The Presence of Leadership: 5 Tenets

Being a leader requires presence. Presence means being there, where the work is happening, able to engage your team members and contribute. Presence can take on different forms, of course, especially in the distributed era of work that the COVID-19 pandemic has driven us further into as a workforce. Presence can be physical or digital—via Zoom, Teams, or other such remote work and collaboration tools. Regardless of the form that it takes, leaders need to be present. But why and how?

While there are many definitions of leadership, and leadership looks different depending upon the context, the essence of leadership is to inspire others to accomplish a shared goal. Plain. And. Simple. 

You can’t be a leader unless there are others to lead. You can’t lead unless you have a destination to get to. And you can’t call yourself a leader unless you can motivate, direct, or drive others to get to that destination.

Being absent allows you to do none of the things required of a leader. 

In short, you have to be there with those you are leading. You have to be able to listen and communicate. Your team needs to see you, be able to contact you for direction, ask questions, and receive guidance and feedback . How can you be “present” as a leader? Here are five tenets to get you started:

1. Location 

You can’t be in multiple places at once, of course. So, where do you place yourself as a leader of a team or organization. Obviously, the answer to this is situational. Three principles to keep in mind. First, place yourself at the greatest point of friction as it relates to the accomplishment of the goal. As we define it in the Marine Corps, and as the war theorist Clausewitz defined it, friction is “the force that makes the apparently easy so difficult” (MCDP 1, p. 5). Friction may be mental or physical. It may be self-induced and created by external forces. Friction saps energy, causes conflict, and derails progress. Successful teams learn to overcome friction, and good leaders place themselves at the point of friction to contribute to the solution however possible. The second principle is, place yourself at the point where decisions can have the most impact. As a leader, you should have the advantage in terms of skill, experience, knowledge, or wisdom, or some combination of the above (let’s face it, if you don’t, why are you a “leader” in the first place?). The bread and butter of leadership is decision-making. Organizations makes hundreds or thousands of decisions each day. Of course, a leader can’t be a part of all of those decisions. Leaders must entrust their team members and empower them to make decisions without having to get approval every time. Where leaders can make the most impact is being where the decisions have the greatest impact on the success of the mission. Third, and finally, leaders need to place themselves to have a 10,000 foot view. They must maintain, more often than not, a general awareness of the situation. At times, they need to dive deep into a problem (i.e., the point of friction) and drive decision making; however, once their job is done and their team is back on track, they need to be able to pull back and maintain their situational awareness.

2. Position

It’s easier to pull a rope than to push it. As all Marines learn, you need to lead from the front. If you want others to get to a destination, they need to look forward. And it’ll be hard for your team members to keep their eyes on a goal if they’re constantly looking behind themselves to find you.  Leading from the front is hard, and can easily make you a casualty. Accounts of “follow-me” leadership documented from studies on Israeli combat show that leading from the front increases unit performance and morale, but also leads to an “astronomical casualty rate among officers” (Sweet Irony, pp. 86-87). All leaders make mistakes, and leading from the front exposes those mistakes to your team members. Leading from the front requires you to make decisions. Some of those decisions will be wrong and you’ll be responsible. Accept that reality up front and learn to live with it as a leader. But by employing a follow-me model of leadership, you’ll earn respect, increase buy-in from your team or organization, set direction, and pull your organization through challenges to achieve your goals. 

3. Connection

Assuming that you are where the friction occurs or where the decisions need to be made, your presence must also include connection. Your team members need to know that you see them. Not just as an asset, but as a valuable member of the team. Managers look at things—including people—as resources. They focus on putting the right resources to the right task at the right time to achieve the right effect. This is necessary and important. And, when it comes down to it, people are resources. And, to be clear, the role of a manager is not, as many people seem to think or imply, diametrically opposed to the role of a leader. However, the main difference between leaders and managers is how they view people. As mentioned above, the job of the leader is to inspire individuals to accomplish a collective task. Leaders value people for the unique ways in which each person contributes to the team. It is through connection that leaders inspire others.

4. Contribution

Leaders must contribute to the accomplishment of the mission. Often this means providing guidance and direction, leading the planning, or driving meaningful discussion and problem solving. Other times, however, a leader’s contribution is in simply rolling one’s sleeves up and pitching in. Whenever I’ve interviewed someone, one of the questions I’ve asked is “have you ever done any work that you felt was beneath you?” The only acceptable answer to this question is “no.” There is no work that is beneath a true leader. As a leader, we must be willing to get dirty to help the team or organization we lead get things done. Of course, there is a balance. We can’t lose the forest for the trees, or be so busy pitching in that we disregard our responsibilities to maintain the larger perspective. Furthermore, our contributions must be meaningful and add value to the team’s efforts. Nevertheless, a leader must be willing to, and often demonstrate, getting his or her hands dirty to get things done. This shows your team that you care.

5. Consistency 

Again, presence doesn’t always have to be physical, but your presence does have to be reliable and consistent. During the past year, we’ve moved further into a digital and remote age of work and collaboration. Whether you are there in person or digitally, team members need to count on being able to reach you when they need you. Not only do you need to be available, but you need to be engaged actively. You need to poke your head in, so to speak, and observe/listen, learn, help, and lead (to paraphrase former Defense Secretary, and retired General James Mattis). If your team members need to give you lengthy updates whenever you do check in, you’re not present enough.  

So, if you’re a leader, or claim to be one, be present.

Dr. Riley is a Leadership Consultant at Legacy Consulting & Research Group. Dr. Riley’s research and consulting interests include adaptive decision-making and leadership, operational planning, and situational awareness. In addition to his publications in academic journals, he also co-authored the book Left of Bang, which has sold over 95,000 copies world wide. In addition to his work at Legacy, Dr. Riley serves as the Chief Operating Officer for a materials science R&D company, teaches at the graduate level, and is Lieutenant Colonel in the United States Marine Corps Reserves, where he commands a reserve infantry battalion.

References

U.S. Marine Corps, MCDP 1: Warfighting (1997).

Aryeh J.S. Nusbacher, Sweet Irony: Israeli Application of German Manoeuvre Warfare Doctrine on the Golan Heights, 1973 (Thesis, 1996).

Dr. Jason A. Riley