Arthur C Brooks, as the president of the American Enterprise Institute, a nationally recognised think tank based in Washington, D.C., leads a community of scholars and supporters committed to expanding liberty, increasing individual opportunity, and strengthening free enterprise for all Americans. Recently, he addressed MBA students at the IESE’s Barcelona campus and shared personal insights on the essential qualities of a successful business leader.
“Everyone asks ‘What do you do?’ which, in actual terms, is ‘What do you do for money?’ However, the real question is ‘Why do you do it?’” Brooks said.
“You have to know the answer to this important question or you won’t be able to do what you’re supposed to do and the answer will be decided for you,” he added.
Emphasising the need to take up service towards others while striving to become an authentic and successful leader, he said, “The purpose of your work is to serve others. As business leaders, you are going to pull people out of poverty. That’s important.”
The MBA students will have to decide whether they become leaders who bring people together or those who seek to divide them, Brooks said. Expressing confidence that they would seek to unite people around a common, aspirational purpose, he offered five keys to becoming a better leader:
Emphasising the need to take up service towards others while striving to become an authentic and successful leader, he said, “The purpose of your work is to serve others.
The first key is to learn to tell a story and practice it. Quoting research findings of Uri Hasson from the Princeton Neuroscience Institute’s Uri Hasson, he said telling a good story at the beginning of a meeting or presentation has the ability to synchronize the listeners’ brainwaves with the storyteller’s. “Do you want to unite people around a common purpose? You must tell a story about people,”
If the effort is successful, even before the story is over, the listeners’ brains will be predicting plausible endings. Thus, if you want to lead people to places you haven’t been, “you do it with stories”.
For this to work, he listed five ingredients, the first being simplicity (avoiding complexity and unnecessary details). The second will be emotion (including humour, pain or joy), third the truth (the speaker must believe what he or she is saying), fourth, the reality (that the speaker was there) and fifth, validity (that it works with every audience).
Brooks said contrary to the infamous quote “nice guys finish last”, being nice is essential in impactful leadership. Studies have shown that people are drawn to friendly individuals. “Great leaders fight contempt and bitterness by personally modelling warm-heartedness. Kindness and compassion are not for weak people. They are for leaders. Weak people can’t do it,” he added.
Being genuinely nice is a challenge worth striving for. It is this “change of your own heart that can change a poisonous environment around you,” Brooks said.
A pleasant demeanour is essential. “If you are stressed out, you can’t bring that to the office,” he pointed out. In a study, when participants were asked to rate the effectiveness of two team leaders, the non-smiling team leader was perceived to be only one-third as effective as the one who smiled, although they had said exactly the same thing. “Nobody wants to work for someone who doesn’t smile,” Brooks said.
Anger is to be avoided as it will neurologically turn-off any feelings of kindness. Expressing gratitude will defeat enemies and turn them into friends. “This is your secret weapon. If you learn this, you’ll have a leg-up. And you’re going to have virtuous and earned success,” he added.
At a personal level too, realising and expressing your gratitude to those around you is the key to success and personal happiness, Brooks said.(Image Source:Flickr.com)