What You Need to Know about Leadership

excerpt

CHAPTER 1

WHAT IS LEADERSHIP?

WHAT IT’S ALL ABOUT

• The distinction between leadership and management
• How the way we think about leadership has developed
• The essential leadership characteristics
• What leaders really do

The world has been fascinated by leadership for as long as man has stood upright. Rather than celebrate collaborative effort, it has long been the case that much of the credit for the success of a group (or responsibility for the failure) is laid at the feet of its leader. Successful leaders have been lauded, admired, honoured and even worshiped. Leaders who were unfortunate enough to oversee a disaster shouldered almost all of the blame. Underlying everything is a fundamental curiosity over why some people lead and others follow. The characteristics and actions of leaders throughout history have been examined for clues and many attempts – some more scientific than others – have been made to identify the qualities that make for a great leader, with little consensus. And still the debate goes on.

The business world is not unusual in attributing more credit than is perhaps strictly due in the success of a company to its leader. Fortune magazine , which regularly publishes its list of America ’ s most admired companies, argues that there are many factors that, considered together, make a company admirable in the eyes of others. But if people were forced to select just one determining factor, they will inevitably say that business
success is mainly down to strong leadership (by which they mean the chief executive, managing director or chairman).

Given the emphasis that the business world places on leadership as a vital element in growth and success, there is a constant search for good leaders and for future leaders. Anyone with any ambition in business hopes to be singled out as future leadership potential. If you want to get to the top, you will have to be a leader.

But what does it mean to be a leader? What do leaders really do? The truth is that most of us will be called up to perform a leadership role at some point in our lives, inside or outside work. Leadership skills are far more widely called upon in life than many realise, but few of us could clearly explain what leadership is, what it entails, and what works (or doesn ’ t). So we tend to muddle through and do the best we can, through trial and error.

There is no shortage of literature and advice available for anyone who is aiming for a leadership role in the future. Type ‘ leadership ’ into Google , for instance, and you will get well over a million hits. Tens of thousands of books on leadership have been published, from highly technical explanations of the latest management model to autobiographies of those who have led successfully in their own chosen fi eld. But underlying all of the technical theory and discussion are a series of skills and techniques that are common to successful leaders. Not all leaders are the same, by any means – as we will see, the trick in being a good leader is to adapt your own personality to a leadership situation – but all good leaders use similar techniques to encourage people to follow them. The good news is that leadership skills can be learned. If you know what to do, you can be a good leader.

THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT

Being a leader is not the same as being a manager. Some leadership theorists argue that you can be appointed a manager but you have to earn your role as leader. That ’ s not entirely the case but it does explain why some leaders fail so spectacularly. You can be appointed a leader but you can ’ t remain one without followers – and in the modern world, people will only fall in behind you if they think you are worth following.

The distinction between management and leadership is often used to illustrate what it is that makes for a successful leader, as well as what it is that leaders really do. The debate was kicked off in 1977 when an article, ‘ Managers and Leaders: Are They Different? ’ by Abraham Zaleznik, appeared in the Harvard Business Review . In the article, which has become one of the most famous in leadership studies, Zaleznik argued that where managers look for order and control, and work to rapidly resolve any problems they face, leaders tend to tolerate chaos and lack of structure and occasionally avoid offering a solution for the sake of innovation.

Zaleznik argued that managers and leaders were fundamentally different in the way they work with others, and in their attitude towards goals . Leaders, he said, shape rather than respond to ideas and change how people think about what ’ s desirable and possible. The goals of managers, on the other hand, arise out of necessity rather than desire. Leaders seek risk when opportunities seem to be promising, whereas managers tend to avoid risk. And while managers communicate by giving unambiguous signals and tend to be emotionally detached from their subordinates, leaders communicate directly and by appealing to human emotions. Zaleznik ’ s article is sometimes seen as being rather hard on managers, but in fact he points out that organisations need both managers and leaders to survive.

In business terms, management is about planning, budgeting, organising and problem - solving. Leaders may manage on a day - to - day basis but their ultimate role is far more signifi cant. Leaders establish a direction for the group or organisation. And once they have decided on a direction they must communicate it to everyone, persuade everyone to buy into the idea and motivate them to achieve the target. Leadership and change , as we will see in Chapter 7, go hand in hand – change cannot happen without leadership .

