Walk the walk - Alan Deutschman

Was passed this book by a friend. It's a concise book, but it has very powerful messages that I feel are critically missing in many of our leaders today. Overall, it was a very engaging read, but it also pointed to dire areas in my own leadership development that needed greater attention.

The starting point of Deutschman's book is that leadership is about creating change, of which a significant part is through changing the way other people think, feel and act. The genuine way of doing this is only through: talking and acting. Not many leaders talk about the right things. Even fewer act them out.

Deutschman makes many references to famous leaders and highlighted many anecdotes to illustrate this idea of walking the walk and how this creates change in people. One of the first lesson he teaches is that one has to be very certain of what he calls "first virtues". In other words, what are the first and second most important principles that you (or your company/ organisation by extension) stand for. This has to be thoroughly thought through, in particular, how one will make the trade-off between these principles at critical decision points. Deutschman's point is that many organisations have such a long list of motherhood principles that the list serves little purpose in guiding actions or illustrating what the organisation REALLY stands for. In addition, there is a need for relentless consistency in demonstrating these beliefs and principles before the change can take root in the organisation.

In this respect, I had thought hard about it, and while serving the customers of my HR team and growing my HR team itself are both important outcomes where my unit is concerned, I realise that the second precedes the first, in terms of a long-term sustainable strategy and also in that the first objective will be compromised if the second is not attended to well. This insight has given me a deeper understanding of how to prioritise my resources and time spent in my work.

The second learning point is that leaders are often out at the front, leading the team, showing the way and setting the tone. This is akin to how battles are fought historically, with the generals out at the front. It goes beyond simply deploying troops from one place to another, and crafting strategy in the backroom. Leaders need to be seen and heard.

The next learning point is that apart from building confidence and belief in themselves, leaders need to cascade this down to all the levels below him/her, such that it permeates the organisation. We need to build teams of people who believe in themselves too. Unfortunately, apart from close mentoring and "walking beside" one's team, the book did not give in depth ways of how to build this confidence in all of the team members.

All in all, this was an inspiring book and it clarified some of the fundamental ways I think about leadership. It was a good read!