Good leaders play checkers,
great leaders play chess
Leadership, a game of chess!
From a Gallup Organization survey study of 80,000 managers, Marcus Buckingham concluded one distinguishing characteristic of strong leaders: they play chess.
Chess vs. checkers
In checkers, every piece is the same. Everything moves in the same way and remains interchangeable. In chess, each piece has its own function, movement and role in strategy. According to Buckingham, leadership works the same way. A leader who plays chess knows the unique qualities of his team and deploys them in a focused way to move forward.
Talents and motivation
Researcher Arthur Miller also emphasizes the value of the individual within an organization. According to him, motivation grows when someone is given space to use their own talents. The more often someone works from strengths, the greater the willingness to take responsibility and invest energy.
The unique employee
Buckingham describes three building blocks that help an employee come into his own:
- Knowledge of qualities and strengths.
- Understanding the circumstances that activate these qualities.
- Understanding one’s own learning style.
Those who know these elements can assign work that matches the employee’s natural talent. This increases confidence, results and commitment.
The individual in the organization
Seeing and leveraging the unique employee strengthens the organization on multiple levels:
- Qualities are transformed into concrete achievements.
- Employees take more ownership of their roles and the results that come with them.
- Teams work better together because qualities and pitfalls are clear and complement each other.
Organizations that approach leadership as a game of chess create teams that operate more strongly with greater alignment. Want to learn how to apply this in practice? Then check out our Management versus Leadership training course.
Source: HBR
