As an engineer turned manager turned executive, Norman R. Augustine, chairman of Lockheed Martin Corporation, learned the art of leadership by watching and doing. In his book Augustine’s Travels: A World-Class Leader Looks at Life, Business, and What It Takes to Succeed at Both (AMACOM), he pinpoints a number of qualities he has observed that make successful leaders successful. Here’s what he has to say about selflessness:

Great leaders subjugate their own personal interests to those of the team.  They make sure their troops are “fed and bedded down” before they themselves seek comfort.  They ask more of themselves than they ask of anyone around them.  And they are consumate team players.

One of my favorite team play stories concerns the Chicago Bulls and their then-rookie forward Stacey King.  As luck would have it, on a night when King managed to score one lone point, his teammate Michael Jordan scored 69 points.  When a reporter asked King after the game what he thought of the evening, he replied, “I’ll always remember this as the night that Michael and I combined for 70 points.” Now that is real team play.

Ironically, the best way to get ahead in business, in fact, seems to be to embrace selflessness.  People resent those who are always seeking to take credit for everything that happens. (Casey Stengel once joked that management is the art of getting credit for the home runs your players hit.)  In contrast, those who just do their job and seek opportunites to help others succeed are both appreciated by peers and noticed by superiors.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 9th, 2009 at 9:49 pm and is filed under Leadership, Other. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.