Club Officer Training II Workshop: Leadership & Succession Planning in Toastmasters

The following is the background notes for my presentation at the District 80 Division G Club Officer Training II, held on the 08^th January 2022. 

Definition

It is always important, before we begin anything, to come to an understand of what we are talking about, when we discuss anything.  There are many times when we have had parties using the same words, but meaning different things.  Leadership is not management.  Management is a part of leadership, but it is not all of it.  It is possible to be an effective manager, and not be a leader, but it is impossible to be an effective leader, and yet not manage. 

Consider our personal leadership journey, because we all evolve with time.  I want us to reflect, at different periods of our life, as we gain experience, competency, and even authority, how our style changes.  Our style of leadership is also affected by circumstances and that particular context.  There is no one style of leadership, and a leader who has only one way of moving the organisation will inevitably fail. 

We now consider who take as our role models, because that defines how we understand leadership.  There are many people we identify as leaders.  The point of consideration, however, is that true leadership is not known by flash.  A great leader is only appreciated after he has stepped down, because when he is there, he is a meant to be an inobtrusive presence, guiding everyone, a source of wisdom, a link to the organisation’s institutional knowledge. 

My role models in leadership would be people like Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli, Count Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, Maj. Gen. Carl Philipp Gottfried von Clausewitz, Fleet Admiral Chester William Nimitz, and Chanakya Kautilya.  These are not men who are known to most unless they are students of history.  But they are people who influenced great leaders who came after.  I prefer ruthless efficiency to good public relations.  These are people of substance, not flash. 

John Davison Rockefeller Sr.  said, “Good leadership consists of showing average people how to do the work of superior people.” 

Aspects of Leadership

There are many aspects of leadership, but for the purposes of this session, we will cover three, and address the differences.  We recently had the Executive Leadership Incubator, Sessions 1 to 4, which went into some depth.  For the fifth and final session of this inaugural programme, we will have Toastmasters International President, Margaret Page for the dialogue. 

To paraphrase Sun Tzu, he said that if we know our enemies and we know our friends, our victory is certain.  If we know Heaven and know Earth, our victory is complete.  A complete victory means we do not have to fight the same battles with the same people again. 

Personal leadership is what we exercise in our personal lives.  We cannot be leaders of men if we are not leaders of ourselves.  We govern our lower appetites, our tongue, our thoughts, long before they become words and actions.  A man who cannot control his appetites has no business leading others.  That is personal leadership: mastery of self.  This is the foundation of our values. 

Executive leadership is the nearest to management.  Management is the process of controlling and utilising resources, including people, for the greatest effect and maximum efficiency.  Executive leadership is the management of leaders.  Executive leadership is not micromanagement.  Micromanagement is when the leader does not trust himself, or his team, and feels the need to get involved in the minutiae.  Executive leadership is where the leader, either by himself, or in consultation, sets a direction specific to the term or a period of time, to meet immediate goals.  In a company, this would be the quarter or financial year. 

Strategic leadership is senior management.  This is when the leadership sets a goal, and articulates a vision that extends beyond the horizon.  This is leadership planning for the time when the people involved are no longer around.  Just as we plan for presence, we must also plan for absence.  This is what empowerment is about. 

Personal Leadership

Leadership is always by example, because a leader who does not lead by example, loses moral authority.  Moral authority, once lost, is fatal to the leader.  Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli wrote, “So much depends on reputation – guard it with your life.  Reputation is the cornerstone of power.”  Leadership is the exercise of power.  That is the sacred trust.  If you are a leader, you are a leader whether you have a title or position, or not.  Leadership is not conveyed because you have a position.  That is authority.  Leadership is you. 

I would like us to reflect, what are our personal values.  This is something that is taught on the very first day of every Officer Cadet programme, every management programme, every system.  It has many names throughout history, whether the code of chivalry, futuwwa, or something else.  It determines how we deal with people, and how we address adversity.  These personal values must be aligned with the collective values of the organisation.  In Toastmasters, we are about education, nurturing, and mentorship.  None of us have arrived, because the perfect rhetorician does not exist.  We are all on different horizons, looking at the next. 

Personal leadership, then is about legacy.  Leadership is not a public relations exercise, especially if you want to be a leader in any organisation.  We must accept that there will always be people we disagree with, rivals, contenders, or simply a clash of values or interests.  We represent our clubs, our Division, our District, and there will always be contending differences.  However, as long as we focus on doing a good job, be sincere with our praise and criticism, and firm in our values, even our detractors will have some respect for us. 

Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde said, “Every effect that one produces gives one an enemy.  To be popular one must be mediocre.”  If you want to be good at anything, you must be prepared to have enemies, and you must be prepared to challenge. 

Executive Leadership

Leadership is a team game.  You are not a leader alone.  You are a leader among leaders.  A leader of followers is nothing more than a mob boss.  If we want to be effective leaders, we must surround ourselves with leaders.  One of the qualities I look for when I put together my Executive Committee as club president, my Council as Division Director, and my board as Chief Executive Officer, is competent aggression.  I want to be surrounded by people who will challenge me, who will tell me off when they feel I have over-stepped, to force me to reconsider decisions.  Every knife must be sharpened. 

Look at my Division Council when I was Division Director.  Look at this Division Council where Margarette Lo Foong Quan is Division Director.  We notice that if I were not around then, or if Margarette is not around now, we have half a dozen people who can easily step in as Division Director, and the system runs.  That is the team.  Look at AIA Toastmasters, and we will see a dozen people who are easily capable of being the club president in a heartbeat.  That is the system we must build. 

