The four essential ingredients of a powerful point of view
People trust the motives, judgement and competence of leaders less now than just five years ago. They see so many failures, so much media criticism, so much apparent focus on ruthless profit, and they hear so much logical argument about what is good for business and growth, what is good for the organization but not its publics, and so little about how good leaders are good for society, that they have come to believe that most leaders are exclusively self-motivated and therefore not to be trusted.
Winning trust is essential to effective leadership, but people will not trust those they do not feel they know. To convince people to your cause, you need to let them know more about who you are, what you believe in, what you stand for and how you see the world. In my view, this has never been more important. Yes, you need logic and facts, but you especially need passion and conviction in today’s transparent, hyper-critical world.
Expressing your beliefs is therefore a crucial part of a convincing point of view.
It is all very well talking to your beliefs, but people will still be suspicious if they feel you are simply speaking empty words. They need to be convinced by your actions too. You don’t always have time to let people see your actions speaking louder than your words, so you have to give them evidence of your behaviours, and link those behaviours to your beliefs.
Your behaviours need to be expressed in a potent POV, alongside your beliefs.
All behaviours have a consequence, so your behaviours need to be beneficial if people are to be converted to your cause. You need to explain how your beliefs drive your behaviours, and how your behaviours deliver benefits – benefits specific to the people you are addressing.
If you are able to express these elements powerfully and concisely, you have a strong POV – but now you need one more element: the call to action. After all, the reason you are expressing a point of view is to convert people to your cause and influence their behaviours. Unless you specify the behaviours you desire, how will they know what to do?
My formula?
POV = BBBA (BELIEF, BEHAVIOUR, BENEFIT, ACTION) (See Figure 12.1.)
Figure 12.1: Point of view
It means being certain about how you think, about how you see the world from your position, what you believe as a consequence, how these beliefs drive your own (or your organization’s) behaviours, the benefits derived as a result, and how you think others should behave.
A powerful point of view is one of the most important tools of inspirational leadership. As I have said, leadership is often about taking a stand. This means being courageous and speaking up about what you believe in, and persuading people to your cause so as to get them to act differently.
Speaking out on what you believe in shows your followers that you have a moral compass and are worthy of their trust. It gives them the confidence to follow you. As a leader, you are going to have to stand up and give your point of view time and time again. A powerful point of view generates trust: it shows people where you are coming from and allows them to align with you.
Too few leaders think about developing points of view, yet when well-articulated a point of view can help you win friends and influence people, and gain a stronger voice in shaping the future. Once you have them, they are liberating: you will be able to use them on all sorts of occasions and you will look for occasions to use them. Leaders should be talking to important issues more often, with more transparency, more conviction and, yes, passion. Having a point of view is an inseparable part of building a personal brand and determining what your leadership will be about, what issues you will lead on and even come to champion.
It’s what others are looking for and why they will listen when you speak.
A point of view in action
Let us now deconstruct a point of view, using the formula BBBA. You are familiar with what I see as my purpose in life – but how does my purpose manifest as a POV? The truth is, it is a point of view. Here’s how it is constructed.
· Belief: I believe in leadership. I believe that in the modern working environment, leadership has been undervalued, over-criticized and underappreciated. Yet great leaders can make a huge difference in people’s lives. Great leaders can make great places to work, they can help organizations grow and prosper, and they can alter the destiny of our lives. Great leaders can secure the wealth of nations and make a positive difference to many thousands of people. We need to encourage and liberate the responsible and inspiring leader in everyone.
· Behaviour: Because of this belief, I have made it my mission to make leaders more effective by making them better, more inspiring communicators. I do this by one-to-one coaching, by consulting and training, and by writing books that can help leaders everywhere.
· Benefit: By doing this, I hope that I can make a significant difference to many thousands of people, not just the leaders I can make more inspiring, but also the many more followers of the leaders I help.
· Action: Every person who is or aspires to be a leader has it in them to be an inspiring leader. They simply need to learn about what it really means to be inspiring and abandon their preconceptions about inspirational leadership.
Let me give you another example of a POV in action. In Chapter 4 I talked about the importance of being yourself better, and I gave examples of my personal values. One of them was curiosity. How would I express this value in a POV?
· Belief: I believe that if you are not learning every day, you are dying.
· Behaviour: That means that I take time every day to learn something new, and give free rein to my curiosity, especially about other people. I never let a question go unasked and unanswered, no matter how stupid it might sound.
· Benefit: What I get out of this is unexpected opportunities, new relationships, new perspectives, constant delight and, hopefully, a wiser view of the world. I find I am luckier than most, because I am discovering opportunities and making connections all the time.
· Action: I think that you should learn to liberate your curiosity, ask more questions and take more time to find the answers to questions that come to mind. You’ll find that serendipity will work in your favour too.
When you take away the scaffolding of Belief, Behaviour, Benefit, Action, a point of view comes over as a short, sharp and coherent story. It gets attention, it makes people think, it exhorts them to behave differently.