Visionary Leaders Use the Full Capacity of their Organisation

Reinventing Sport Leadership - Part 8 of 16

Photo credit - unsplash

When you are a leader,

“your job is to fill your own cup, so it overflows. Then you can serve others, joyfully from your saucer”

Lisa Nichols.

When I came across this quotation, I got to think about how over the years, I have tried (and not always been successful) to use my privilege such as having a Ph.D. degree, vast international experience, vast work experience and so many other things to play a role in the development of others so that they become the best they can be where we worked. What I have done, has gone beyond just mentorship. It has been involved in trying to recruit capable people and participating in the interview process without going in there intending to appoint a specific person. When requested to recommend someone for a job where I have worked, I have always gone for the best candidate that I knew was available. Somehow in the back of my mind, there has always been this thing that we need the best for our organisation. There was a time when I had to look for my right hand person for a very specific job. In my search, I came across a woman who, according to me, had done some amazing (and crazy) outdoor pursuits such as climbing Mount Kilimajaro, driving from Cape to Cairo, running marathons such as the Comrades, London, and many others. The icing on the cake was when she rode a mountain bike down the “Road of Death” in Bolivia (just google it if you want to know what it is all about) just after we offered her a job. The reason I recommended her for the position was that one, she was totally different from me in how we approached our responsibilities, and two, she did not have time for bureaucracy. I was and still the meticulous one who negotiate rules in a bureaucracy. The two of us, with the support of other colleagues, worked very well for four years until she left because we complemented each other.

The point is the story above is that a leader must always try to get the best people available in the market is an organisation is to be organisationally effective and sustainable. Now just imagine if you build a team of capable and diverse people. Just imagine if all these people are empowered to do their work to the best of their abilities without being bothered by their leader. In my experience, it has built a very good team where everybody was accountable. As a leader, I would mentor and where appropriate, give this or that one a book of self-development if I noticed that this was needed. I showed interest in their birthdays, growth, and development while holding them accountable that they can do their work exceptionally well. This is what is called using the full capacity of your organisation. It starts with building a great team from recruitment to selection to appointment, and effective performance management once they have been appointed.

Here are some ideas on how to use the full capacity of your organisation:

· Jim Collins states that “if you have the wrong people, it doesn’t matter if you discover the right direction; you still won’t have a great company. Great vision without great people is irrelevant.” This statement speaks to the recruitment and selection process I have alluded to about. Don’t you wonder why the South African government is not able to deliver needed services to its people? It is because most departments have failed in appoint people who have the capacity to do their work well. In other words, our leaders are failing in using the full capacity of their departments because they have appointed unqualified, unskilled, and unsuitable employees. The lesson here, therefore, is to appoint the best candidate that is available at that point in time.

· Once these employees begin working, the leader and his/her team must get to know them better to be able to identify their strengths and weaknesses, some of which could have been picked up if the interview process has been conducted effectively. Through knowing the employee’s strengths and weaknesses, the leaders can support them better in their further development. Remember what I mentioned earlier; that I use my privilege for the development of others. This principle kicks in here in that I have been able to help many younger employees gain confidence earlier on how to do what is expected. It is with paying particular attention to what the employees need to become better than a leader can accelerate their ability to fit in, and their development in skills and competence.

· Being a good leader means cherishing the people in one’s team – a team one has played a role in building. When one is a good leader, employees want to work for you. My own experience was when I was recruited to join on organisation and I found a leader who believed in me, who tested me, and kept quiet when I was struggling with the work, he had given me. I remember one day when he just said that I must write up a business plan. I did not know what a business plan was and was too embarrassed to ask him about what he was talking. After he left my office, I went onto the internet to google what a business plan was. Once I knew what it was, I went to local Exclusive Books and bought a book on how to write a business plan. On the day I was to submit the business plan, I did so with confidence and pride that I had mastered something new I had not known before. If the leader I have referred to above had not had confidence in me that I was capable of writing a business plan, I would not have pushed myself to give it my best shot, including investing in books and internet resources to make sure that I did a proper job. Great leaders trust their employees to do the best they can on any assignment they have been given to do.

· Great leaders identify opportunities for their employees to pursue so that they grow in strength and the capacity to do their jobs well. I have been sent to international conferences because those to who I reported to, saw the relevance of the conference to my growth and development. The leaders I am talking about did not go to conferences themselves when they knew that it would not benefit them. As a result of my being sent to these conferences, I become stronger in doing my work, and I helped my organisations work and use its full capacity. Unfortunately, in South African sport organisations, travelling to international conferences and events is the exclusive territory of the leaders. It is that peck that people fight so hard to get elected to leadership positions.

· Great leaders are not afraid of diversity and what it brings. They thrive on being challenged and will listen to ideas and thoughts of every member of the team. They know that they are not the repository of all knowledge and wisdom and will admit that among their employees there are individuals who are smarter than then. Hence, they listen attentively, and if the argument is sound, they allow their employees to carry on with the project, programme, or activity. In other words, great leaders can identify differences, appreciate them, and can put them to use to the fullest. I have been fortunate in my career to work with such a leader who always turned to me on strategic and policy formulation issues because he had identified that I had those skills.

· The new and somewhat strange things that great leaders get their employees to do also serve as a way of getting the latter out of their comfort zone. People, including this author, get into a comfort zone that leads to one doing the exact things year in, year out. Great leaders know how up the notch by introducing new things and demands each year. I work in an environment that fundraising is key to the success and sustainability of the organisation. Each year, it is the expectation that we raise more than what we raised the previous year. I have also fallen into the habit of introducing at least one new thing when I plan for the next year with my team. Now I have noticed that some of my teams, also do the same. We always stretch ourselves to be the best that we can, and as a result, success flows more regularly than not.

· Last but not, and there are many ideas that I can share on using the full capacity of your organisation, great leaders are simple and humble human beings. As I have mentioned in one of my previous articles, they know where they come from and that to get where they are, they had to stand on the shoulders of other people. They, therefore, do not see themselves as the boss. They see themselves as facilitators, mentors, coaches, teachers, trainers, and so forth. They know when to give advice, and when not to. They do not try to make everyone in their organisation to think and behave like them. No, they encourage everyone to think and act as naturally as possible, each according to his/her strength and experience. In other words, they leverage their employees' strengths, experience, skills, and knowledge. In return, they get an organisation that works at full capacity where no one carries another as excess baggage because everyone (maybe almost everyone) does his/her job effectively.

I have worked for many years in sports organisations that empowering employees and other volunteer leaders have been taboo. There is a culture that I believe comes from political organisations where consultations, even when not necessary, is called for. As a result, many people with great leadership skills leaders do not run for elections simply because they have realised that there is no desire or inclination to use the full capacity of their organisation by those in leadership positions. The organisation ends up going from crisis to crisis because of toxic leaders and/or toxic followership. However, if leaders realise that the ball is their court to build their organisations successfully, they will inherit an organisation that works at full capacity. The leaders would then fit Nelson Mandela’s definition of leaders that:

“there can be no greater gift than that of giving one’s time and energy to help others without expecting anything in return.”

“Be one who nurtures and builds. Be one who has an understanding and forgiving heart who looks for the best in people. Leave people better than you found them”

(Marvin J. Ashton)