Business leverage is the ability to create outputs that are disproportionately higher than their required inputs. Identifying the external, internal and leadership leverage points for a business can lead to significant competitive advantage.
Leaders have the opportunity to create leverage through their own personal behavior. Following are five leverage points, attributes and competencies, that can dramatically impact a leader’s influence and organizational impact.
In an age of increased self-indulgence, unscrupulous business dealings, and questionable personal ethics, it is refreshing to find leaders with impeccable personal character. It is one of the most significant considerations for employees in their decision whether or not to believe in and subsequently support their organization’s leader.
Character has three core elements. The first of these is personal integrity. Simply stated, people with integrity do what they say they are going to do. They stand for their stated values and their behavior is consistent with those espoused values. They honor and live up to their commitments; their word is truly their bond. The second element is authenticity. Authentic people are who they say they are. They are genuine. There are no false fronts – no images to protect. "What you see is what you get." The third element of character is transparency. Transparent people share their thoughts, ideas and feelings directly with others. They live up to the phrase "People who have nothing to hide, hide nothing." Leaders who possess integrity, authenticity and transparency demand that everyone around them to be equally open, honest, non-judgmental and supportive of their common vision.
The second leverage point of personal competence is emotional intelligence. Much has been written about this very important concept in recent years. Emotional intelligence has two core dimensions. The first dimension is intra-personal intelligence. Leaders with high intra-personal emotional intelligence know and understand themselves. They accept themselves for who they are. They recognize their own strengths and weaknesses. They can use their strengths without arrogance and understand their own weaknesses. They know when their own emotional states are helping or hindering a situation. They have a clear sense of their center of being. They know who they are.
The second dimension is inter-personal intelligence. Leaders with high inter-personal emotional intelligence have the ability to understand others and develop meaningful connections and relationships with other people. They have developed empathy – they can truly "put themselves in the other person’s shoes." Inter-personal intelligence is essential to the act of building alignment and commitment of others to a common vision.
The third leverage point of personal competence is knowledge of the business. Leaders need to truly understand their business and the complexities of their business environment. Knowledge of the market, the economic drivers, the customers and their needs, the competitors, and the company’s position in its market space is essential for effective leadership. Their own functional area of expertise may be in one aspect of the business, such as sales or finance, but they have developed a broader perspective regarding their business and the environment in which it performs.
Leaders also need to know the internal operations of their own company and how it functions. Taking the time to truly understand a business – externally and internally – is essential for leaders. This is a prerequisite for creating a vision and developing strategic deployment decisions for sustained success.
No matter how efficient leaders endeavor to be, and no matter how good some may think they are at multi-tasking – there are still only twenty-fours in a day. The difference between leaders who achieve a great deal and those who do not is not that they have more time – it is how that time is organized and then used. This is the fourth leverage point.
 Effective leaders understand that their most powerful resource is their own competence and their use of personal time. They guard their time and use it to drive their agenda.
Steven Covey has developed one of the most effective models for personal organization through his four quadrant urgency versus important dimensions. Everyone understands and responds to Quadrant I imperatives – those few things that are both urgent and important. But the sustaining value of a leader comes from the work in Quadrant II – those important items that will make the most powerful difference and are not (yet) urgent. The challenge is to plan and schedule time with Quadrant II as the primary domain.
Some leaders allow Quadrant III – the day-to-day urgent transactions that seem important at the moment, but are not truly going to make a long-term difference – steal their Quadrant II time. Effective leaders plan, schedule and control their own time and the time of their key people so that Quadrant II is their driving force.
The fifth leverage point is the suite of leadership and management skills and styles that are used to execute acts of leadership and management. Skills in areas such as problem-solving, decision-making, negotiation, communication, conflict management, goal-setting, and the use of the most appropriate leadership style comprise this leverage point.
Some of the dimensions of personal competence can be learned; others are developed through life experience. Certainly the dimensions of business knowledge and leadership skills can be learned. Emotional intelligence can be developed – although this takes more work and commitment. The fundamental issue of character is likely to be well set by the time an individual assumes a major leadership role and is the least likely to be changed unless confronted by a major emotional shattering life experience.
Leaders who develop and apply these five personal competence leverage points can create sustainable advantage for their organizations, their senior leadership teams, and themselves.
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