Effective leadership doesn't require an advanced degree or years of business experience. Effective leadership does require a commitment to values, hard work and stewardship, especially when leading from the heart.

A simple definition of leadership is organizing a group of people to achieve a common goal. Organizing is good, achieving goals is better, and people are best! I believe the most important and lasting legacy leaders accomplish is developing, strengthening and serving other people as they lead. Let's call this "caring leadership," accomplishing important goals with others without forgetting these same "others" are an equally important stewardship requiring attention and focus.

Self Evaluation

Preparing this article gave me cause to once again stop and evaluate my current leadership. It's something I should do more often, knowing that it's so much easier to "talk the talk" than to "walk the walk." My intent with this message is to share my thoughts and personal aspirations for becoming a more caring leader, not to make claim to always being one.

Caring leadership requires trust, trusting others and, more importantly, others trusting you. For trust to exist, a caring leader must have integrity. I appreciate that integrity means different things to different people. A common understanding of integrity is being internally consistent; behaving consistent with beliefs and values, thus being whole. A practical aspect of integrity in leadership that promotes trust is fairness or balance.

So often a leader faces decisions that may benefit the organization over the individual or leader, and vice versa. At any point in time the leader, the person being led or the organization will appear to receive the advantage from any single decision. The leadership challenge is demonstrating balance or fairness over time across all of these constituencies. A caring leader will learn when he or she and the organization need to make compromises that benefit an individual, and again, vice versa. One of the worst things a leader can do is make decisions that are consistently and only in the best interest of themselves or their organization. When others see that you do take a balanced and fair view as you face tradeoffs and make decisions, trust emerges and concerns about questionable motives decline.

The concept of caring leadership is focusing beyond yourself and beyond your own needs. I have witnessed very talented, smart and hard-charging individuals become derailed as leaders if they are perceived as unbalanced, lacking integrity and not to be trusted. Caring leadership requires being a little less selfish and a little more selfless. Caring leadership acknowledges that what we do and how we do it are equally important.

Early in my career, I had the benefit of having a boss (let's call him Mike) who was an exceptional caring leader and role model. I've never worked for anyone better and I've tried to incorporate the caring leadership principles I learned from observing Mike.

Caring About Others

Like many individuals in leadership positions, Mike was smart, strategic and visionary. What made him a caring and effective leader was his ability to listen and then balance needs. Mike would listen to and process what I said. Was my idea a good one? Easy or difficult to execute? Did we have the necessary resources? What were the upsides and downsides? And in turn, Mike asked questions. He might have had an alternate approach, but if my idea could work, Mike would support me. He was very good at teaching, empowering and providing support whenever he could afford to do so. If Mike had a better answer, a better approach, he would share that and we'd talk it through together. And Mike often suggested his alternatives in a way that I could incorporate his ideas into mine and leave with a better strategy. Mike took the "long view" and prioritized people development opportunities into his business decision process. He knew I would learn better decision making, become a better, more loyal employee and likely a better person and leader. Why? Because Mike cared about more than himself.

Through emulating what I saw in Mike and others, I've attempted to embrace values that support my desire to make progress, both professionally and personally. I believe values like integrity, family and faith must be communicated through actions, not words. The loudest message we deliver is based on what we do, not what we say. If what we do and what we say are consistent, we demonstrate integrity and people will have greater trust in us. By consistently behaving this way, we may not always be liked, but we will be trusted. Caring leadership is based on trust.

Taking business risks or expecting even more from people may appear at times to be at odds with caring leadership. And it will be, unless you find the right balance when making decisions that balance the best interest of the company, the employee and yourself over time.

It can be challenging to reconcile the elements of caring leadership with real world day-to-day demands. Your clients don't all come through your door embracing the principles of servant leadership and emanating the virtues of patience and forgiveness. Many walk through your door with the expectation of "I'm the client and do for me what I expect." As businesspeople, how do we reconcile the profit motive with caring leadership? I believe this can be accomplished by striving to "do well in order to do good."

If your business is not performing well financially, you won't have the time and opportunity to use your healing hands to do pro bono work or volunteer for community programs or become involved with professional associations. Without growth and vitality, you won't have the financial flexibility to make contributions in ways that make the world a better place. Over time, we all have to do well in order to do good. For example, at Performance Health, we have to achieve positive financial results in order to have the resources to make contributions, whether in the form of money, products, student grants or education programs.

Any time we do something considered "giving back," we are accomplishing our mission of doing good. This principle of doing well in order to do good applies at both the business and personal level. I focus on doing the best I can to fulfill the stewardships that I've committed to, but inherent in that is not losing sight of core values. Signing up for and committing to volunteer organizations, especially those that interact with individuals in need, keeps me grounded in reality. And the lessons I learn from this personal investment of time, effort and energy strengthens my awareness of caring leadership skills at work.

Be Committed

To become a caring leader, we have to work hard in everything we do and be willing to make and keep commitments. I determined many years back that if I want to leave this world a better place, first and foremost, I needed to be a good husband and father. What do I want my legacy to be? I want my wife and my children to have had the best fighting chance for happiness in this life based on my behavior, my choices and my interactions with them. I also must strive to provide strength and caring leadership for my work "family" through my commitments, decisions and actions. When I someday leave Performance Health, I want the company to be better than when I joined; I want it to be bigger and stronger. And I want there to be more opportunity and greater value for our employees, customers and partners.

I believe that caring leadership involves committing to living a life that sets an example, at work, at home and in the community. Caring leadership means becoming less self-centered and more other-centered. Choosing a massage therapy career highlights your innate desire to help and serve others. This desire, combined with the additional qualities of personal integrity, fairness and balance, hard work, and commitment to doing well in order to do good will make you into a more caring leader; a leader with the potential to impact others you don't even physically touch through massage. Choosing to become a more caring leader can expand your impact exponentially. What do you want your legacy to be?