Inspirational Leader

Toyotomi Hideyoshi (February 2, 1536 or March 26, 1537 – September 18, 1598) was a daimyo, warrior, great general and politician of the Sengoku period.  He unified the political factions of Japan. He succeeded his former liege lord, Oda Nobunaga, and brought an end to the Sengoku Period. The period of his rule is often called the Momoyama Period, named after Hideyoshi's castle. He is noted for a number of cultural legacies, including the restriction that only members of the samurai class could bear arms. Hideyoshi is regarded as Japan's second "great unifier".

If you read the biography of Toyotomi Hideyoshi or epic fiction of Taiko that also shares a detail about him.  Hideyoshi was not really a imposing figure or even had a noble background.  He was born of no traceable samurai lineage, being the son of a peasant-ashigaru (foot soldier) named Yaemon.  In addition, he had been given the nickname Kozaru, meaning "little monkey", from his lord Oda Nobunaga because his facial features and skinny form resembled that of a monkey. He was also known as the "bald rat."

However, despite his physical and hereditary limitation, he rose up to become one of the most powerful person who ruled Japan at this time that even Tokugawa Ieyasu who build a Tokuwaga Shogunate that lasted from 1600 to 1868, submitted himself under Hideyoshi rules.  

Hideyoshi was an effective leader who can influence a lot great people to follow him.  I learn a lot of effective leadership qualities from Hideyoshi, but one thing that stand out for me is the way he inspired others to take action.

John Quincy Adams, the sixth president of United States said, "If you action inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader."  

Leaders who lead from the heart must be able to inspire others to become better because their motivations are to make other people become better in their lives either personally or professionally.   

Why do people need to be inspired?  There are many reasons for that.  People might lose their motivation to work due to environment, losing purpose, don't understand the purpose or simply just because they don't like the job.  Leader must be able to observe and find out the reason behind the de-movation and inspire the people to act

Hideyoshi had that ability to inspire people to act and that made him a great leader.  There is a story about how he was able to inspire his team to complete the almost impossible task.  One day, when he was still a junior officer serving under Oda Nobunaga, he was tasked to repair a section of the castle wall who had been in disrepair for quite some time due to corruption from the previous officer.  When he was challenged on how many days he would need to complete the job, he said he would need only three days and if he failed, he would take seppuku (suicide act).   When he started to work, he noticed that his team was working for the previous corrupt officer before and they felt not happy working under him.  For the first day, the team worked lazily and when they were threatened, they pretended to work diligently but actually.  Their intentions were to ensure that Hideyoshi failed in his task.

After observing the situation, Hideyoshi then stopped the job and started to gather all the team.  He then started to share with them the importance of their jobs in repairing the wall. He said that people was the foundation of the government.  If the people failed, then the government would fail.  The disrepair section of the wall was seemed not really important, but when the enemy saw this, they would take the chance to attack and if they succeeded, then the people would suffer.  Not only Hideyoshi could share the story, but he also believed in it.  He shed his tears when he told them how people would suffer when the enemy attacked.  

After he shared the story, suddenly, the leader of the team who was the most senior and the one who opposed Hideyoshi the most came in front and admitted that he was ignorant of this and he regretted his action.  After that, all people within the team including Hideyoshi started to work hand in hand to repair the wall. They worked 2 days straight without sleep.  The result? In 3 days, the wall was repaired!

I believe when leader can inspire their team, the team will do something great because their motivations are there.  There are 2 ways leader can motivate their teams:

1. Leader can inspire their teams through story telling.  Story telling is an effective tools that is being used since old time to transfer the important knowledge and also to remind people on something importance.  I always find out during my training session that people will remember my story but forget all the theories in the classroom.  By telling story that is relevant to the current situation of the team, leader can inspire their team to take action.  Hideyoshi was using this technique when he tried to inspire his team to start repairing the wall.
2. Leader can inspire their teams through their actions.  Not only leaders need to inspire their teams with story, but they also must inspire their teams through their actions.  There is a saying called NATO (No Action, Talk Only).  It means, people only talk but no action comes with it.  Leaders must show that what they say are important based on their actions.  Hideyoshi worked with his team side by side without sleep for 2 days and it inspired his team to work even more because they saw that their leader also worked with them.

People in the workplace or in any organizations are looking for leaders who can inspire them to achieve greater things.  This leader might be you.  As long as you have motivation to make people become better, you can be inspirational leader!

Written by

Darvin Widjaja

Surround Yourself with Great People!

Have you ever read "Water Margin" story?  It is a story about 108 heroes who lived in Liang Shan Po mountain where they fought against corrupt government in China.

