Leadership and authenticity
The Cult of Leadership
There is an increasing focus on leadership at all levels in organisations. More and more is being written and discussed; more writers are turning their thoughts and their books towards the issue - look at the shift recently executed by Dave Ulrich moving his primary focus from HR to leadership. And the popular end of the market continues in its obsession with 'learning the secrets' from big name practitioners such as Jack Welch.
This worries me. The more the focus narrows down onto this topic, the more I worry about whether this is achieving cult status - are we getting obsessed with leadership? I believe we are and that it is getting unhealthy.
No one leader on their own can make the difference between success and failure. No one leader on their own can design and execute a successful strategy. No leader, however effective, is perfect nor can they live up to the expectations of perfection that are so often required by our modern media.
Management Masquerading as Leadership
Often organisations and those who lead them mistake good management for leadership. A review of recent research about training needs (CIPD 2006) shows that many responses relating to 'leadership' are really about people management skills.
The leadership skills gaps identified were:
- Leading people and people management
- Leading and managing change
- Business and commercial acumen - strategic thinking
- Coaching, mentoring and developing people
- Performance management especially standards
- Communication/interpersonal skills
- Innovation!
Whilst two of these include the word 'leading', none of these in my opinion addresses the fundamentals of leadership; all are skills we require in managers at just about every level of the organisation. I believe that this reflects a muddle amongst HR people specifically and within the wider management population generally. Leadership is somehow seen as a 'bigger and better' version of management: something strategic and somehow more critical than just managing people. Attending a leadership programme has far more kudos than attending one on management. On the whole you know something is a triumph of spin over substance when by changing the titles of products as a training provider you sell more: call it a leadership programme and you sell more - I suspect this is true internally as well as externally.
Commitment and Engagement
Mislabeling does not diminish the validity of the research into training needs in modern organisations. These 'leadership' skills are in reality the ones required to engage people, to maximise their performance. There is plenty of research out there that shows the linkage between engagement and superior performance and that highlights the difference between this and commitment. Pulling all this work together has generated two insights which have influenced what we are working on at Henley as we think through the role and development of effective leaders and managers.
Whilst commitment is driven by the emotional attachment one has to the organisation within which one works and the pride one has in its achievements, engagement is something more. Engagement is the demonstration of discretionary effort to ensure the organisation achieves its goals. More importantly, commitment can be influenced significantly, though not exclusively, by the leadership of an organisation, but engagement is primarily, though not exclusively, the outcome of the interaction between an individual employee and his or her line manager.
This is why so many organisations find it difficult to convert commitment into engagement. To do so requires every line manager to be able to impact positively on everyone who works for him or her. It also explains the training needs often put under the 'leadership' banner. This is because what managers need to do effectively to engage employees are things like effective performance management and communication.
David Sirota in his book 'The Enthusiastic Employee' (2006) posits that engagement is driven through three key factors: Equity, Achievement and Camaraderie. Equity he defines as being treated justly in relation to the basic conditions of employment. Achievement is defined as taking pride in one's accomplishments by doing things that matter and doing them well, receiving recognition for accomplishments and taking pride in the organisation. Camaraderie is defined as having warm, interesting and co-operative relations with others in the workplace. Gallup in its model employee survey, used extensively in business, asks one single question to get at this: 'I have a friend at work'.
This may be for some a rather simplistic measure but in my view, one of the largest differentiators in the 'Sunday Times' 100 Top Companies survey is the pride and comfort employees have in the community that is the workplace. It is after all a basic human requirement to want to belong and to be accepted as belonging.
If you dissect the numerous empirical studies which cover many tens of thousands of employees, the same conclusion can be drawn: commitment is essential to drive engagement. It is based on working for a company of which one can be proud in terms of its core purpose, its ethical stance and its successes. This is the essence of effective leadership.
So What is Leadership?
At Henley we have a distinctive view based on research, our close understanding of work organisations from all sectors of the economy and from work with the armed forces. What comes through, consistently, regardless of sector, industry or culture is that leadership can be described and identified in two complementary ways: first, as a set of personal capabilities and secondly as a set of personal qualities.
From a capability perspective it is argued that effective leadership is a balance of drive, judgement and influencing skills. Specifically within this concept, each capability area has within it a differentiating factor where the outstanding performer displays a disproportionate ability. In drive this is seen as the drive to leave a footprint, a legacy, to change something for good, not just for the time you are in charge and certainly not just for your own to articulate this in a way that engages those you want to lead. In judgement this is seen as the ability to spot an issue and to describe it in a compelling way such that people want to do something about it. It's about asking the right questions and in doing so establishing frameworks within which people have the freedom to act with your support. In influencing skills it is specifically the ability to sense the appropriate approach and style required and to use this to connect to those you are working with.
One Step Further
However, at Henley Business School we have taken this further. We believe that even with this impressive array of skills you aren't necessarily going to be an effective leader. What takes these capabilities and gives them real impact are the personal qualities behind them.
Leadership is all about being granted permission by others to lead their thinking - if you like it is a bestowed moral authority which gives you the right to organise and direct the efforts of others. In society today it is democratically bestowed. In history it was bestowed through inheritance, revolution or coup d'etat. However it is given to you, it can be taken away. Today that is mainly through the ballot box or through shareowner or stakeholder action and in the past it was through deposition, coup, revolution or immediate dismissal. Whatever the method, those being led and those with an interest in effective leadership were dissatisfied. The moral authority was withdrawn and the leader is a leader no more.
Moral Authority
Moral authority does not come from managing people effectively or communicating better or being able to motivate.
You get moral authority in our view by:
Being authentic and genuine; believing in what you do and showing a willingness to be open to what you don't know and by expressing your true feelings and emotions
Demonstrating integrity - acting ethically, ensuring that your words and actions match; showing that you serve a purpose beyond yourself
Having self-belief; being confident and showing conviction in what you do and how you do it; being able to articulate why your vision, your direction is right for the organisation and those within it
Showing self-awareness; being sensitive to your impact on others and to the emotions and interests of others; recognising when you are going too far or losing followers
So Why Do Leaders Fail, or Fail After a Time of Success?
Leaders fail when they lose the moral authority to lead. They may not leave office for some time after they lose the moral authority, but they fail as a leader once this has gone. In business, in public service or in public life leaders lose moral authority for three reasons. Either they get found out through behaving unethically - there are plenty of examples here from Kenneth Lay through to Conrad Black; or they are uncovered as being manipulative, presenting a front which is unmasked as not the real belief but a cynical view of what they do - Gerald Ratner comes to mind; or they become plagued by self-doubt and lose their conviction or they are blinded by power and this closes down self awareness and their openness to the world around them closes - they lose connection from those they lead as the context around them changes - many would argue that this is what damaged Tony Blair.
Having said all this, you have to assume that if someone becomes a leader at some point they understood the difference between right and wrong. It is up to them however, at the end of the day, to abide by a moral code, and up to us to ensure that the moment we suspect they do not, to do one of two things depending on where they are: Fire them or vote them out.
