When Blaine L. Nelson was chairman of the board for the Dallas Symphony for two years, he had to replace both the music director and the CEO.
“The question is how do you get anything done when you have a large board of type-A, very wealthy people who all want to be in control, and they all have their own opinion,” Nelson says. “The leadership challenges I faced there were very real.”
While some may say, “I’m in charge, so just do what I say,” Nelson knew that this kind of approach wouldn’t go over well and would create animosity. Instead, he listened to the other members and continuously reminded them what the ultimate objective was. In the end, he hired two world-class people to fill the vacancies and had full board support.
“I really do believe that if I had taken an autocratic imperialistic view that I would have alienated donors at the end,” he says. “Even though I could have hired high talent, I wouldn’t have had a base of support for them when they got here.”
This kind of approach to leadership isn’t just reserved for high-powered boards. Instead, Nelson also applies it with his 1,400 people each day at financial services giant Deloitte LLP, where he serves as office managing partner for North Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas.
“This might be controversial, but I think imperialistic or autocratic leadership styles are a lazy form of leadership,” he says. “It’s much easier to just operate on a command and control, ‘I’m in charge; you do what I say,’ type of leadership. A much harder form of leadership, but ultimately, at the end of the day, that’s more effective … is leading through influence.”
To be effective in this leadership style, you have to be able to effectively communicate and then also be able to inspire the people who work for you.
“Leaders who possess those qualities and characteristics … will be much more effective,” Nelson says. “They’ll attract better talent, be able to get the most out of their talent, and they will run and operate more effective organizations in a diverse environment.”