This is, effectively, the modern view of leadership , in which the leader sets the ‘ dream ’ , or direction, for the organisation and uses his or her skills in motivating and inspiring people to persuade them to perform at their
best in order to achieve it. But this is a relatively new interpretation of the role of the leader – as we go back
in history, the view of the leader had more in common with what Zaleznik might see as a manager. In other words, where modern leaders lead through power of persuasion and inspiration , in the past leaders have led through authority, hierarchy or sometimes fear.

A SHORT HISTORY OF LEADERSHIP

For almost as long as leaders have led, attempts have been made to understand what makes a leader, and what behaviour and characteristics differentiate leaders from followers. Early analysis of leadership , for example, can be seen in many pieces of classical literature. In Parallel Lives , for example, Plutarch discusses what impact the character of a man has on his destiny. Many of Shakespeare ’ s plays stuffed full of studies of leadership : good leaders ( Henry V ), hopeless leaders ( Henry VI, Richard II ), fl awed leaders ( Coriolanus ) and even potentially strong leaders who used their power to gain a position to which they had no right, and then die horribly ( Macbeth, Henry IV ).

The first works almost solely devoted to the question of leadership , though, can be traced to the mid – nineteenth century. The Scottish historian and philosopher Thomas Carlyle published two books in the 1840s, Heroes and Hero Worship and The Letters and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell, which attempted to deconstruct the qualities and characteristics of leaders throughout history. Another Victorian intellectual (and a distant relative of Charles Darwin ), Sir Francis Galton, began exploring at around the same time the question of whether human ability (and leadership qualities) were genetically linked. The result of his research, Hereditary Genius , was published in 1869.

These early works were essentially variations of a view that had been long held – that leaders were born, and could not be made. This may have had its roots in the belief, documented time and time again in Shakespeare’s works, of the ‘ divine right of kings ’ – that God decided who was to lead the country and therefore, leaders must have been chosen before their birth by the same divine hand. This view reached its peak at the turn of the twentieth century, when studies of leadership tended to concentrate on the political and social élite. Some men (inevitably they were men) were born to lead and the rest of us, well, all we could do was watch. The First World War did much to debunk this myth, as many a ‘ great man ’ proved to be less than effective as a military strategist or motivator of the troops.

This can be seen quite clearly in the way the accepted definition of leadership has changed over the years. In 1927, for instance, one definition of leadership read that it was ‘ the ability to impress the will of the leader on those led and to induce obedience, respect, loyalty and cooperation ’ . But by 1942 this definition had developed: ‘ Leadership is the art of influencing, as opposed to compelling, people by persuasion or example to follow a line of action ’ . This is result of more the sophisticated analysis of leadership theory began to emerge in the late 1920s and early 1930s, when people began to explore the specific skills displayed by leaders and the situational factors that might affect their behaviour, rather than focusing on the qualities of individual leaders.

Since then, leadership theory has developed in a series of distinct stages. That is not to say that one theory would disappear as the next one emerged – some are still argued vehemently today, while others have faded away only to reappear again a few years later in an embellished form. And the accepted view of leadership has steadily changed with each new study and leadership model so, for instance, the view in the 1960s was that leadership was ‘ a series of acts by persons which influence other persons in a shared direction ’ , while by the turn of this century academics were talking about leadership as ‘ ultimately about creating a way for people to contribute to making something extraordinary happen ’ .

SOME ARE BORN ‘GREAT’

Taking all the developments over the twentieth century, the way that academics and others think about leadership can be loosely sorted into several categories. The traditional and long - standing view that leaders are born and not made is known as ‘ Great Man ’ theory. While some would still argue that some people are born with a personality type that makes some sort of leadership role inevitable, the ‘ Great Man ’ theory has been comprehensively disproven and is now considered to be terminally unfashionable. ‘ Great Man ’ theory is closely connected to the ‘ command and control ’ view of leadership , which many people traditionally see as a military style of leadership (this is inaccurate, incidentally, since modern military leaders stress above all the importance of gaining the trust and respect of their men and rarely lead purely through the command structure). Command and control was particularly prevalent in the first half of the twentieth century and is still enthusiastically practiced by some leaders today (although generally not those who are considered to be good). As the name suggests, it is a leadership style that is based on authority, unquestioning acceptance of orders by the followers, and often fear.