During their rebellion against the corrupt government, the government armies could not defeat them at all.  All the great generals being sent by the government either were defeated or joined the heroes because of their vision.

What was the secret of their success?  How could they stand against the forces greater than them?  Actually, the only way that government could win against them is by offering amnesty to them and gave them positions as government officials.   During their time as government officials, many of them felled to their death during the campaign against the China's enemies.  After the campaign, they were scattered to different areas in China and they lost their power.

In his book, "Good to Great", Jim Collins said that one of the key in propelling good company to become great company is putting the right people on the bus and putting the wrong people off the bus.  It means, in order for leaders to succeed, they will need to surround themselves with great people.  

Jim Collins wrote in his book, "Look, I don't really know where we should take this bus.  But I know this much: if we get the right people on the bus, the right people in the right seats, and the wrong people off the bus, then we'll figure out how to take it to someplace great." (Good to Great, page 41).

I believe this statement is true.  During my careers in several large organizations and also by observing other organizations, I saw that the successful organizations always had great people within the organizations.  I also experienced it myself.  One time I joined a bank who just had new retail banking division.  The bank was just expanding its retail presence in the country and did not have great infrastructure yet.  90% of the staffs were new and all except one person in management team were new.  At that year, we were given an almost impossible target to achieve.  We had to grow our deposit  number by more than 1000%.  After one year, we achieved more than our set target.  How could it happens?  We didn't have great infrastructure and our branches were not so many compared to the more established bank.  What we had at that time was a great team.  Everybody in the management team worked together and provide their expertise in order to achieve the target and at the end, yes we did outperform.

So, we understand that to be an effective leader, one will need a great team for support.  Then what should the leader do in order to have a great team?

Let's learn from Song Jiang, the leader of 108 heroes:

Song Jiang was humble in admitting that he would need the team to achieve the vision.  Leader who lead from the heart must be humble enough to admit that in order for him or her to help other people, he will need the help from others also.  Many times in the story, Song Jiang was shown asking other people to join their cause even though it was enemy's general.  As long as the person had the good character, believe in the vision and also has ability, Song Jiang would ask the person to join them.  He even at some time wanted to relinquish his leadership position and let other people who were better than him to lead.

Song Jiang knew his own strength and weaknesses.  Song Jiang understood that he did not have  great martial art prowess and also his ability in military strategy was not as good as other people in his team.  His strength was the ability to unite a group of talented individuals and inspire them to achieve great things.  I see a lot of leaders who always think that they are smarter than their team.  They always want to do everything by themselves and not trust their team to do it.  in the end, it will jeopardize their organizations or divisions as it is not possible for one person to be able to be great at everything.  Leader who lead from the heart must understand that they have limitation and they need other people to fill the gap

Song Jiang could inspire others to follow the vision.   If you read the story, many heroes choose to follow Song Jiang because they believed in him and also because they believed in the vision that Song Jiang represent.  If you want to build a great team, you need to be able to inspire them to follow the vision that you represent.  The vision of 108 heroes was to bring justice to the society and demolish corrupt government.  Many heroes were attracted to that and they chose to follow Song Jiang because he not only talk about the vision, but his life showed that he believed in it.  That's how leaders can inspire their team regarding the vision, by showing it with their lives.  Song Jiang did that and many people chose to follow him.

In summary, leaders who lead from the heart need to be humble to acknowledge that they cannot help other people with only themselves.  They will need to have great people as their team and then they can achieve their visions to help others.  Let's start to build great team within your organization and you will see that your organizations will grow to become great!

Written by

Darvin Widjaja

William Wilberforce - Leader Who Led from The Heart

I just saw a movie about William Wilberforce "Amazing Grace."  After I watched the movie, I felt that I could learn from William Wilberforce on the meaning of Leadership from The Heart.

For those of you who do not know him, William Wilberforce was an English politician, philanthropist, and a leader of the movement to abolish the slave trade.  Before he was known as someone who made changes to make a world a better place, he was someone who only looked after himself.

William Wilberforce was born from a wealthy family and when his parents passed away, they left him a great fortune where by it he did not need to work again for his entire life.  as a result he had little inclination or need to apply himself to serious study. Instead, he immersed himself in the social round of student life, and pursued a hedonistic lifestyle enjoying cards, gambling and late-night drinking sessions. 

However, after his graduation from college, he started to pursue political career.  During the first phase of his political career, he did not do something spectacular as his focus was still on himself.  Only after he experienced the change of heart then he started to bring great impact upon a lot of people.

William Wilberforce experienced a change of heart when he read a religious book during one of his travel.  He started to change the way he lived and also the way he looked at politics.  

