What the 7 Faces are

I believe you have to practice to be a good leader (note I don’t say emulate).
To practice leadership, you need ‘a map’ and lots of questions. We are far from a short on answers – remember those shelves - but we’re not sure we have the right questions. So we may just be kidding ourselves with sets of beautiful answers to the wrong questions. I’m interested in questions, and:
The answers to these questions are personal.
Unfortunately, the consequences of your answers are not. Other people at work, home, party, church, organization or in the wider society depend on them. No pressure…

If after reading this or after getting other help and other triggers, it is not obvious to you what to practice, I think you’ll have a problem (if you still aspire to becoming a good leader). Note that I say what to practice, not whom to emulate.

You’ll know that you are a leader when others think of you in that way voluntarily. “The proof of the pudding is in the eating”, my fellow compatriot Miguel de Cervantes said around 1615. The proof of your leadership capabilities is in the response and nature of your followers.

The ‘praxis’ of leadership has different faces.
The practice of leadership may be helped by recognizing that the difficulty in making sense of the plethora of ‘examples’ is not necessarily that it consists of a mix of heroes, villains, charlatans, moralists, dictators, saviours, psychopaths and normal people. That mix is obviously an intellectual challenge in itself (!), because, if nothing else, it’s difficult to have an uncontaminated and clinical view of it without attaching a judgement to each ‘case’. The Mother Theresa case is good, the Hitler case is bad. Sure, but that won’t take us far.

The real difficulty, however, is one of presentation. Leadership is polyhedral, pardon my language. You can be looking at one of the polygons and get excited about it, only to realize that there are others just as exciting on the other side of the three-dimensional solid.

Yes, the leader has seven faces. In some leaders, only one or two are visible. When those leaders are proposed as examples or role models, the only faces of leadership we see are the ones they show us. When you as leader are ‘in front’ of your people, perhaps one or two faces are visible. But there are others, equally important. These seven faces are:
1
What leaders say. Rhetoric, language, words… matter. Many organizations are stuck on something (strategy, process improvement, change) because they do not posses ‘another language’. Leaders provide ‘language’ and meaning, a framework in which action can take place. If this is their visible face, leaders look more like teachers and educators, and language and meaning become the most visible traits.
2
Where leaders go. Leaders go places and take people with them. Some of them have a pretty good idea of the destination, perhaps too good an idea. Others are more of the type who ‘enjoy the journey’. However, if this is the visible face, both look more like cartographers, explorers or conquistadores. Life around them inevitably revolves around these themes of destiny and pathways.
3
What leaders build. Leaders are builders of organizations or ‘projects’. They build purpose and they build places. Places to be, to enhance people, to work in, to think, to do, to succeed, to attract people, to navigate through life. They build other things such as trust and relationships. If this is their predominant face, they look more like architects. ‘Space’ and its sister ‘Time’ are favourite themes around them.
4
What leaders care about. Finding this face of the leader is not difficult, because what they care about forms their language and behaviour. See what the leader says, observe what the leader does, see if it matches and you will discover the value system behind it! When this is the main visible face, these leaders may look more like moralists or teachers, even if they may not necessarily use the language of morality. But what this face shows is mainly beliefs. Beliefs seem to form everything else.
5
How leaders do it. Worrying about how things happen is prominent in some leaders. Very often, the ‘how’ is seen in our culture as ‘a detail’ or ‘a by-product’. But some leaders don’t see it like that. The way of doing things matters to them and this is their most visible face. When this is the case, they look more like stage managers focusing on styles, ways, dynamics, and plots. ‘Ways of doing’ may kill good visions. These leaders know it and worry about ‘the how’ almost above everything else.
6
What they are. This is a sometimes difficult face to understand. Perhaps the best way to do this, is to refer to famous lines from the Jewish text The Ethics of the Fathers: “If you don’t look after yourself, who will?” First stop. It looks pretty selfish, but it’s enormously healthy, because it’s prompting non-dependence on others. “If you only look after yourself, what are you?” Second stop here. This is a powerful question. Note the ‘what’, not ‘who’. “What am I?” is probably the most important question of our navigation system in the world. And third and last stop: “If not now, when?”

Some leaders worry about the ‘what-we-are’ and, if this is their predominant face, they look like identity seekers, rather constantly referring to a sense of belonging. Sometimes they look like historians as well, because identity and belonging are above everything else, with one eye on the past and another on the future. Awareness of themselves and others, including emotions, is very visible in them.
7
What leaders do. This behavioural face is always fascinating. It is often the most ‘visible’ and one that is easier to refer to, mainly to imitate. What leaders do - or don’t do – matters; for some people more than anything else (i.e. what they say, or build, or think…). This ‘action-face’ is certainly enormously important and the engine of the building of other dimensions, such as reputation and trust. It is powerful, both in its building and its destroying potential. Some leaders seem to have great ability to generate action around them, often seen as the only relevant dimension for themselves and the organization behind them. When the emphasis is on the doing and the main visible face is action, leaders sometimes look like heroes, or company acrobats, pointing to outcomes and measurements.