Extraordinary Leadership in Australia and New Zealand: The Five Practices that Create Great Workplaces

Chapter 1 Exemplary leadership: creating high engagement and extraordinary results

WHETHER YOU ARE WORKING in an 80-year-old corporate icon, a high-tech start-up with the ink still wet on the incorporation papers, a government department, a small business, a family-owned enterprise or a non-profit agency, there is no shortage of leadership challenges. Trust in corporations, the government and institutions in general keeps eroding, and there’s no indication that this trend is going to change direction anytime soon. Besides that, employee commitment and engagement have taken a dip, and many of the people who are still employed are indicating that they would jump ship if they got the chance. There’s no doubt about it: we live in turbulent and uncertain times.

As surprising as it may sound, in these uncertain and difficult times we’re likely to see some of the most extraordinary leadership we’ve seen in decades. Leaders, it turns out, don’t perform at their best when they’re maintaining the status quo or when they feel comfortable. They perform best when faced with adversity, crises, setbacks and great difficulty. Challenge is the opportunity for greatness.¹

Extraordinary results can only come about from doing things that have not been done before. The key is to create a workplace characterised by high levels of employee engagement and commitment. This doesn’t happen without leadership. Indeed, as the late management guru Peter Drucker so aptly observed, ‘Only three things happen ...