SECTION III INTRO

SECTION III

THE PRINCIPLES 360-DEGREE LEADERS PRACTICE TO LEAD UP

“Follow me, I’m right behind you.”

If you are trying to make an impact from the middle of an organization, then you probably relate to the myths and challenges outlined in the previous two sections of the book. More than likely you have to deal with one or more of them every day. So how do you make the best of your situation while overcoming the challenges and avoiding the myths? You develop the ability to be a 360-Degree Leader by learning to lead up (with your leader), lead across (with your colleagues), and lead down (with your followers). Each of these draws on different principles and requires different skills.
“If you want to get ahead, leading up is much better than kissing up.”
—DAN REILAND

Leading up is the 360-Degree Leader’s greatest challenge. Most leaders want to lead, not be led. But most leaders also want to have value added to them. If you take the approach of wanting to add value to those above you, you have the best chance of influencing them. Dan Reiland said as we talked over ideas for this book: “If you want to get ahead, leading up is much better than kissing up.”
In the fall of 2004, I got a glimpse of a world that was totally new to me. At “Exchange,” an event for executives that I host every year, I invited the attendees to experience a presentation by noted Boston Philharmonic conductor Benjamin Zander along with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. It was an interactive leadership experience where we got to sit in among the musicians of the orchestra as they rehearsed, and the conductor gave us insights into communication, leadership, and followership within a world-class team of artists. It was incredible.
That experience prompted me to read the book Zander wrote with his wife, Rosamund Stone Zander, called The Art of Possibility. In it, they tell a story that wonderfully illustrates the value of leading up and how it can add value to a leader and an organization. Benjamin Zander wrote:

One of the most supremely gifted and accomplished artists I have known sat for decades as a modest member of the viola section of one of America’s leading orchestras. Eugene Lehner had been the violist of the legendary Kolisch Quartet, and had coached the distinguished Juilliard String Quartet as well as innumerable other ensembles . . . How often I have consulted him on thorny points of interpretation—to have the scales removed from my eyes by his incandescent insight into the music!1

Zander went on to say that he wondered if any of the other conductors—who have a notorious reputation for being egoists—had consulted him and drawn on his immense knowledge and experience as an artist and leader. Following is Lehner’s response:

One day, during my very first year playing with the orchestra, I remember an occasion when Koussevitsky was conducting a Bach piece and he seemed to be having some difficulty getting the results he wanted—it simply wasn’t going right. Fortunately, his friend, the great French pedagogue and conductor Nadia Boulanger, happened to be in town and sitting in on the rehearsal, so Koussevitsky took the opportunity to extricate himself from an awkward and embarrassing situation by calling out to her, “Nadia, please, will you come up here and conduct? I want to go to the back of the hall to see how it sounds.” Mademoiselle Boulanger stepped up, made a few comments to the musicians, and conducted the orchestra through the passage without a hitch. Ever since that time, in every rehearsal, I have been waiting for the conductor to say, “Lehrer, you come up here and conduct, I want to go to the back of the hall to hear how it sounds.” It is now forty-three years since this happened, and it is less and less likely that I will be asked.2

I’m sure you don’t want to wait forty-three years for an opportunity to lead up. You want to be a person of influence beginning today.
Influencing your leader isn’t something you can make happen in a day. In fact, since you have no control over the people above you on the organizational chart, they may refuse to be influenced by you or anyone under their authority. So there’s a possibility that you may never be able to lead up with them. But you can greatly increase the odds of success if you practice the principles in this section of the book. Your underlying strategy should be to support your leader, add value to the organization, and distinguish yourself from the rest of the pack by doing your work with excellence. If you do these things consistently, then in time the leader above you may learn to trust you, rely on you, and look to you for advice. With each step, your influence will increase, and you will have more and more opportunities to lead up.