Once the ‘ Great Man ’ view of leadership began to fall out of favour, people began to wonder if leaders all possessed some specific personality traits that set them apart from others. This view of leadership is known as trait theory, and argues that leadership is based on individual attributes. The Victorian studies of Galton and Carlyle were early versions of this approach, in their attempts to identify the behavioural characteristics and unique talents of leaders. Several studies during the 1930s and 1940s attempted to identify universal traits that were common to all leaders – suggestions put forward include decisiveness, adaptability, self - confidence, intelligence, insight and initiative – but consensus on a definitive list was never reached. As a result trait theory fell out of favour, but the term is still widely used today.

LEADERS ’ BEHAVIOUR

The next step in the examination of what makes a leader was to look at the behavioural characteristics of leadership . One of the early and most influential figures in this movement was an American psychologist of German descent, Kurt Lewin . Lewin developed a theory (now known as Lewin ’ s equation, B f(P,E)) that argued that behaviour is a function of the person and their environment. He applied his observations of behavioural psychology to the study of leadership and in 1939 published a paper, with his colleagues Ronald Lipitt and Ralph White , which identified three leadership styles: autocratic leadership ; participative (or democratic) leadership and laissez - faire leadership . The research clarified some of the leadership theories that had been developed until that point, and would form the foundations of theoretical studies in the future.

Briefl y, Lewin defined autocratic leadership (seen in the command and control approach) as one where leaders made decisions alone and demanded strict adherence to the path they set. The decision - making power is centralised, and although the leader is not necessarily hostile, he does not contribute to the work carried out by others. Praise and criticism of followers plays a significant role in authoritative leadership . A participative leadership style is one where the leader asks for input and suggestions from others, before deciding on the direction for the group. Praise or criticism is offered subjectively by the leader. Laissez - faire leadership , by contrast, allows the group to make decisions for themselves without any input from the leader unless they are specifically asked to participate, and little praise or criticism of followers is offered. Lewin’s research of the three styles using a control group suggested that the democratic style was the most popular among followers.

Behavioural theory faltered as an academic pursuit when researchers found that they were unable to identify a definitive list of behaviours to define leadership . However, behavioural theory was one of the first models to suggest that leadership skills could be learned.

ADAPTABLE LEADERS

In the 1960s, emphasis shifted towards identifying the behaviour patterns of leaders that work in specifi c situations, which resulted in the development of the contingency view of leadership . The theory argues that there is no single style of leadership that will work in all situations, and that good leadership depends on a number of factors, including the quality of the followers. A variation of this theory is situational leadership , which argues that leaders assess their environment and the conditions of the moment before deciding on a course of action. From an academic point of view the research proved to be too complex to follow to any conclusion as it was clear that there were an infinite number of situations and environmental factors that could influence a leader ’ s behaviour.

Transactional leadership – sometimes referred to as managerial theory – is one of a number of leadership models that has emerged in the past 30 years. Transactional theory could be characterised as the ‘ carrot and stick ’ approach to supervision and management of the team, or the straightforward exchange of work for pay and benefits. The aim is to encourage performance through a reward and punishment approach – if employees are successful at their given task they are rewarded and if they fail, they are reprimanded.

In more recent times people have begun to concentrate on a leader ’ s ability to persuade people to follow them, rather than on their control over others ’ behaviour. The participative approach to leadership , for example, argues that successful leaders encourage participation from followers and actively welcome input and contributions, with the result that followers feel more involved and are more committed to successfully achieving the outcome. Many modern academics often talk about participation theory, or about transformational leadership , which concentrates on the relationship between leader and followers and argues that a successful leader has the ability to change their followers in a way that results in their being motivated to perform at a higher level than before. Transformational leaders are seen as inspirational , with excellent communication skills and great emotional intelligence .

By the 1980s, academics had begun to abandon the idea of identifying a single theory that could explain all leadership styles, and instead concentrated on researching the best and most successful companies and their leaders in an effort to identify the factors that contributed to excellence. These might include the personality and behaviour of the leader, the corporate culture and working environment and team dynamics.

