Cracking the Leadership Code - Alain Hunkins

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hadn't I done that? Why hadn't I done anything even close to that?

      I'd been living in a fantasy world. Whether you call it inexperience or ignorance, I had just expected to be elected. In hindsight, I could see that I'd made a whole lot of assumptions:

       People in the nonprofit would know about me.

       They would have heard about all the hard work that I had done on behalf of the organization for the past few years.

       All my previous efforts would speak for themselves.

       People would know who the “best” candidate was.

       People would vote based on merit.

       I'd “earned” the job, based on my excellence and tenure.

       People would vote for me.

      Given my boatload of assumptions, I never even considered taking the step of actually asking people to show up and support me. So I hadn't. And, except for five other people, they didn't.

      But Gary knew something I didn't.

      Gary knew that the key to successful leadership is influence, not authority. He wasn't interested in acquiring a title and throwing the weight of the position around. Gary knew that no one wanted to work under an authoritative leader.

      The whole organization ran on the backs of volunteers. We felt connected to the mission and vision of the organization. Everyone was there out of commitment, not compliance. We did things because we cared. We offered our time, talents, and efforts because we wanted to, not because we had to.

      As a volunteer, working from commitment had fueled my own journey for the past three years. However, as a candidate for executive director, I'd fallen for the leadership trap of my own ego.

      My fantasy of becoming the person “in charge” had intoxicated me with visions of grandeur. I'd become aloof and had neglected the principles that really mattered. I'd already envisioned how everyone else would fall in line and do what I wanted them to do. I thought I was entitled to lead. This version of reality was crystal clear in my imagination. Sadly, I was blind to the greater truth.

      Gary, however, knew that leadership isn't about what goes on in the mind of a leader: it's about what goes on in the minds of people they want to lead. Understanding how things really work, Gary tapped into their energy and explicitly asked them to show up and vote for him. And show up they did. And I lost.

Illustration of a model depicting the core components of being a leader: Connection, Communication, and Collaboration.

      The loss to Gary burst the bubble of my ignorance. I suddenly realized that there was a lot about leadership that I didn't even know that I didn't know. In preparing and executing his election victory, Gary modeled three essential leadership principles: connection, communication, and collaboration.

      Invisible threads are the strongest ties.

      —Friedrich Nietzsche

      When you connect with people on a personal level, they feel that you care about them. Connection provides the spark that gets others to willingly follow your lead. It's the main ingredient in trust. Think of Gary's decision to invite members of the organization out to coffee and/or lunch. He made the members feel valued, and he sent a clear message that he wanted to get to know and understand them. Connection doesn't come cheap; you need to give of your time and attention. However, your investment pays dividends of engagement and commitment.

      There's a simple yet powerful exercise I've done with dozens of groups to demonstrate the importance of connection to become a better leader.

      Let's try it together right now.

      Now review those qualities. Place each quality into one of these three categories:

      1 Intelligence/smarts (understanding, reasoning, judgment)

      2 Technical skills (specific ability to perform a job function well)

      3 Emotional intelligence (able to identify/manage their own emotions and recognize/influence the emotions of others)

      Which bucket did most of the qualities fall into?

      If you're like most people, most of the qualities landed in the emotional intelligence bucket. Great leaders have a sixth sense for people. They have a knack for saying the right thing at the right time. They know that support should sometimes be nurturing and other times be challenging. Above all, they know how to connect.

      You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.

      —Dale Carnegie

      Genuine, honest dialogue is one of the most powerful relationship-building tools in existence. In Gary's case, he intuitively recognized that the best leaders create candor and build trust by seeking first to understand. He didn't try to convince anyone why he was right for the job. Instead, he started by getting others to open up. He asked them to share about the things that really mattered to them. He sought to pull out their insight and experience.

      This ability to inquire—to draw out what matters most to people—is the basis for being an expert communicator. It's also a powerful means to build relationships.

      Only after Gary made others feel understood did he seek to share his point of view. This tactic is an essential key to increasing influence. After all, at that point in the conversation, Gary knew exactly what was most important to the person he was speaking to; they had just told him.

      For example, after hearing a member share their desire to attract more socioeconomically diverse members, Gary responded by sharing an idea on how to offer more scholarships for leadership trainings. This naturally created common understanding.

      Gary's ability to create commonality is what psychologists call the similarity attraction effect. This is the phenomenon in which people are attracted more strongly to others who are similar to them (“like attracts like”). Gary's skill at creating Shared Understanding took a solid connection and made it even stronger. Then he could build a platform for working together.

      The fun for me in collaboration is, one, working with other people just makes you smarter; that's proven.

      —Lin-Manuel Miranda

      Gary wasn't interested in leading in a vacuum. He knew that to achieve success, it would take a team. He didn't just ask for

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