I have followed this thread with some fascination regarding the various
perspectives which have been brought to bear. Allow me to offer another.
Let me warn the reader that I often get carried away on the keyboard.
This is a long posting.
I learned about leadership through that most durable of institutions ...
the US Army. The topic of leadership is a difficult one to teach in any
context. The military takes a pointedly specific orientation in its
approach. However, there are some concepts which I have found apply
regardless of context. It starts with a good definition of leadership.
To my mind, leadership is the ability to influence others to do those
things which they might not otherwise do, even if there is no one there to
watch and ensure that they do those things.
There are three roles which those who are appointed to "leadership" positions
tend to fill. These roles are: - Commander
- Manager
- Leader
These roles must be understood and differentiated in order to effectively
fulfill any or all of them.
We often confuse the role of manager and leader. Managers deal with the
effective allocation of resources. For those who require more precise
language, resources includes money, materiel, time, personnel, etc. In
short, the term includes everything.
Managers are not leaders ... they cannot be leaders. Managers allocate
and control, they do not influence. Managers are often necessary, but
they are not leaders.
Commanders, likewise, control people and situations. They issue
directives and orders. They send people to do things according to some
grand view of reality. The real difference between Commanders and
Leaders, besides the issue of control versus influence, is that Commanders
usually have the means to punish those who do not obey, or at least comply
with, their orders.
Managers and Commanders usually have artifacts which indicate that they
are important. These include offices; staffs; and icons of position such
as insignia of rank, scepters, beepers, reserved parking spaces, etc.
These roles usually have perks which accompany them as well. These can
include such things as expense accounts, stock options, and so on.
Both of these roles typically involve some extent of deference on the part
of subordinates as well. This can vary from giving the boss the final say
to letting the boss have the ONLY say.
Leaders, on the other hand, are something quite different. Leaders are
connected with their followers. They FEEL their people and the situation,
they don't just know them. I would even go so far as to say that Leaders
love their followers. With this in mind, leaders put their people first
... ALWAYS.
One previous message indicated that leadership is, in part, feeling
accountable for others even without having control. I think that this
fits here. Leaders want their followers to do well and strive to ensure
that the appropriate credit is shared for any successes. This starts,
though, with a willingness to accept that accountability.
Leaders also tend to have a keen focus on the task at hand. They
influence others to accomplish the task even if it means sacrificing of
themselves. Notice here that leaders don't MAKE others do things, they
influence others to do things because the others believe that this is the
right thing to do at the time.
Leaders are out in front. I perform a teambuilding activity with my
clients wherein a group is blindfolded and placed on a rope. Everyone
MUST maintain their relative position on the rope. One is selected from
the group to lead the group. The catch is that the leader is the only one
who can speak. I have never seen a leader who was effective leading from
the side or the rear. This is often translated into walking their talk.
Managers and commanders work from the side and the rear. Effective
leaders work from the front. If you remember the movies Gettysburg and
Glory, the officers led from the front. That's why COL Shaw died as he
did. His death inspired his command to continue in the face of impossible
odds. That's why so many officers were killed during Gettysburg. These
days officers (and executives) seem to be pushed more into the commander
role and operate away from the main action.
Implicit in all of this is that leaders are value-driven. They will
usually understand that they may personally profit from their successes.
However, leaders will still do what they believe is right even if it will
cause them pain and detriment.
The military is not a perfect laboratory for teaching leadership. It has
MANY flaws. I would have to say that many of the officers (and NCO's) I
served with were not very good leaders. This is not peculiar to the
military, though. A great many of the managers I have worked with were
not good leaders either. I believe that this is partly because we have
not differentiated the three roles I have described. In fact, they are so
often intertwined that we tend to confuse these roles.
Good leaders often receive artifacts similar to those of the manager and
commander. They often receive deference (as in the story of the Amir).
The difference is that they do not seek these things for themselves. They
are awarded these by their followers.
Someone who does not understand these differences will seek to become a
leader and, in the process, demand their "due" as a leader. When they do
not get the trappings they seek, they show their lack of leadership by
stepping outside that role and into one of the other two roles. Once they
have forced their will upon others, they begin to think of themselves as
leaders. They seek to be awarded leadership rather than dveloping it
within themselves.
I believe that the characteristics of a good leader can be taught. But
that doesn't mean that they will be learned. Leadership is as much of an
art as it is a science. That means that leadership must be felt as much
as it must be known. Let me explain.
Anyone can learn the mechanics of an activity. We can learn how to brush
paint or produce specified sounds on a musical instrument. That doesn't
make us good at any activity, though. In order to be considered good we
must achieve some level of mastery of those technical aspects. When we
have done this we can read music and produce the appropriate sounds; we
can copy a painting by a master and make our work look pretty much like
their work. This doesn't make us an artist, though.
In order to be considered an artist, we must go beyond simple mastery of
technical skills. We must internalize these skills such that we can be
creative using them. We must be able to express our emotions through
these skills such that others experience the same emotions when they see
our work. A painter can evoke an emotional response by the painting he
produces. A musician evokes emotional responses through her original work
or through her interpretation of another's work. A speaker moves others
to action or belief through the expression of ideas using the various
nuances of language.
I was once told that, to be considered fluent in another language I must
first begin to think in that language. It was not enough to think in
English and then quickly translate my thoughts into the other language.
It is the same with any other form of artistry. We must think in that
medium and then communicate those thoughts through that medium.
So it is with leadership. Leaders think in leader terms. They don't stop
and translate. Those who can be considered artists in leadership have
mastered the technical aspects and moved beyond.
The obvious problem that arises when using this artist metaphor is the
prodigy. This individual displays artistic mastery without ever having
studied the technicalities. These people are apparently born with their
abilities intact. Such an example is Mozart who was composing symphonies
at 6.
I believe that there are leadership prodigies as well. Some of these have
risen to greatness. These include George Washington, Robert E. Lee,
George Patton, and Douglas MacArthur. Also included among this number are
John Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Gandhi, Mohammed, Buddha, and Jesus.
Some attended schools designed to teach them leadership and others didn't.
Yet, they all rose above their contemporaries from similar, and different,
backgrounds to be revered as leaders. Some had the trappings of
leadership and accepted them, others rejected those trappings.
We can TEACH leadership traits, principles, and characteristics all day
long. But I believe that true leadership must be DEVELOPED within the
leader. This requires experience above all else.
My final thought is simply this: we talk as if leaders are those
appointed over us as managers or executives. I have found many leaders
among the minions: those we would call emergent leaders. When the focus
in developing a learning organization is solely on those who are the
appointed "leaders," we miss many of the true leaders who can move the
organization.
I don't know that my coments here exactly fit with the format of dialogue,
but that is my intention. Comments are always welcome.
-- Clyde Howell The Howell Group Aiken, SC orgpsych@aol.com