WHERE WE ARE TODAY

The different and varying paths that academic research into leadership has followed over the years should be a clue that there is no simple answer to the question of what makes a great leader. The truth is that any of the approaches to leadership described here – even the largely discredited command and control approach – have their place in modern - day leadership . There are simply some occasions where the right thing to do is to give
an order, and see that it is followed through.

This is the modern - day view of leadership : the recognition that different situations call for different leadership approaches, and a good leader is adept at recognizing those situations and adapting their behaviour accordingly. The leadership style for each situation should achieve the overall objective of the group, without demotivating individual members. That said, it is widely accepted now that the most successful leaders are those that inspire their followers to perform well, rather than terrify or coerce them into it. This has a lot to do with the way that our working lives and career structure has changed over the past few decades. Fifty or sixty years ago it was normal for a worker to join a company straight out of school or university and stay there until retirement. These days we are more flexible and exercise far more control over our own careers. We move from organisation to organisation, and sometimes from sector to sector. If we don ’ t like a company or our job or our boss – and the evidence is that their immediate boss is the most common reason anyone gives for leaving a company – we find another one.

In this world where careers are seen as moveable feasts and organisational loyalty is on the wane, the argument is that people want to be led by leaders who inspire them to do the best they can. If they have a bad leader, at best they will be demotivated and at worst, will actively sabotage the endeavour.

One of the consequences of this shift over time in the view of what makes for a good leader is that the skills necessary to be successful have changed. Whereas decades ago a sense of authority was seen as the key skill, today it is emotional intelligence , or the ability to read people, to work out how to get the best out of them, and adapt your behaviour accordingly.

In 2006, Rob Goffee and Gareth Jones published a book ( Why Should Anyone Be Led By You? ) which talked of ‘ authentic ’ or ‘ empathetic ’ leadership , which neatly sums up the modern view of leadership . Goffee and
Jones concentrated on leaders who excel at inspiring people, and on a leadership style that is ‘ antibureaucractic and charismatic ’ . They argue in the book that while it is not essential to have leaders in business with these qualities, it is unlikely that a company will ever achieve great results unless they have such a leader.

Goffee and Jones say that leadership is about results, but add that really great leadership has the potential to excite people to extraordinary levels of achievement. Their central point is that leaders at all levels make a difference to performance , but that they do so by making performance meaningful. They argue that ‘ authentic ’ leaders recognise that people want to be led by a human being; authentic leaders are purposefully human and selectively reveal their weaknesses to followers. They identify what makes them successful as a leader and play to those strengths – being themselves, but a selectively edited version. This, of course, requires a high degree of self - awareness.

Empathetic leaders concentrate on getting the best out of their followers by making an effort to know and understand them. They carefully manage their relationships with others and know when to empathise in order to encourage loyalty, and when to keep their distance, without resorting to hierarchy. In other words, they know how to inspire loyalty and respect, and sometimes even affection, while maintaining some professional distance. Their followers work hard for them because they trust them and crucially, want to impress them.

ESSENTIAL LEADERSHIP CHARACTERISTICS

So what qualities do you need to be a good leader today? Many attempts have been made to come up with a definitive inventory of characteristics that make for a good leader and if you put all of the suggestions together, the list would be endless. But there are a few core qualities that crop up time and time again, in various guises.

The first is integrity . When people talk about the integrity (or honesty or fairness or moral courage) of a leader what they mean is that followers must believe absolutely in their leader and in what they are all trying to do.
Military leaders stress this above everything else, and talk about the potentially devastating impact on soldiers ’ morale if they are not convinced that the cause they are fighting for is right and that their leaders are fully committed to it. That said, there have clearly been a number of leaders over the years lacking in integrity whose followers, presumably, followed them through fear. Most, fortunately, have reached a sticky end.

Passion, or enthusiasm, is another basic requirement of a good leader. Leading a team or company takes a great deal of energy and a leader cannot sustain the motivational force needed to keep everyone moving in the same direction unless they have unbridled enthusiasm for what they are doing. Effective leaders are absolutely committed to their company, rather than to their pay packet.

