Leadership, or getting people to change can be tough. But being dumb seems to be a whole lot easier. In this article from Business Insider (BI) you’ll find a great example of what I think we can all agree is pretty dumb leadership.
As I have argued before leadership is not something that comes from your position in an organisation although the more senior you are does tend to give you an implied authority to lead. We expect people further up the hierarchy to lead. That is surely their role. So if you’re a CEO it is expected that you lead. Not that all you can do is shout.
But from what I am seeing more and more leaders, rather than leading are simply hectoring or demanding ultimate loyalty. What I am seeing more and more is the need of some of these high level leaders to have you put them and their role in the business above everything. Above what you are working on at that moment, above your social life, your weekends and above all above your family.
And it is more and more about them and less and less about creating something together as a team.
And this makes no sense. Because what you want if you’re leading is to change something. And to change something you need people give more than they absolutely have to.
The more hectoring that goes on, the more it is about me the leader and making me feel good the less effort anyone is going to put in. I particularly like the definition from Aubrey Daniels International which talks about Discretionary Effort.
Discretionary effort is the effort people can put in over and above what they absolutely have to do. And as a leader who wants to change things you need people to put in extra effort. Change means by definition doing something that is above what people absolutely have to do.
Being a leader means having followers. And followers want to be respected by their leader for what they do and for their own lives. If it’s all about the leader then it simply isn’t leadership.
The article from BI identifies a CEO type that really needs consigning to history. I was asked what I would do in an interview if I was asked to put the CEO above everything. I would simply walk out of the interview. That is not a company that I would work for,
Let me know what examples of good and bad leadership have you seen?
The Burble 