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New leaders: We don’t need another hero
An important task that we are frequently called upon to undertake is that of supporting individuals who are currently making the transition to the role of leader, be that of a business, department or function.
In our work, we try to convey the idea that a business is a shared and collective enterprise that gives people responsibility and accountability. In doing so, it must engage hearts and minds through dialogue and shared action.
Organisations need many leaders rather than few. If not, formal leaders get burdened and slowed down by the weight of responsibility, whilst others wait to be told what to do and what to think.
Stepping forward
However, this is far from being an argument against strong leadership. Rather, it is an appeal for a particular and more human style of leadership. Effective organisations absolutely need someone to step forward and exercise leadership if they are to be successful.
That moment when someone is called upon to be a leader of a business, or even a department or function, is a step change for which nothing in their previous career has fully prepared them. The manner in which they negotiate this transition is essential, both for the individual in terms of their ongoing career and personal health, and for the organisation in terms of business continuity and profitable growth. It is essential, therefore, that appropriate support is provided at this stage, and this most usually takes the form of intensive one to one coaching.
Leaping across the great divide
One of the most common issues we come across, even with very experienced managers making the transition to leadership, is a real vagueness as to what they are being called upon to do as a leader. As Otazo (2007) points out, for the new leader the familiar hills of their organisation become a foreign landscape with new power structures, new demands and new expectations to navigate.
Ideas on leadership have evolved and adapted to the changed needs of organisations. New leaders are usually vaguely aware that the way they have been led in the past is not necessarily the way they are being called upon to act into the future.
Fifty of the best
So, can the current literature on leadership offer any practical directions and guidelines? With this question in mind, I sat down one day in early June in the library of Ashridge Business School, surrounded by over 50 articles on leadership recently published in respectable journals.
My aim in doing this was two fold: First, to look for common themes and views that would give us a view of what leadership in the early 21st century is considered to be; Secondly, I was looking for useful aphorisms: concise phrases that summed up entire arguments and theories with an admirable economy of words.
Distilled wisdom
Clearly, within the 50 articles there were a number of contradictory views and points of emphasis. However, in my reading of these articles, there were a number of themes that emerged again and again. Obviously, any selection of themes is going to be a little arbitrary and personal, but from my reading of the literature the following 8 themes were both dominant and pervasive:
1. The principle of transformational leadership is criticised as being more about personal ego than business need. The picture on an effective leader painted here is that of a quiet, humble person acting with a calm and persistent determination.
2. The principal role of any business leader is the articulation, communication and active pursuit of a vision of a better future.
3. A theme which has grown in importance over recent years is the importance of anchoring a leadership approach in strong values, integrity and authenticity. This appears to be a combination of deep self knowledge, congruence and confidence to do what is right over what is popular.
4. Leadership is no longer a left brained logical thing best exercised by people who are dead from the neck down. Leaders are now encouraged to live intensely and experience the full range of their emotions. Equally, they need to evoke high levels of emotional response, loyalty and affection in others.
5. The leader is now much more likely to be described as someone who delivers results through relationship and his / her ability to connect with others. It is this quality of relationships combined with the resultant collective sense of energy and urgency that delivers results.
6. There is no one single effective way of leading or set of leadership traits. It depends on the individual, the team and the context. What works for one leader will not necessarily work for another. What matters is getting actively engaged.
7. Truly effective leaders are almost invariably pragmatists, whether they choose to present themselves as such or not.
8. All leaders have weaknesses and failings. Effective leaders are simply more aware of and accommodate them, but they do not punish themselves for being imperfect.
As I had hoped, in many of these articles there were aphorisms or phrases that effectively illustrated and summarised much wider arguments and conclusions. Below I have loosely grouped the best of these under the appropriate headings. They represent the distilled wisdom of those 50 articles and are, fortunately, much quicker to read and grasp.
1. The welcome death of transformational leadership and the leader as hero
“It is not the heroic types but the quiet leaders who achieve extraordinary results. They work inconspicuously, deep within their organisations – patiently picking and fighting their battles” (Badaracco 2001)
“Effective leaders blend the paradoxical combination of deep personal humility with intense professional will.” (Collins 2001)
“Effective leaders manifest humility. They routinely credit others, external factors and good luck for their companies’ success. But when results are poor they blame themselves. They also act calmly, quietly and determinedly – relying on inspired standards, not inspiring charisma, to motivate.” (Collins 2001)
“Become a tempered radical – an informal leader who quietly challenges prevailing wisdom and provokes cultural transformation. These radicals bear no banners and sound no trumpets. Their seemingly innocuous changes barely inspire notice. But like steady drops of water, they steadily erode granite.” (Meyerson 2001)
2. Leadership as the articulation, communication and active pursuit of a vision of a better future
“There is something unique and different that makes a leader, and it’s not about creativity or courage or integrity. As important as they are, you can have those attributes and still fail to be a great leader. A leader’s job is to rally people towards a better future. Leaders can’t help but change the present, because the present isn’t good enough. They succeed only when they find a way to make people excited by and confident in what comes next.” (Buckingham 2005)
“A true leader leads the way even when lost. They have a passion for decisions. They generate a high level of energy in the organisation and spread a sense of urgency. They are open minded, but have a strong sense of purpose. They spread enthusiasm by emphasising the larger purpose of work. They convey trust and credibility.” (Garell 2004)
