Leadership is not about competency models, personality traits or formulas – it is about having the lasting energy to stay true to your vision for positive change even in the face of the most powerful resistance, according to Rajeev Peshawaria in his book Too Many Bosses, Too Few Leaders: The Three Essential Principles You Need to Become an Extraordinary Leader. Superior leadership requires incredible amounts of emotional energy.
The three core principles of leadership proposed by the author are:
- Staying focused comes from maintaining your personal energy, and sustaining energy comes only from a clear understanding of your purpose and your values.
- To enlist and energise other key influencers, you need to understand and meet their expectations about their Role, Environment and Development.
- As a leader your job is to galvanise the energy of others to facilitate sustainable collective success.
The three leadership activities which provide the most leverage to an organisation are:
- Brains: Setting direction, with a compelling vision and clearly differentiated strategy
- Bones: Designing the organisation, with top quality talent, supporting systems and structures
- Nerves: Creating a culture of excellence, with compensation aligned with cultural philosophy and teamwork
In my opinion this is an outstanding leadership book. Many leadership books identify the attributes and activities of a leader, but this book identifies a key ingredient which is often missing from textbook analyses: the importance of the energy emanating from the leader and how to cultivate it. The anecdotes related by the author make the book enjoyable to read, and I would recommend it to anyone who holds or aspires to a senior leadership position in an organisation.