An email discussion on a new approach to leadership.
If you agree, disagree or simply wish to add your thoughts to this, please email info@corporatemagnetism.com, and we’ll gladly add them to the debate……
Mahen
The psalmist says that there is nothing new under the sun and certainly in the area of leadership an art as old as mankind we probably have new labels for old concepts. It is necessary for each generation to discover these ideas for itself because it is not likely that they will accept it from the older generation. We are all guilty of that.
My own view is this. What is being touted as transformational leadership is a variant of management style. I think that in the ordinary context of organisations there are no positional leaders - those who claim leadership by being promoted to the job.
Leaders are those who are admired for their professional excellence by their peers and who have a following. Some of these leaders can be ruthless, demanding, overbearing people. Yet those working with them will look up to them and be guided and led by them to the extreme ends of the earth. That is leadership.
If we can get people to behave decently and honestly with each other we would crack many of the leadership issues that we face today.
Karen
My immediate (and only very cursory) response, Mahen, is that people behave as they consider appropriate. Most of the organisational models are male-led, with all that it implies – competition, macho behaviour, and the idea of bring home the kill for universal acclaim. Once I thought that things would have moved on, but as I look from the outside, I am less and less convinced.
Until we change the model of organisations so that different things are valued, that success is seen differently, people won’t behave differently. As I said, people act as they see as appropriate – which is itself a survival mechanism.
Mahen
I have been thinking about the implication of your view that a more collaborative and co-operative working environment would be in the interests of more businesses and that the approach taken by women in their interoffice dealings would make more sense. There are some issues here: 1. there is benefit in competitiveness. 2. Politics is not all bad. 3. The male persona is better able to handle disagreements i.e., they can have flaming rows in the office and then play squash in the evening more easily than their female counterparts.
I also believe that too much gentleness and seeing everyone's point of view can be very harmful and counterproductive. Some people need a kick up the jackcy and nothing short of hobnailed boots will motivate them.
There is also the situation that as imperfect human beings we will exploit the weakness of others.
This probably explains why it is not always the ablest who shine, but the better players. I had lunch with someone today who quoted from Indira Gandhi. Apparently her father Nehru had told her that the world is made to two types of people. Those who achieve, and those who take credit for the achievement of others. He had suggested that she join the former group as there is much less competition in that group - meaning fewer people interested in achieving things.
As always the conclusion is that 'no one size will fit all' and no single approach will meet the needs of a diverse population. Tyranny has its place as does autocracy and despotism. There are times when it makes sense to think that those who work for you are dumb or playing dumb and to treat them as such.
This is why I feel that it is more beneficial to encourage people to understand themselves and others, teach them coping skills and let them get on with it. Alas it is impossible to teach people how to lead but it is possible to teach them how to manage.
Karen
My experience of women is that they aren’t always less competitive than men – but they respond differently. And in addition, just because you’re co-operative, this doesn’t make you or a wuss, OR that you act with less passion.
Mahen
I think the reason women are not as co-operative as their nature might incline them to be is because they are still operating in a man's world and have to be more macho than the male to hit the high spots. I am not sure that they are working to their true selves.
This leads me to challenge the conventional wisdom and much of published material on the subject, as many of us ACT our way through life playing parts that best fit the situation. This takes us nicely to the 7 ages of man and the idea that we are simply players in a journey and we play many parts all of which optimise our chances of acceptance, love, money and so on.
Karen
I’m struggling, I suppose, with the definition of leadership. We talk about it as if it were a simple verb – but is it? What sets leadership apart from management in practice is probably only “the big idea” and a conviction that it’s worth fighting for. You say that leadership means having followers – which in itself may mean a variety of affiliations:
In this analysis, leadership is at least in SOME part, management of all these different motivations, reactions and interests in order to maintain loyalty or “followership”. To maintain this power of having followers a leader would need to flex his or her style at least to some extent to accommodate and appeal to them all.
So I agree that while not all managers are leaders, surely, all leaders are also managers, otherwise they become simply visionaries. In which case, the idea of transformational leadership might justifiably encompass what you describe as merely “a variant of management style”.
My view is that, for a large percentage of the time, existing management styles don’t work and without them, leadership becomes impotent. Which is where I really get to grips with my disagreement with you. You may not consider the model to be “new” (and indeed, I believe you that it isn’t) but the test is not in the model, but in the management style which gives it some practical application.
Which is where we come to the input of women in the workplace.
Times have changed dramatically since Reddin. More than 40% of the UK workforce is female, and although still intensely irritating, the gap between male/female pay is narrowing. Women ARE starting to have more say in the workforce, although there is quite a way still to go for equal treatment. And as a result, their special skills are becoming more valued. More managers (of both sexes) are looking to other tools, other techniques as people refuse to respond to the old ways of managing. SOME of these are to do with more female-oriented skills of empathy, collaboration and intuition. Women have a different approach and often a different view, but this difference doesn’t make it invalid. A kick-ass approach MAY be appropriate, but there are lots of ways of kicking ass…..
So if management is leadership without a vision, and if leadership without management is impotence, the interrelations between them are perhaps closer than anyone had given them credit for.
This view of management/leadership certainly doesn’t mean “niceness as a norm” and probably not gentleness either. But it does make space for a different view of management/leadership which is less “male”. If we can stop the yanks with their one-size-fits-all macho management style, we may stand a chance of truly seeing management of people change, and for the better.
In my optimism, on this bright, sunny Friday, I sense too that the natives are becoming restless. People are throwing in their highly paid jobs in “downtown Calcutta” for more wholesome ways of life, more true to themselves. Look at fe3 – our aim is to get to a point where we don’t work with people just for the money. We’d rather not. Life’s too short. Perhaps this should be the NEXT management maxim?
Mahen
I am grappling with the issues you raise too. When does management become leadership? I am working on that. Do leaders have to be managers? I think not. Mandela, Gandhi. It was Paul who built Christianity for Christ. It was the disciples of the Lord Buddha who built Buddhism and I am sure the same is true for Zoraster, Confucius, Mohammed and so on. Now. This women thing. As I said before the women in industry who have hit the high spots are as tough as nails. They are strong, determined and single-minded.
The style may be different but the substance is the same.
People need firm direction. They then know where they stand. It is nicer if it comes with a smile but I think that that is an optional extra.
I am not sure that business is civilised enough yet for those in it to be treated extra civilly. I think it is a tough place and getting tougher and only the strongest can survive. But nature dictates that the strongest must have sharp and long teeth and claws and hunting instincts.
Mahen
I remember, many moons ago, circa 1988 Anna-Maria Garden (a very able researcher and consultant) and I feeling that the light touch (not necessarily a feminine touch) would be good for software developers. The reason - creative folks need different strokes to stevedores. The belief was that, gently steered, these anoraks would produce better code faster.
At the conference we both attended, a very senior manager, one in charge of an R&D shop for a leading Pharmaceutical business said that they had improved productivity by just reorganising the office. Ain't that cute, I thought.
When you think of all the money the drug industry pours down the sewer every year on a whole bunch of non-productive guys, living in plush parklands, and going fishing, golfing and model building in their considerable spare time, I think the time has come to strip them of the livery, put them on the high street and get them to eat stale sandwiches like the rest of us until they produce something more valuable that papers for seminars.
Breakthrough products are almost invariably produced by hungry people, working in drab and near shanty town conditions.
So, I am not sure that being nice gets anyone anywhere except that in a time of full employment and high labour mobility it is a necessary part of having enough people to get anything done.