Great leaders create an aura of visibility. Whether they are leading teams, companies or armies, they foster the idea that they are present and available at all times. Visibility runs even deeper. Great leaders have an empathy with their teams. The dictionary defines 'empathy' as 'the power of entering into another's personality.' Great leaders and their people develop a mutual understanding which is founded on the leader's ability to make people feel special and wanted.
Good visibility depends on setting high standards and developing what Field Marshal Montgomery - as noted in the Introduction to this book - called 'the atmosphere', which it was the leader's first duty to create. This tone, this environment, enables the team (in this case, his Eighth Army officers) to fulfil its task (beating the awe-inspiring Rommel). To this end, managers, captains and generals need, as often as possible, to place themselves in the position of the people they lead. What do people require from the leader? What are they looking for? What would raise their performance? What would make them feel valued?
You learn many seemingly basic and obvious lessons from serving as a leader: in that, we're sure, business managers are no different to captains of England. Rob Andrew, the England stand-off half, pointed out one of the first lessons to Will Carling within the first six months of his appointment. The situation was typical. Despite appearances, England get together as a team very infrequently. The old pattern consisted only of the weekend before the actual international, and then the Wednesday before the game - leaving just 72 hours to spend together before the match. That wasn't much time in which to build rapport between players, coaches and medical staff.
In 1988, it gave very little time for a young (very young) captain of 22 to create a style, a set of standards and an understanding of what was required from the senior players to achieve the direction envisioned by the management. You easily become desperate to use the brief time to the full: spending your time with a small group of individuals seemed like a good answer. It wasn't: it was a classic pitfall. Andrew quietly and politely pointed out that his captain had yet to sit next to a reserve player at any meal - and hadn't actually spent much time with a number of team-members.
This might seem unimportant, even trivial. But for a captain who was trying to create the right atmosphere, it gave completely the wrong impression - one of lack of interest in and caring for the reserves in the squad. This was something which had to be worked at hard, and without delay. It's an issue that you can't leave alone - you have to remind yourself of the importance and the need every time.
By moving around the squad, or the company, or the department, or the task-force, you not only canvass opinions, detect moods, and assess morale, but also have the opportunity to show an interest in every member and to treat all of them equally. On the 1994 tour of South Africa, it was thought a good idea to hold regular meetings with the most senior five or six players, the most experienced tourists. Carling took this a step further, dividing the whole squad into groups of similar size, and trying to meet them weekly.
It's obviously important to plug into the thoughts and experience of the veterans. But every manager knows that it's often the inexperienced person who comes up with some of the most innovative ideas. This was certainly true of the greener tourists in South Africa - and the same applies to every team, in sport or outside it. Regular meetings with everybody also achieve primary visibility for the leader. A price must be paid, true, in loss of privacy. But Warren Bennis puts that matter in a nutshell:
'When a man or woman opts for a position of responsibility, he or she also surrenders their privacy.'
That lesson came across painfully during the 1991 World Cup campaign. England's last training session, before meeting Scotland in the semi-final, was held on the Friday morning. It was, as usual, a light run-through of the rhythms that the team hoped to impose on the game. The importance of the game only added to the usual tension, which was further enhanced by memories of the year before, when dramatic and unexpected defeat by Scotland at the same ground, Murrayfield, had cost England the Triple Crown and the Grand Slam. This is Carling's account of what happened:
'Although I was focused on the training session itself, my mind kept on drifting to the evening, when I would be speaking at the team meeting. I was desperately trying to find a hook on which to hang my talk - a hook which would trigger the emotions of the squad and create the focused intent that we hadn't achieved eighteen months before.
'With the session complete, I wandered off to do the required interviews with the assembled TV crews and waiting media people. As I went back to the changing room, the manager - Geoff Cooke - took me aside and asked "How do you feel? Do you think the session went well?" I was overjoyed with the quality of the session, but slightly puzzled by Geoff's question. Why had he asked it?
'He explained that my head had been down the whole time. I hadn't made any comment to any of the players during the 30 minutes when we had been running. As a result, the squad had sat in the changing room afterwards, trying to work out why I was upset, and what they had done wrong. I had underestimated how closely the players observe me and how much they read into my movements and apparent moods during the session. I had provided no encouragement for them.' The lessons for leaders are clear:
1. Be aware of what you are doing, and what attitude you are adopting at all times.
2. Restrict your planning - and your worrying - to the privacy of your own room, office, or home.
3. If you find you have been delivering the wrong message, correct it at once (England, of course, won that game).
A more positive moment happened before the French game which decided the Grand Slam in 1991. The England team had finished all its pre-match rituals, with a final team meeting on the Friday evening, and the players were relaxing in their different ways around the Petersham Hotel (always the team hotel before the Five Nations games). The side was almost desperate in its desire to win the Grand Slam, after missing it the year before: England had also lost the final game to Wales in 1989. Again, Carling tells the story:
'I found myself sitting with Geoff Cooke at about nine o'clock in the evening. We discussed the mood of the squad, the level of confidence, my own worries and apprehensions, and whether I really believed we could win the game the next day. I did, but I still felt there was an uneasiness amongst the players - a lack of real confidence - probably because of the mental scars from the year before.
'Geoff hinted that in some way I should just remind them how good they were as players and how good they could be as a team. I sat in my room and wrote on a piece of card for each player five or six lines, saying why they were exceptional players, what they would bring to the team the next day, and why that would lead to victory. I slipped the note under each of their doors, so that it would be the last thing they read before going to bed.
'The next day it was greeted with the usual derision by many of the players. They said they didn't really want to receive love letters from me the night before a game. But in the quieter moments that evening, celebrating after the victory, many of the side did wander over to say that the note did give them a little boost just before such a big confrontation. It's not something I remember as a personal achievement, but more as part of my role as captain, as leader, merely to remind the players how good they really are.'