From that moment on, William Wilberforce started to dedicated his life to make a word a better place.  He did a lot of great things, but the greatest thing that he did was to abolish slavery trade in Britain,

It is really a hard task as at the beginning he only had a few supporters in the parliament.  However, he persevered and even though he experienced a lot of setbacks, finally the Slave Trade Act received the Royal Assent on 25 March 1807.

What we can learn from William Wilberforce?  

First, William Wilberforce was motivated by helping others. He saw the injustice being done to the slaves and how cruel the slave traders treated their slaves.  According to history, around 11.4 million slaves were being transported to British colonies and 1.4 million died during the travel.  William Wilberforce took up the slaves cause even though he knew he would face a lot of opposition and as his health was not good since birth, it was also affected in the process.   His motivation was not for himself, but purely for the betterment of others.  

Second, William Wilberforce had a strong determination.  That's also one of the characteristics of leader who lead from the heart.  Even though he faced a lot of pressures and also being mocked by his counterparts in the parliaments.  He persevered  in his fight against slavery up to the point his best friend left him momentarily.  He also faced failure several times in making the slave trade act being approved by parliaments.  Despite all this, he never gave up as the thought about the cruelty of slavery was always fresh in his memory

Thirdly, William Wilberforce rolled up his sleeves and got dirty in the process.  William spent his fortune and also his health in fighting the slavery.  He ended almost lost both of them.  When leaders start to lead from their heart, they will give all they can give to achieve the goal, to grow and develop people.

There are still a lot of things that we can learn from William Wilberforce, but one thing that we can take away is William led from his heart and it made him a great leader!  His legacy still stays till today.

Written by:
Darvin Widjaja

Leadership Motivation

As leadership facilitator, one of my greatest questions that I always got is if all the theory in the training were great, why not too many people practice it?  Another question is why there is no change in my leader after he or she join the training?   

If I have to be honest, I also has a question myself.  Why people who join my leadership training always said that the training is good, but afterward not too many people practice what they have learned?  

Why is it so hard for people to practice effective leadership even though we agree that it is good?  Why people when asked if they believe in coaching, all of them believe, but when asked if they practiced it or not, only about 15 - 20% who really practiced good coaching.  The others, either they didn't do it or what they do were no coaching at all, but more on shouting orders.

I don't blame them.  As a leadership practitioner myself, (more than 10 years in leadership position), I realized that the road to become great leaders is not easy.  It takes hard work and determination and most importantly, the right MOTIVATION!

According to management theory, people will be able to perform well, when their skills and wills are high.  Skill is ability and will is motivation.  It is also the same with leadership.  If one person has high leadership ability and motivation, he or she can be a great leader.  However, why in society right now, we lack great leaders?  Why in many big organizations such as Enron, WorldCom, Lehman Brothers, Citibank, Merrill Lynch, AIG and many others organizations, leadership is one of the key cause in their downturn?  Why we heard a lot of news regarding leaders in the government or even non-profit organization who lost their reputation due to integrity issue?  While if you check in the web, there are millions of books on leadership.  In addition, if you check also, there are a lot of leadership trainings program that are really great and being taught by leadership guru.  We never lack any knowledge about leadership, but why we still lack great leaders?

After learning from others and also from my own experience, I found out that why so many people stop short on becoming great leaders is not because they don't have skills, but because they don't have the right motivation.

Then, you might ask, what is the right motivation to become great leaders?  I believe the word by Robert K. Greenleaf; the father of servant leadership can sum this up.  He wrote in his book, The Leader as Servant, "The servant-leader is servant first. It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first.  Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead."

That's the right motivation in becoming a great leader: a desire to serve others!  It is so simple yet so powerful!  If we are motivated to see other people become better, then we will start to see that all leadership theory that we learn make sense.  We coach people because we want them to become better. We hire the right people because we want our organization to be able to serve our customer better.  We train our people because they will grow in their ability.  That makes sense!  People will have find it hard to follow the effective leadership practice if they only think about themselves.  Why should they coach people if by threatening people that they will lose their jobs is easier to do?  Why should we train people if we are afraid that they will be smarter than us and replace our position?

People said to me before, Darvin, be realistic.  People will always have self-interest.  I agree with that.  I understand that in this world, we have to be realistic.  I don't say that you have to remove all your self-interest.  If you can, it is going to be great, but if not, then you have to be able to balance it with other people interest.  Lower your self-interest and start to focus on other people interest.  It will bring great reward back to you later.  People will start to respect you and you will create legacy

Let start to re-check our motivation in leadership.  If all your purpose in becoming a leader is to satisfy yourself, then you are sowing trouble for yourself.  Start to focus on your team and your customer.  Satisfy their needs and you will reap great rewards, you will become a Great Leader!

Written by:

Darvin Widjaja