So many books have been written about leadership and self development. It seems that all you have to do to write a self development or leadership book nowadays is to have one or two anecdotal experiences to highlight how your grandiose, general principles for leading others work. In this vein, I am writing today about what i believe makes a great leader.

An effective leader is able to motivate others to take action towards his/her goals. When we talking about great leadership, there are more elements that come into play, but when we talk about managing behaviors there are two main driving forces: The carrot and the stick.

It is important to note here that in the first part of this essay I will be referring to certain traits as traits of managers and certain traits as traits of leaders. There is a difference and I will get into that when discussing leadership.

The Carrot and The Stick

We've all seen the picture of the donkey that has a carrot tied to a stick that keeps it dangling right in front of its face. The donkey just keeps chasing this carrot all day.

The carrot method is powerful. Ivan Pavlov ran a study on the digestion of dogs. He rang a bell or some noise and then gave food to the dog. After some time, he rang the bell and found that even with no food, the dogs started salivating as if there was food there. When we use positive reinforcement, we can classically condition the behaviors we want.

Managers that can create a system where you have these consistent, small wins are able to drive the behaviors want in their organization.

The other side of this is the stick. One way to motivate people is to give them a reward, but when the reward doesn't motivate the person, managers can employ punishments.

When you start a new job, there are things that the trainer tells you not to do. And most people play close attention to these things because they know if you exhibit one of these behaviors, you will lose your job. At the company I work at, we have a strict policy against dating people that are your direct reports. If you do end up having a relationship with a direct report, your job is at risk.

Effective managers have a grasp of both the carrot and the stick and are able to use these methods to turn the behaviors they want into team habits. When we recognize good behaviors and overreact to behaviors, we are effectively classically conditioning our team to the behaviors we want.

The Difference Between Leaders and Managers

In my mind, the biggest difference between a leader and a manager is that you don't have to have authority to be a leader. Managers are able to use the carrot and stick method with their direct reports because they have authority. They can decide if the employee gets promoted or fired. A leader is someone who is able to drive others to take action without necessarily having that authority.

The carrot and stick method are external means of motivation. The true leader is able to motivate others to take action without using external means of motivation. For example, with my friends I do not have any authority over what decisions they make in their life. If I want them to do a certain action i can pay them a certain amount or I can tell on them to their parents if they don't do it. But these are not really effective with friends, and the latter will usually result in your friendship ending altogether. The only real effective way for me to motivate my friends is to convince them that taking that action is worth it for them. I have to set forth a vision and make sure they are bought in completely to the execution of that vision for me to make any progress.

Managers spend most of their time looking at the results and numbers. In fairness, that is what they get paid to do. They are responsible to deliver X amount of products or X amount of sales, so they are laser focused on reaching that target. Leaders are also laser focused on their goals, but they invest huge chunks of time upfront to set the vision in front of the team and get everyone's buy in. When you have a team that is bought in to your vision and motivated internally, they don't tend to just reach the targets you had set. They tend to knock those targets out of the park.

Gaining Buy In for Your Vision

The most important element in convincing others to execute your vision, is to explain what's in it for them. Amazon does a great job of this. Part of the compensation package for employees L4 or higher is restricted stock units every 6 months. This is a way to make sure every leader in the company is bought into the growth and success of Amazon. When profits at amazon go up, our stock price also goes up. Since everyone is an owner, everyone is now committed to making a big impact because it directly impacts their wallet.

In situations where you have authority, it is pretty easy to show what is in it for the other person. When you don't have authority is when it gets tough. In this situation, it is important to understand what drives the other person. If I am trying to convince the leader of a company that they should invest 2 million dollars in training programs for their employees, I will have to show them data about what the expected return on investment will be. If we invest this 2 million dollars, we should expect to see less attrition in our leaders and consistency with our leadership will yield X dollars in X amount of time. In this example, you can add the cost of hiring new leaders, the time spent recruiting, the time lost due to interviews, the time spent onboarding them, etc.

It may seem like the carrot method and gaining buy in is the same thing. However, it is not the same because in gaining buy in you are presenting a carrot in front of them. However, you have no stick to punish if they chose not to execute to your vision. For example, in the carrot and stick method if I want to improve our building's throughput by 10% i can assign this project to a manager and say ifyou improve it you get promoted and if you don't you're fired. A manager can do this and it may work to get the desired results. However, in this situation, a leader would take the time to explain why a 10% tph improvement is important to the building and how it will set the building up as a leader in the network. This seemingly insignificant action of taking the time to explain the bigger picture, explain the why behind the actions we do, yields dividends that you can not imagine. Leaders understand that and use that to their advantage.