A
new way of thinking about leadership
- Traditional
leadership theory is narrowly concerned with top-down leadership
in large organizations
- Other
kinds of leadership include: market leadership, leadership in
a golf tournament, leadership in a league of sports teams, i.e.
football, plus the indirect leadership of every person who sets
an example for others every day without trying to persuade anyone
explicitly to follow suit. For instance, innovators in knowledge
intensive industries are exhibiting a type of leadership that
is not associated with the top - down direction of subordinates.
What
is the one characteristic that is true of all leaders? Is it being
tall? Being charismatic? Having a commanding presence? Being
action orientated? Or just being honest and ethical?
- It is
none of these.
- Rather,
all leaders have a drive to differentiate themselves from their
peers - whether the individual is a person, a team, a business,
a sports club or a nation.
- When individuals
differentiate themselves they stand out from their peers (or group).
- Some are
seen as deviants and rejected, others are seen as leaders and
followed.
- Some instances
of leadership are so obviously admirable that followers need no
persuasion to jump on the bandwagon - this is leading by example,
other instances of leadership require the leader to attempt to
persuade followers directly and explicitly.
- Traditional
leadership theory narrowly focuses on direct, conscious influence
attempts.
- But we
imitate people we admire more than is generally acknowledged,
hence more leadership is indirect and unintentional than is commonly
realized.
- This broader
view of leadership captures how it is possible to lead in situations
other than when you have power over others in a large organization
- a market leader, a league leading sports team, the leader in
a golf tournament, an innovative knowledge worker - all have one
thing in common - being better at differentiating themselves than
others.
How this
applies to large organizations
- You can
differentiate yourself in either of two ways - by doing what others
are doing only better or by doing something different (or advocating
doing things better or different).
- Leaders
devise or promote new directions, new ways of doing things, managers
execute existing directions.
- All organizations
have two corresponding tasks - to deliver existing services efficiently
and to create new services.
- Leadership
is associated with the latter, management with the former.
- The one
essential characteristic of all leaders is striving to achieve
at the highest level and this leads others to want to follow their
example.
- A chief
executive might have all the charisma in the world, but without
a compelling idea of how to make things better, no leadership
can be shown by this person.
- Alternatively,
someone lower down in the organization with a compelling idea
but no charisma could lead the organization in a new direction
- provided enough opportunists jumped on the bandwagon with little
or no persuasion.
- Of course
being persuasive often helps a leader get others on board faster,
but persuasiveness is not an essential characteristic of leadership
because it is possible to lead without it.
- All situations
where people lead by example do not include explicit persuasion
- All market
leaders and sports leaders lead by setting a compelling example
alone - here of course not only is no attempt made to persuade
competitors to follow, close following is discouraged.
Why is
this important?
- Traditional
leadership theory is disempowering - it confines leadership to
the top.
- There
are two kinds of empowerment - managerial and leadership.
- Managerial
empowerment lets employees make decisions in the execution tasks.
- Leadership
empowerment asks employees at all levels to display leadership.
- When leading
edge knowledge workers develop new products, senior executives
operate more as venture capitalists than leaders - investing in
the best ideas (leadership) emerging from below.
- This new
perspective on leadership is important because it advocates dispersing
leadership throughout organizations rather than monopolizing it
at the top.
- Everyone
can lead by setting an example for others regardless of what other
skills they have or do not have for influencing people more directly.
Leadership
as Discovery
- Leadership
= doing things different, either doing existing things better
or doing different things.
- In simple
situations it isn't hard to see a better direction and advocate
it to others.
- Here,
new directions are taken on the basis of discrete, conscious decisions.
- In more
complex situations, it is often necessary to discover new directions
through trial and error.
- Here,
new directions emerge through someone discovering a new way of
doing things.
- New directions
emerging through trial and error is totally different from changing
direction based on an all-or-nothing discrete decision.
- As organizational
environments become increasingly complex, more and more new directions
will have to emerge through trial and error (organizational learning).
- Here,
the leaders are those employees who, regardless of their status
or influencing skills, discover new directions to pursue.
- Wherever
complexity reigns, organizations that encourage leadership from
all employees will be more successful than those that restrict
leadership to managers.
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Are
you ready for a complete shake up of leadership theory? Then, you
should buy this book!
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