For this to work, there has to be a plan.  One of the first things I did as Division Director, was put down, in writing, a Division Strategic Plan.  We have a procedure for handover of Area Directors, management of workshops, training for leaders, even a chain of command for every event if people are unavailable.  One of the first things I did as President, AIA Toastmasters, was to write a strategic plan for the club covering three years.  In the same vein, we want to have after action reviews of every programme, and document feedback, and have a written procedure for everything.  Both Division G and AIA Toastmasters, plan the entire year in advance.  That planning is done in May, and endorsed by June.  Should the entire team be abducted by aliens, there is enough paperwork left behind for a totally new team to step in. 

This documentation must disseminate both the mission of the team, which is the planning for the year, and the vision, which is the overarching plan across multiple terms.  Every team has some continuity, and that plan is continuously adjusted along the way to meet new realities. 

Benjamin Franklin famously said, “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.”  This is a famous chiasmus. 

Strategic Leadership

Consider this for the moment.  Where do you think Toastmasters is at the moment?  Where is your club at the moment?  Where are you personally?  We are amidst a challenge that none of us could have conceived.  None of us prepared for a global pandemic that lead to an unprecedented global economic contraction, the largest since the Great Depression.  Has this affected club attendance?  Is this a problem? 

I contend this is an opportunity.  We must understand that the strength of the club is not the numbers but the commitment to the programme.  But to secure that commitment, we need to give people something to believe in.  That is why we plan, and why we articulate that plan.  Otherwise, after all that is said and done, much is said, and nothing is done.  As such, we always begin with the end in mind.  You cannot build a company without an exit strategy for investors.  Our members have invested time and effort in our clubs, in this programme.  We need to give them that return on investment, that exit strategy. 

To do that, we need to see beyond the term.  Not every goal we set is achievable in one term.  If we do not plan beyond the term, we will always be starting at zero every new term.  That is the problem with many clubs.  Every term starts from scratch, and it makes it tiring.  People want to be inspired.  They need to feel that they are part of something greater.  The question here is where do you see yourselves, and your club beyond this term? 

Our members are our investors, and they are our investment.  For a club to develop, we need to invest in that membership.  Club leadership is not built by simply finding successors every term.  Club leadership is developed by creating a pool of leaders such that everyone can step in at any time.  For example, in AIA Toastmasters, Gerald Yong Kim Heong was Sergeant-at-Arms for a term, and he was President in the next.  Before he joined AIA Singapore, he was already a member of senior management in a British MNC, and he was part of a merger team.  Every club, except student clubs, have people of that calibre.  We must identify them, and we must engage them.  There are leaders among us to be harvested. 

Stephen Richards Covey said, “Management is efficiency in climbing the ladder of success; leadership determines whether the ladder is leaning against the right wall.”  The Executive Committee is meant to be a team of leaders, not managers. 

Succession Planning

Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill paradoxically said, “Plans are of little importance, but planning is essential.” 

On the other hand, Margaret Edith Weis wrote, “Plans are figures drawn in the sand; easily changed when the wind blows.” 

The truth is, no how we plan our succession, there will always be changes in the situation.  We do not see the future, we do not even control the present.  Still, we must plan.  Succession planning is the process and strategy for replacement planning or passing on of leadership roles.  It is used to identify and develop new, potential leaders who can move into leadership roles when they become vacant. 

When do we plan for this?  As a leader, that planning starts when we take on that job.  We plan for our obsolescence, our own redundancy.  Grooming successors is like gardening, except that the plants move all over the garden, and need to be herded.  This means we need a succession plan as a guideline, but the flexibility to adjust it as we move along.  In Toastmasters, we call it mentorship, but it is so much more. 

What are the considerations for succession planning?  There are a few things to keep in mind.  The first is commitment.  There is no point having a great potential leader who is not committed.  The second is potential.  Ability tells us where they are.  Potential is where they can grow, and we can be part of that process of growth, so we can learn as well.  Finally, we look at their values.  Someone who is nice to you, but rude to the waiter, is not someone you want in leadership.  You will bleed members. 

How far ahead should you plan?  If this is your first time, then plan for next term.  If you have that down, then plan for three years.  Why three years?  It is time enough for a club to have a larger plan, but it is not so far ahead that it becomes fantasy, 

Leaders: Found or Created?

Almost every person, to some extent, have the potential to be a leader.  That potential varies.  President Dwight David “Ike” Eisenhower said, “Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.”  People are inspired to follow great leaders into being leaders themselves.  That is why I began this by looking at personal leadership and values.  Personal leadership is about integrity and responsibility.  We want people who have beliefs and are willing to stand up for them.  The person who is liked, and tries to please everyone will become a leader who pleases no one.  Such people do not have integrity and cannot be trusted.  Leadership is never a popularity contest. 

Another character trait I look at is how people treat those who do not benefit them immediately, or is unlikely to benefit them.  This tells us how they will behave when they are in power.  We should also beware of people who are indiscreet, or worse, people who talk about others behind their back.  Put them in authority, and you will create divisions that take time to heal. 

A leadership succession system must have core values that the next generation must adhere to.  Anyone who does not meet that should be discarded.  Fixing the consequences of bad leadership is a lot more work than being selective in recruitment and promotion.  As Brian Tracy said, “Become the kind of leader that people would follow voluntarily; even if you had no title or position.” 

Ultimately, when we step down or move on, no matter how well we did, we will still be judged by what we leave behind, and a large part of that is the leadership structure we put in place to succeed us.  Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery said, “My own definition of leadership is this: The capacity and the will to rally men and women to a common purpose and the character which inspires confidence.” 

We begin with the end in mind.  We secure our legacy by leaving what we do in better hands.