Competence is another basic necessity. It ’ s unlikely that a leader will ever gain the respect needed to inspire their followers if they lack the skills that they are asking others to excel in. Even if they are not doing themselves what they are asking others to do for them, leaders should at the very least be able to understand exactly what they are asking of their people. Leaders who are excellent at the underlying job have a head start in gaining and keeping the respect of their followers. This is particular true of sporting leaders, who are expected to lead by example and from the front – there is nothing more demotivating for a team than seeing their captain struggle to score runs or goals .

Competence and integrity tend to build what is often identified as a characteristic of great leaders, and that is mutual respect. As we ’ ve seen, modern leaders no longer rule through fear or control but by taking an interest in their followers, by caring about them and what they do. It is this that wins their followers ’ trust and respect. Creating this atmosphere of mutual respect brings many benefits and in particular fosters an atmosphere where people are likely to tell their leader when there is a problem, which gives a leader a fighting chance, at least, of tackling it before it gets out of hand.

Leaders must also be forward - thinking. The fundamental role of a leader is to set the direction for the organisation, to select the best way forward when they might be faced with seemingly endless choices and a current environment that seems less than stable. Finding a path and sticking to it – as well as anticipating change and recognizing when it is time to shift direction – is the most diffi cult thing a leader will do and demands a clear mind, steely resolve and a willingness to take calculated risks. Leadership researchers sometimes talk about a leader ’ s need to harness ‘ creativity ’ , and argue that successful leaders are constantly on the lookout for the next opportunity and show an unwillingness to accept the status quo.

EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE

In many ways modern leadership is more about emotions than it is about logic. Modern leadership depends to a large extent on the leader ’ s ability to read people, to assess their strengths and weaknesses, to judge collective mood, and to encourage performance by fanning the enthusiasm of followers. This demands a degree of emotional intelligence (defined as the ability to recognise and manipulate or control – hopefully in a positive sense – the emotions of other people, as well as your own). Some business leaders do manage to get by without being particularly good with people, but their task is that much more difficult.

Emotional intelligence as a subject began as far back as Charles Darwin , who discussed the importance of emotional expression in human survival, but it was not directly linked to the field of leadership until the 1980s. A huge range of studies, papers and books on the subject have been produced since then, most of which discuss leadership in terms of social awareness and the ability to manage relationships, as well as self - awareness of the leader (being aware of their emotions, realising what impact they will have on others and adapting them to specific circumstances). Opinions vary widely in academia on whether emotional intelligence has any serious validity as a subject in itself, but there is little doubt that many modern leaders do have this ability to read people ’ s emotions and actively try to harness their power.

LEARNING FROM EXPERIENCE

The best lessons in leadership come from the leader ’ s own experiences, and from watching, encountering and reading about the experiences of others. It ’ s pretty much impossible to become a leader without having been a follower at some point, which gives a future leader an excellent perspective of what works in terms of leadership and what does not. Leaders frequently develop leadership styles that are heavily infl uenced by bosses they have worked under in the past. A small number of very lucky people will fi nd themselves mentored into a leadership position but most future leaders have learned through experience and by trial and error – hopefully other people ’ s errors other than their own – by carefully watching what other leaders do. This is also why books by well - known business leaders, such as Jack Welch , are so popular.

Remembering the effect that bosses have had on you, good and bad, is a very good guide for refining your own style of leadership . Irrespective of the pressure that you might find yourself under as a leader, it is always a good idea to stop and ask yourself from time to time: What does it feel like to be led by me?

THE CHARISMA QUESTION

The question of whether charisma (meaning the natural ability to inspire enthusiasm or affection among others through the power of personality) is a basic requirement of a leader crops up frequently. The simple answer is, no, but it certainly helps. Charisma is not a requirement but a leader that does not have it will have to work that much harder in order to win people over. Charisma is, essentially, a short - cut in the battle to encourage followers (which is why it is most frequently found in politicians).

The good news is that charisma can be approximated to a certain degree, or at least learned. Anyone who has been in the presence of a charismatic leader – and one of the best examples of recent times is the former US President Bill Clinton – will say that they have an uncanny ability to make you feel like the most important person in the room, if only for a few moments. In President Clinton ’ s case, the reaction is not entirely accidental. He is currently the most expensive public speaker in the world and if you can afford to book him he will include a personal reception before or after the event for up to 15 people. Before the reception he asks for a short biography of everyone who will attend and then, for an hour, he works the room. He will greet everyone with a handshake and a hand on the arm, or wrist or shoulder – everyone is different – and engage them in a conversation that, to them, is entirely personal. For those few minutes, his eyes will never waver from theirs and as anyone who has met him will tell you, it is hypnotic stuff.

