Leadership Must Haves

I was asked by an academic colleague recently for a guide to a leadership "think piece" for a client who is migrating to ISO systems.

That is a darned good question, and it is hard to come up with a comprehensive one-stop-shop argument that covers the breadth of the leadership field.

Instead I replied with some ideas, which I thought I would rework into a blog post. These are my leadership must haves:

1. For me, the MOST important aspect of leadership is creating, building and sustaining a positive culture. If you get that right, the rest looks after itself. One of the most terrible, negative and destructive things a leader can do is to think that culture is unimportant, or that it will sort itself out.
   
   Edgar Schein (1992, p. 5) said “Organisational cultures are created by leaders, and one of the most decisive functions of leadership may well be the creation, the management and if and when, that may become necessary, the destruction of culture. Culture and leadership, when one examines them closely, are two sides of the same coin and neither can really be understood by itself. In fact there is a possibility, underemphasised in the leadership research, that the only thing of real importance that leaders do is to create and manage culture and that the unique talent of leaders is their ability to work with culture”.
   
   Some previous posts on culture can be found at Managing Meaning, Changing Corporate Culture and Strong Cultures can be Negative.
   
   
2. Second-most important for me is Phil Dorado's idea of Acts of Leadership (2007). Acts of leadership are those active and critical thinking actions that we take each day, rather than being a passenger in our own lives. I have posted about this before at Barriers to Leadership, Why Acts of Leadership and About on my blog.
   
   
3. From that point, my personal affinity then lies mainly between two leadership styles: shared leadership and facilitative leadership.
   
   Facilitative leadership aligns well with teaching and coaching, being a values-based and supportive style ideal for development (Schwarz, 2002), focused on involving followers in the leadership process. I have a couple of blog posts on facilitative leadership and the components of facilitative leadership.
   
   Shared leadership works well with organisations where they can take ego out of the equation. Volunteer organisations, those focused on social good, places with embedded values will usually be able to work with this style. I wrote a case on Tennis New Zealand (on ResearchGate) which is attempting to provide organisational leadership in this way.
   
   I only know of two commercial organisations who embody a shared leadership style: Semco in Brazil and HCL Technologies in India. I am currently putting together a case on Semco, but just haven't had time to finish it (though once finished, it too will be on ResearchGate).
   
   
4. Authentic leadership too is a transformative and modern leadership style, but this type of leader needs to possess the characteristics. Bill George (former Medtronic CEO, 2003) has done quite a bit of writing on this style, and on us doing personal work to grow into authentic followers (or authentic leaders if we are able to grow the appropriate traits).
   
   
5. Also the leadership style discussed by ex-Stanford Prof Jim Collins, Level 5 Leadership, is a very powerful and enduring leadership style that suits people who are non-charismatic, or who may be more introverted. Jim's book "Good to Great" explores this style (2001).

For more information, Profs Brad Jackson & Ken Parry wrote a great little primer about leadership called "A Very Short, Fairly Interesting and Reasonably Cheap Book About Studying Leadership" (2011), which explores current leadership trends and various schools of thought. I use this as a text for my Year 3 Sport & Rec students.

As Professor Jackson says "But it is all about leadership, isn't it?"


Sam

References:

• Collins, J. (2001). Good to Great: Why some companies make the leap... and others don’t. HarperCollins Publishers 
• Dorado, P. (2007). The 60 Second Leader: Everything you need to know about leadership, in 60 second bites. Capstone Publishing Ltd
• George, B. (2003). Authentic Leadership: Rediscovering the Secrets to Creating Lasting Value. Jossey-Bass. 
• Jackson, B.,  & Parry, K. (2011). A Very Short, Fairly Interesting and Reasonably Cheap Book About Studying Leadership (2nd ed.). SAGE
• Schein, E. H. (1992). Organizational Culture & Leadership (2nd ed.). Jossey-Bass
• Schwarz, R. (2002). The Skilled Facilitator: A comprehensive resource for consultants, facilitators, managers, trainers and coaches (revised ed.). Jossey-Bass

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Grint's Lenses of Leadership

Grint (2000), as cited by Jackson (2009)

We human beings all think differently. To my mind, that's a good thing, because that means that no one of us has all the answers.

I read an article in May of 2010 by Kenn Butler where he related that when he first expected to encounter leadership, he encountered it embodied in a person, not in a position (2010).

Kenn's article sparked a line of thought. I feel that we, as individuals, often think of leadership as being embodied one dimensionally; and, depending on who we are and what our experiences are, will depend on what that single dimension is that we tend to associate with our own leadership view.

However, we can - and should - learn and get into the habit of applying the other ways of viewing leadership.

Keith Grint, a UK Academic who writes on Leadership, has a great leadership model whereby he encourages us to view leadership through four different lenses. Those lenses are "Person", "Position", "Process" and "Results".

Grint (2000), as cited by Jackson (2009)

The idea is that when we think about:

• A person - we tend to think of the "who" leadership - our identity. Leadership being about the qualities of personality, traits, characteristics, personal qualities, charisma, heroes and villains, expert knowledge and scape-goats.
• A position - we think of the "where" of leadership - leadership being about the position, the organisational or social level, the hierarchy, having authority, being in charge, decision-making, at the top, holding power.
• A process - we think of the "how" of leadership - our organisational tactics. Moments, interactions, patterns, networks, spaces, objects, language, policies, practices, systems, events, myths, societies, cultures, politics, ideologies, knowledge, power and norms.
• The results - we think of the "what" of leadership - our organisational achievements, vision, strategies, outcomes, products, successes, losses, failures, winning, losing, performance, accountabilities and measurables.

I feel that if we think about leadership being embodied in different characteristics, we will develop a more balanced view of what leadership is now. This will open up our ideas of what leadership can be in the future, and enable us to challenge our ideas of what, who, where and how leadership happens.

Grint's model has a wonderful flexibility in it, as it frees us from the straight-jacketed view that leadership was ever a one-dimensional thing.


Sam

References: 

• Butler, Kenn (2010). Leadership is a Person. Retrieved June 2010 from http://www.kennbutler.com/PUBLICATIONS/Newsletter/Read+Online/Week+175.html
• Grint, Keith (2000). The Art of Leadership. UK: Oxford University Press (pp 23-25). Image developed by Jackson, Brad (2009). What’s So Different (and Difficult) About Leading in New Zealand? NZ: Auckland University.

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