Excellent Leadership, what is it?

Excellent leadership is rare and quite precious. In my working life I have had several leaders, some good and a lot unfortunately not so good; but a few were excellent! And when you think deeper: why were these leaders excellent?

One of my excellent leaders was someone who had a very clear opinion and certainly did not shy away from a solid discussion. Also, he fought for his people, always putting them first with the goal of making them better. When I got into trouble because of my strong opinion, he helped me. Those memories will remain with me for a lifetime!

What is excellent leadership?
Isn’t it about serving the other person? Aim for the best for them?

It all starts with behaviour, our culture.
That is why I love to work with a social covenant, a commitment on how we want to treat each other.

What happens if the social covenant is broken?
How do we repair our broken relationship?

• Go in humility. Be open to being wrong. Yes, you, me, we could be wrong.
• Go in pre-forgiveness. Forgive before you go. This way our whole body relaxes and we can stay in the conversation.
• Go in love (or care). Care more about the other person than you care about yourself. It is truly a gift you can give: I honour you and love you.
• Go in 100% truth. Speak 100% the truth, even if it hurts. There are so many lies these days, what a liberation to have people speaking the truth!

I have noticed when you follow above attitude and apologise when you have done wrong, the quality of the relationship increases; even if you made a serious error. It will lead to a better, more excellent, relationship then before it was broken.

My advice: be an excellent leader, focus on the relationship, ask for forgiveness when due and love each other!