Charisma often has a lot to do with theatrical behaviour – an air of confidence, strong body language, a persuasive speaking style. But above all, it is about being memorable and many a successful leader who has found to be lacking in the charisma department has made use of other tactics in order to ensure that they remain lodged in the mind. In some cases it is a quirky dress sense – think of the Apple CEO Steve Jobs , for example, and you will picture him in jeans, a black jumper and trainers. That ’ s because he has worn a variation of that same combination for as long as he has been in the public eye. Coincidence? A lack of sartorial imagination? Or a relatively easy way of marking himself as different? Richard Branson , founder of Virgin , is instantly recognisable, mainly because he doesn’t particularly resemble the traditional view of the CEO of a multinational company.

WHAT DO LEADERS ACTUALLY DO?

So, we have a rough list of characteristics that make for an effective leader, and an idea of what modern leadership requires. But what do leaders really do, from one day to the next?

The very best business leaders will tell you that they don’t do much at all. What they mean is that they have got their team and organisation to the point where it runs very efficiently on a day - to - day basis with the minimum of intervention from them. Everyone knows where the organisation is heading and what they have to do in order to get it there. Getting the organisation to that point is the tricky bit, and one that requires the leader to select the right people, set the right direction and agenda, persuade everyone of its worth, ensure everyone involved understands their role, and encourage them to give their very best in its pursuit. Over the next few chapters we will look more closely at these key aspects of leaderships , and the techniques that leaders use in practice.

Some leaders liken their role to that of a conductor of an orchestra. The musicians are excellent individually at what they do, and the conductor ’ s job is to make sure that they are all playing the same piece, on time and in tune. Perhaps a better analogy is that of the captain of a rugby team. Martin Johnson , who captained England to World Cup victory in 2003, says that when he is on the pitch, if everything is going to plan his only job is to play the game to the best of his ability and to lead by example, offering constant encouragement along the way. The players know the game plan, have rehearsed key moves and work well together as a team. But if conditions change and players are facing the unexpected, the captain steps in to find a new way forward.

Being placed into a position of power does not make you a leader, and that is especially true of the modern business world. It is sometimes said that the essence of leadership is that a boss will say ‘ Go ’ while a leader will say ‘ Let ’ s go ’ . And hopefully, people will follow, because they want to.

WHAT YOU NEED TO READ

• The average bookshop will not be short of books on leadership , which generally fall into three broad categories: relatively dry academic publications on leadership theory; more mainstream analyses of leadership styles; and books written about or by well – known business leaders. In the first category, Warren Bennis ’ On Becoming A Leader (Basic Books, 2009, other editions available) is mercifully readable and should be required reading for anyone hope to reach a leadership position. The Leadership Challenge by James Kouzes and Barry Posner (Jossey - Bass, 2008, 4th edn) is another important introduction to the subject and more information is available on the authors ’ website ( www.leadershipchallenge.com )
• The view of which of the experienced – based memoirs are most helpful to aspiring leaders depends on your view of each individual leader, but Winning by Jack Welch (Harper Collins, 2005) is a great start.
• History Lessons by Jonathan Gifford (Marshall Cavendish, 2010) is an entertaining appraisal of leaders throughout history, from Gengis Khan to Winston Churchill, and contains some interesting views on the leadership qualities and abilities that are most successful.
• Abraham Zaleznik ’ s article ‘ Managers and Leaders: Are They Different? ’ (1977) in the Harvard Business Review is considered a leadership classic and is essential reading if you want to seem well - informed on the subject. It is widely acclaimed as the seminal explanation of the distinction between a manager and a leader.
• More tips and views of what makes a successful leader can be found on the websites of well - known leadership writers, such as Tom Peters ( www.tompeters.com ) and John Adair ( www .johnadair.co.uk ).

IF YOU ONLY REMEMBER ONE THING

Leadership used to be about control but today it is about people – finding the best, giving them the resources and direction they need, and encouraging them to do their best.