale University President Richard Levin among others.  While the program was about leadership, not change per se, I was struck by how much of the interviewees focused on how to lead change.  In fact, Lou Gerstner (form CEO of both IBM and RJR Nabisco) said, “Leadership in my opinion, is all about change.”

Repeatedly, the leaders being interviewed stressed the importance of communicating a sense of urgency, setting a clear direction/vision, aligning processes with the direction, and empowering people.

Here are a few more sample quotes:

- Tony Blair

Because I work in the arena of leading and communicating change, people often assume that I love change.  Here’s the truth: I don’t!  Like most people, I try to avoid change – especially when the change disrupts my routine, requires a lot of effort, or has the potential to cause me pain or loss.  And, like most people, I really only change when I want to, not when someone else tells me to.

The reality of change hit home for me over the holidays.  In the quieter time between Dec. 24th and Jan. 3rd I finally made a change I had put off for a long time.  I switched from Window XP to Windows 7 and from Office 2003 to Office 2010.  Not a big deal, right?  Wrong!  I hated it!  I couldn’t figure out how to do the most basic functions anymore.  I struggled for days to access old Outlook emails and I still can’t figure out how to get Word to show the screens I want it to.  I almost gave up and went back to my old software and operating system.

I’ve been busy this fall working on several initiatives for a variety of clients.  While the nature of the projects varies, three recent projects have involved sessions where we brought together the leaders who were working on a change with the people who were impacted by the change.  This in itself is not that unusual.  What is unusual is that in three successive weeks, three different leaders in three different industries all had the same epiphany.  After spending a day in working session with the people on the front line, all three leaders realized that while they thought they had been doing a good job communicating, their people did not share their own level of awareness and understanding.  Here’s what the three leaders said:

A few years ago, we worked with a technology company on the rollout of its new brand. We’d been asked to develop a training class that explained the new brand position. The changes that we were about to introduce would impact the work of every person in the company. There were new guidelines about how to talk to customers, new rules about how to use the logo and brand icons, and a new color palette for use in everything from external marketing to internal documents.

Any of you who have worked with high-tech companies know that the best way to kill an idea is that say that, “corporate says we have to do it this way.” How in the world could we get 7,000 “techies” to not only comply with the brand guidelines, but to want to? We knew that we needed every person to understand at a gut level why brand consistency, and therefore guidelines, were needed. So we started our program with a visual tour of some great brands—Apple, Starbucks, Ann Taylor, and Disney. We got people interacting and talking about why each brand was so recognizable. Time and time again, the audience saw that deliberate, consistent use of fonts, colors, and shapes helped to create a strong brand.

One of my favorite authors on leadership is Bob Sutton, professor at Stanford University.  Sutton is the author of numerous books, including Good Boss, Bad Boss and The No Asshole Rule.   One of the most memorable concepts Sutton talks about is something he calls the Toxic Tandem.

According to Sutton, research confirms what many of us have long suspected: People who gain authority over others tend to become more self-centered and less mindful of what others need, do, and say. That would be bad enough, but the problem is compounded because a boss’s self-absorbed words and deeds are scrutinized so closely by his or her followers. Combined, these tendencies make for a toxic tandem.

Check out this video of Sutton describing the Toxic Tandem and other concepts in a presentation at Google:

I’m curious . . . if you are a leader have you learned to  avoid the toxic tandem?