{"id":3514,"date":"2018-02-28T20:08:00","date_gmt":"2018-02-28T20:08:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.signium.com\/?post_type=news&p=3514"},"modified":"2020-09-21T20:25:39","modified_gmt":"2020-09-21T20:25:39","slug":"is-your-leadership-style-akin-to-a-sailboat-or-a-speedboat","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.signium.com\/sv\/news\/is-your-leadership-style-akin-to-a-sailboat-or-a-speedboat\/","title":{"rendered":"Is your leadership style akin to a sailboat or a speedboat?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In his recent address to Signium’s Cape Town global conference, Bonang Mohale, CEO of Business Leadership South Africa, looked at the essential components of successful leadership – vision, courage and integrity – and countries that have effected major strategic change through effective leadership.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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The Speedboat and the Sailboat<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

For Bonang Mohale, there are only two types of companies – the quick and the dead. \u201cLeadership always involves movement – a journey that takes people from where they are (current reality) to a place they have never been (future vision). Standing still is going backwards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He goes to on to identify two distinct ways that leaders tend to use their influence:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs leaders, our voice is disproportionate.  A company leader who says he wants just four slides for a presentation he has in two days\u2019 time knows that the organisation is going to turn itself inside out getting those four slides ready. The question becomes \u2018How am I going to use my influence?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMost leaders tend to say \u2018you will do this because I say so\u2019 using the force and power of the office. I liken this style to a speedboat. You turn the throttle, you hear the sound of the V8 engine at the back, the nose points up, you are pushed back into the seat and this thing rockets away. But the speedboat only has a radius of 32km, so if you use that power in the middle of the ocean you will come back pushing the boat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOn the other hand, if you get all of your people truly engaged and energised, then you have a thousand sailboats. They have internalised that this company belongs to them as much as the Group CEO. The sailboat makes no arrogant noise, no purring of the engine, but if you harness the force and impetus just by turning the sails, you can circumnavigate the earth as many times as you want. It\u2019s quiet, less assuming, but you can achieve movement and thereby effect change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mohale also characterises this difference in another way – management is what happens when you are there, leadership is what happens when you are not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n