The incident also shows that visibility often hinges on significant detail. The players got a hand-written note. It had its effect because they realised that the captain had taken the time to sit down and write to each of them individually. The effect would not have been the same had the communication been impersonal. Typed general memos and E-mail don't have the same effect. The personal touch is essential to show people that you care. That doesn't always mean face-to-face contact, but it does mean spending some time on people as individuals and realising and acknowledging the special abilities which they bring to your team.
A great deal of importance should be attached even to seemingly trivial evidence of personal problems. For a sports captain, that means, for example, dropping into the physiotherapy room when players are injured. An injury, however slight, causes anxiety. It deflects the player's mind from training and from concentrating on the build-up to the next game: the result is a certain amount of vulnerability and stress. While it's important for the captain to understand the nature and extent of the injury, it's even more important to make the player aware that you care, are aware of his situation and interested in his state of health.
On the field of play, different considerations apply when a player is injured. Of course, the captain has to be at his side. Vital questions must be answered. How serious is the injury? Is a replacement needed? If so, the decision must be made quickly and any consequences communicated at once to the team. In a borderline case, you need to make a quick assessment of the player's mental state. The captain and the player must decide between them whether the player can carry on. It's a more instantaneous, subjective analysis: there isn't time for discussion and thinking through thw matter.
In general, the physio can pass on very useful information to the captain. England's Kevin Murphy has been hugely respected by the squad for many years. In the relaxed informality of the treatment room, many players offload anxieties, and paint a picture of how they see their form and their role in the team. This information can be vital to the captain, who should be continually monitoring the morale of his players. Many times Murphy has passed on the information that certain players are feeling vulnerable, are unclear about their specific role, or may simply need encouragement to take a positive view of some niggling injury.
The captain must also be visible in the most difficult scenario of all: when a player is dropped. The captain of the England XV sits in on selection, not only to express his own views on the issues, but to pass on those of the squad. When players are dropped, they should always be able to sit down and discuss the decision with the captain, as well as the management. The captain, after all, is a player like themselves. They probably find it easier to let off their frustrations and steam at the captain: the manageent, they may feel, might hold an outburst against them.
It's essential to treat a player honestly and to give him the specific reasons for his exclusion. In the first instance, this gives him a focus for his training and playing, and thus helps him to renew the challenge for his place. Moreover, the captain's concern shows a basic respect for a man who has played on the same side. No player will ever agree with his own deselection: but if he is to perceive the team management as honest and trustworthy, he must understand why he's been dropped.
By the same token, a player who is picked has his confidence boosted by knowing why. A common failing in management is to assume that promotion by itself is enough encouragement. On the contrary, managers picked for a new and more important job may well feel insecure and uncertain about their ability to make a success of their new role. They won't express those doubts - but this is a time when they badly need reassurance. The manager who has been moved downwards or sideways, of course, needs it even more.
Leaders must be at their most visible and approachable when people are at their lowest ebb; and they must be seen to take responsibility for their part in whatever decision has caused the unhappiness. At no point should you infer that you disagree with an unpleasant decision. Not only will this diminish the leader's own credibility in the eyes of the person concerned, but it also weakens the credibility of the entire management. A leader who doesn't face up to people at the bad times can never earn their true respect and trust.
Those managers who make poor excuses for their own invisibility ('not enough time', etc.) should try to put themselves in the shoes of those who want to see them. It's easy: all they need do is remember what they felt and needed when their positions were less exalted. All an England captain need do, for instance, is to visualise what it was like when he was first picked for his country: how much anxiety he felt, and the attacks of nerves he experienced, even on first entering the team hotel. That visualisation arouses empathy, which is the core of visibiity.
Rising to the top after years of experience only enhances the importance of being sensitive to the feelings of others, and showing that sensitivity. That demands becoming aware of the effect you have on members of your team; constantly trying to engender a positive, relaxed atmosphere; avoiding anything that will sow harmful doubts, especially when the pressures are mounting - as in the build-up to an international. Visibility is not, however, a one-off requirement: it's an all-time thing.
Visibility sets the example, establishes the tone, and creates the atmosphere - Montgomery's word again. It isn't enough, of course, to see and be seen, as Monty was from his first day in command. In the 400-word self-introduction to his Eighth Army officers mentioned above, Monty stressed nine other elements of leadership: two-way trust, teamwork, clear objectives, equally clear communication, self-belief, back-up with adequate resources, insistence on good performance, humanity, and controlled aggression towards the opposition.
These attributes create 'atmosphere', and are reinforced by it and by each other. 'Atmosphere' equates with corporate culture: the innumerable cultural change programmes now in progress are all endeavours to turn the Montgomery principles - enunciated over 50 years ago - into present-day practice: and that means all ten principles. Likewise, visibility is only effective in leadership when combined with the other nine attributes that (in a list very similar to Monty's) are the subject of this book. In teamwork, it's one for all and all for one: so it is with the qualities of the true leader.
Vision, self-belief, results focus, courage, integrity, teamwork, communicating, attentiveness, and commitment should form a seamless whole. But that unity can't be achieved without visibility, which is how the leader demonstrates his or her possession and exercise of all the powers required. As Monty did in that speech ('I am prepared to say, here and now that I have confidence in you'), you need as leader to remind members of the team how good they really are, and to show caring and respect for the people you are privileged to lead.
Leaders get nowhere by reminding people of their failures. You win by encouraging them to remember their successful experiences and to repeat those experiences in a consistent manner. For all that to happen, the leader must live the vision, 'walk the talk'. Vision and visibility share the same linguistic root. They are equally inseparable in true leadership.
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