What is it that effective leaders do differently?

I have to admit I was quite surprised to find the identity of the author of the quote mentioned above. It's Albert Einstein, widely regarded as one of the most powerful intellects humankind has produced. Yet this great man whose superior intellect revolutionized scientific thought with new conceptions of time, space, mass, motion, and gravitation, was also smart enough not to fall slave to the power of the intellect. As the quote above indicates, he understood its subservient role in leading change.

As we publish our 26th annual President's Issue, Einstein's insight is worth considering for supply chain managers and their presidents alike. Reading through our 30-page annual Outlook report on trends and issues for 2003 (starting on page 23) it's hard not to be overwhelmed by the degree of change expected for the years ahead for both shippers and carriers. From dealing with much stricter Customs requirements that threaten JIT delivery patterns to bargaining with financially pressured carriers demanding new relationships, logistics managers will need to exercise all their personal and business skills to successfully steer their way through the challenges ahead.

Before plunging into those challenges, however, it's worthwhile to pause and consider what truly makes for effective leadership. Whether they are the CEO or the head of the company's logistics team, what is it that effective leaders do differently? According to Fiorella Callocchia, President of HR Impact and a presenter at C.I.T.T.'s recent annual convention held in Halifax, effective leaders understand the importance and master the application of emotional intelligence, in other words, they have "people smarts". According to Callocchia, effective leaders not only have a firm grasp on the "technical" aspects of their job, they know such intangibles as how and when to use humour and how to read the dynamics of a team. They possess a high level of self awareness and are not afraid to engage their gut feeling when it comes to decision making.

As Callocchia aptly puts it, "tech smarts is your price of admission; it's your people smarts that will determine how far you will go."

Callocchia's advice is also worth heeding during the hiring process. It think it's fair to say that most of us spend a great deal of time ensuring the people we hire have a good understanding of the job's technical, operational and intellectual requirements, but are we spending enough time assessing whether the people we hire have the necessary personality to work in our team environment? As Callocchia puts it, if you are not spending half your time assessing a potential hire's "people smarts" you may be hiring only half the individual you are looking for.

Leaders with "people smarts" are also adept at reading and understanding another important but often neglected element existing within all corporations -- culture. I'm referring to the unwritten code of conduct that exists in parallel with the formal, hierarchical structure of an organization yet guides the behavior of the organization's staff, from the smallest details of dress code to the largest issues of supply chain management. No doubt most of you recognize the existence of corporate culture within your organization; I certainly due within mine. But it's such an elusive thing that more often than not managers tend to avoid dealing with it. We are led into a false sense of security, believing that what we can't actually see, rules we can't actually read, relationships that have no standing with the company's formal hierarchy, can't possibly hurt us. During periods of stability that may not be a problem but as you will read in our change management feature (see page 16), during periods of change, a company's culture can come out of hiding to wreak havoc on change efforts. Managers in charge of change projects looking to do it by the book often learn the hard way that the invisible culture can defeat supply chain innovations.

Natural-born leaders are a rare breed. For the rest of us, it's a constant struggle towards self improvement. We owe it to ourselves to ensure we have equal doses of technical and people smarts.