Leaders are Defined by their Followers
Posted By Rob Millard - 0 Comments -
To judge the calibre of a leader, look at the behaviour of his or her followers. History is replete with even democratically elected leaders who had the "title", but were nothing of the sort. This is as true in professional service firms, where the dice are heavily loaded against leaders in the first place, as anywhere else. David Maister blogged about this recently, seizing several nettles that people often tiptoe around. The "fatal flaw," he says, is whether professionals even "want" to be led at all. He avers that few do, and many actively resist it:
"We want to be helped, we'll agree to be coached and (with careful definition of the term) we might consent to be managed. But we'll rarely agree to be led."
Ironically, I think this "fatal flaw" gets very close to defining what a leader might be (in a professional service firm or, I'd suggest, anywhere else in the known universe.) It also gives good guidance for measuring leadership effectiveness, in professional service firms and elsewhere.
The degree to which people "want" (or not) to be led resonates strongly with Don Blohowiak's blog posting Followers Define Leaders, which references a book by Aubrey C. Daniels and James E. Daniels, Measure of a Leader. The authors of this book argue that a leader is defined by four key follower actions:
1. Followers deliver discretionary behavior directed toward the leader's goals.
2. Followers make sacrifices for the leader's cause.
3. Followers tend to reinforce or correct others so that they also conform to the leader's teachings and example.
4. Followers set guidelines for their own personal behavior based on their perceived estimate of that which the leader would approve or disapprove.
These all have a common thread: They are the actions of people that are behaving voluntarily, to further what the leader wants achieved. In other words, they really do want (or at least agree) to be led.
Is this real world, though, or is this utopia?
It is easy to define what leadership characteristics and behaviours, and consequent actions of followers, might be in an ideal universe. It is also easy to imagine what the benefits of such leadership might be (flawlessly executed strategy, truly stratospheric satisfaction levels, boundless enthusiasm, etc.)
But we don't live in an ideal universe. We live in a world where leaders regularly and publicly fall short of expectations. Where trust is betrayed. Where followers do anything but follow.
And yet .........
There are leaders that do instill in their followers, exactly the kind of behaviour that the Daniels's book describes. Sometimes, they rise to the occasion given a particular set of circumstances. Often, such leaders find that their strength as leaders diminish when those circumstances change. Leaders for turbulent times have different characteristics to those for stable times.
Sir Ernest Shackleton is a particularly good example from the pages of history. Nearly a century ago, after his ship was crushed by Antarctic ice, he led his crew for months across ice, open sea, mountains and glaciers to eventual rescue by the whalers on the island of South Georgia. All without losing a single person. Years later, when his first mate was asked how everyone had survived (most polar expeditions that came apart in those days ended in complete disaster,) his answer was one word: "Shackleton!"
Like most attributes or skills in life, leadership is present in everybody to varying degrees. With enough data, one could plot every person's leadership ability on a scale of 1 - 10 where 1 is absolutely hopeless and the Shackletons of the world nudge the 9s and 10s. If we accept that there is at least a portion of skill involved then it is, furthermore, possible to improve leadership through practice (or, conversely, allow it to atrophy.)
This is not original. Every executive coach and leadership trainer in the world owes their existence to the perception that people, with proper guidance and practice, can become better leaders. So, while few firms will ever be blessed with the corporate equivalent of a Shackleton to lead them, this is not disastrous. Astounding results can also be achieved by lesser leaders who, in their own quiet way, work every day at building up respect, trust and commitment amongst their followers.
The Daniels's book makes an important contribution to what metrics should be used on the firm's performance dashboard, to measure leadership. Metrics that are solidly outcomes or results based. They can be summarized as: the degree to which that leader overcomes Maister's fatal flaw. The old complaint: "I would be a great leader were it not for these idiots that I have to lead" is, quite simply, a contradiction in terms.
Comments, as always, are most welcome and may be posted below.
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