3. The importance of strong values, integrity and authenticity
“Effective leaders act in accordance with their own values, preferences and needs as opposed to acting merely to please others, attaining rewards or avoiding punishment through acting falsely” (Kernis 2003)
“Demonstrate your values through your language, dress, office decor or behaviour. People notice and talk – often becoming brave enough to try the change themselves. The more people talk, the greater the impact.” (Meyerson 2001)
“Leadership is not about glory but challenging preconceived notions and the status quo. It is about knowing yourself and understanding your values and building integrity in yourself and others.” (Pangarkar & Santos 2005)
“Great leaders are driven by the desire to serve rather than by a lust for power … the best test, although difficult to administer, is: do those served grow as people; do they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants.” (Greenleaf 1970)
4. Becoming attuned to others through emotional intelligence
“Effective leaders are relatively transparent in expressing their true emotions and feelings to followers, while simultaneously regulating such emotions to minimise displays of inappropriate or potentially damaging emotions” (Gardner 2005)
“Effective leaders are able to evoke high levels of emotional response, loyalty and affection. They can empathise with those they lead, step into their shoes, get close to them. Yet they also seem to be able to communicate a sense of edge, to remind people of the job at hand and the overarching purpose of the collective endeavour.” (Goffee & Jones 2006)
“The salient discovery is that certain things leaders do – specifically exhibit empathy and become attuned to others’ needs – literally affects their own brain chemistry and that of their followers.” (Goleman & Boyatzis 2008)
“Leading effectively is less about mastering situations – or even about mastering social skill sets – than about developing a genuine interest in and talent for fostering positive feelings in the people whose co-operation and support you need.” (Goleman & Boyatzis 2008)
Healthy leaders are able to live intensely. They are passionate about what they do. That’s because they are able to experience the full range of their feelings – without any colour blindness to any particular emotion, At the same time, healthy leaders strongly believe in their ability to control (or at least affect) the events that impact their lives. They’re able to take personal responsibility; they are not always scapegoating or blaming others for what goes wrong.” (de Vries 2004)
5. Connecting with others – delivering results through relationships
“One mark of a future leader is the ability to identify, woo and win the mentors who will change his or her life.” (Bennis 2004)
“Effective leaders take a personal interest in the long term development of their employees, they use tacit and other social skills to encourage employees to achieve their best. It isn’t about being “nice” or “understanding” – it’s about tapping into individual motivations in the interest of furthering an organisation wide goal.” (Prentice 2004)
“One of the greatest challenges a leader faces at the height of his or her career is not simply allowing people to speak the truth but actually being able to hear it.” (Bennis 2004)
“A true leader is someone who leads from the front by demonstration and not just by issuing orders. A leader is someone who can inspire others, has a vision, really understands the product or service that they sell, is a good communicator, works well in teams and, most importantly, listens to other people.” (Mills 2004)
“A leader is someone who can enthuse and inspire people at all levels – and who creates the right environment and expectations for people to be brilliant. A combination of positive and nurturing support, along with a healthy level of unreasonableness in order to get things done.” Clifton 2004)
“Possessing a vision, or being possessed by one, is different from mobilising your followers to follow that vision. The engine that drives the group or the organisation is the energy and enthusiasm of the people within in. Motivational leaders are masters at eliciting and sustaining their followers’ passion and drive.” (Wood & Petriglieri 2004)
It is relationships that deliver results – not targets and plans or missions and visions. Leaders begin to have an impact only when they begin to connect with the people around them.” (Binney, Wilke and Williams 2004)
6. Recognising that there isn’t one universally effective set of leadership traits – it depends on the individual, the team and the context
“There are no universal leadership characteristics. What works for one leader will not work for another. Those aspiring to leadership need to discover what it is about themselves that they can mobilise in a leadership context. They must identify and deploy their personal leadership assets and use them to build and effective system of relationships with followers.” (Goffee & Jones 2006)
“Effective leaders are not simply amalgams of desirable traits, they are actively and reciprocally engaged in a complex series of relationships which require cultivation and nurture.” (Goffee & Jones 2006)
7. Leadership as pragmatism in action
“An unwillingness to compromise may be morally principled – but it’s unrealistic in most situations. Quiet leaders craft responsible, workable compromises” (Badaracco 2001)
“A leader’s time is limited. Therefore she should focus on the work that only she can do. If others can perform a function, let them. Empowering others fosters a great sense of accomplishment and loyalty. Periodically, of course, it’s useful to burrow deeply into a file.” (Williams 2005)
“Leaders are like the rest of us: trustworthy and deceitful, cowardly and brave, greedy and generous. To assume that all good leaders are good people is to be wilfully blind to the reality of the human condition, and it severely limits our scope for becoming more effective at leadership.” (Kellerman 2004)
“When the leader succeeds, it will be because he has learned two basic lessons: men are complex and men are different.” (Prentice 2004)
8. Weaknesses and failings are to be understood and accommodated for
“Leaders are like the rest of us; trustworthy and deceitful, cowardly and brave, greedy and generous. To assume that all good leaders are good people is to be wilfully blind to the reality of the human condition, and it severely limits our scope for becoming more effective at leadership. (Kellerman 2004)
“It is only when we recognise and manage our failings that we can achieve greatness – as people and as a society. Knowing that, we can then begin to explore some of the more interesting questions of leadership: why do leaders behave badly? Why do followers follow bad leaders? How can leadership be slowed of even stopped?” (Kellerman 2004)
“Healthy leaders are very talented in self observation and self analysis; the best leaders are highly motivated to spend time on self reflection, Another factor is that healthy leaders, unlike the less healthy ones, have the ability to deal with the disappointments of life.” (de Vries 2004)
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