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Could this be true, that out there so many potential leaders are roaming the streets of Harare, Bulawayo and any other city and village you may think about?
Noble attempts at defining leadership have all come up with a near consensus on leadership’s nature as being essentially that of the power to influence people’s behaviour towards achieving goals considered by the leader to be important. This reveals the importance of having clear goals.
Harry Onsman is of the view that there seem to be two dominant perspectives on the notion of leadership. The first suggests that leadership is a trait that a person either possesses or doesn’t. It’s a bit like beauty about which one is either born with and is considered the lucky one. Or born without and resultantly considered to be just unlucky.
The second suggests that leadership is more like a set of behaviours that can be learned provided you try hard enough.
This view of leadership is a bit like good manners which are acquired over time through continual practice and dedicated effort. But, even stretching the manners aspect, are all people able to eventually be said to be good mannered after a period of manners’ training?
Sadly, there is paucity of research output to back up either view. Agreeably, people may not have a consensus on what constitutes attributes like “leadership potential”, yet people are recruited for their leadership potential by recruiters who may not be sure what it is they would be looking for and hence referring to by this high-sounding phrase.
People are paid more, for instance, because they are “outstanding leaders”, which judgments are typically made by other outstanding and well paid “leaders”. It is almost taboo in business and hence unacceptable to be heard saying leadership can be bad.
It is so unacceptable to the extent that some authorities have even compared such utterances with business heresy. Yet most people can readily give clear examples of leaders who are not only bad, but are certainly bad for business.
However, such leaders have always found their way into corporate board- rooms and have been rotated over and over until the populace almost believes them to be good leaders on account of their “visibility”. Such leaders hurt people. They also hurt companies. Ultimately they hurt themselves!
Let us start by acknowledging that leadership can be bad. Sometimes bad people are appointed who could have exhibited many of the inclinations and behaviours of “good” leaders. The fact that they could be the CEOs of organisations does not suddenly transform bad leaders into good ones overnight.
On coming to definitions, the notion of leadership remains so poorly defined that anyone can make anything they want of it. This has made analysis of the concept of leadership such an arduous task for those who care to do such analyses.
Attempts at defining leadership have been with us since classical writers were grappling with attempting to come up with explanations on why some generals and statesmen shone as leaders. Recent and noble attempts at describing what leadership is have opened up a multitude of definitional pathways and avenues resulting in some consultants have positing various leadership styles as offshoots of the definitional debates.
Leadership descriptions have varied from those that extend downwards that is, frontline leadership, those extending sideways (“leading when you are not in charge”) and those that extend upwards (“leading your boss without being caught”).
As one expert, Harry Onsman, put it, traditionally, management always loses out to the more charismatic and inspirational option of leadership. Typically, leadership is distinguished from management by means of contrast. Where management is about getting things done, leadership is about getting the right things done. Whereas management directs, leadership inspires. Kotter also weighed in with his insight where he said leaders keep people moving in the right direction by appealing to basic but often untapped human needs, values, and emotions.
Management is about coping with complexity, whereas leadership is about coping with change. Remember, dynamism is the order of the day in contemporary business. In other words, leadership is a higher-purpose activity than mere management. This is not meant to denigrate the role of management in any way. It is just a description of the conceptualisation process and the ordering of the concepts on the scale of corporate value addition.
Describing management as a complementary activity to leadership is mere mealy-mouthed obsequiousness, to borrow Onsman’s words. Leadership is better!
In many a workplace, the dark side of leadership is a reality. Many a worker is all too aware of a boss who is a complete egomaniac or neurotically obsessed with irrelevant detail.
Some people thrust into the leadership seat tend to exhibit a number of self-destructive traits and tendencies.
They sometimes behave like a bull in a china shop. I will focus here on a few tendencies which indicate a less-than-balanced approach to any leadership role, as discussed by Kets de Vries in “Leaders, Fools, and Impostors: Essays on the Psychology of Leadership”.
Leaders may engage in mirroring wherein they may tend to see themselves as they are perceived by their followers. This may encourage the leader to act in ways meant to shore up their image rather than serve the organisation’s needs. I am sure you have come across a number of such leaders who play to the gallery, to use a jaded expression.
Leaders may also be or become contaminated with narcissism. The narcissist has a distorted view of self which leads to intolerance of criticism, unwillingness to compromise and the tendency to surround themselves with sycophants.
This leads to leaders taking actions that may be extremely detrimental to the organisation such as firing that valuable executive simply because they appear to be the ones who always ground the leader whenever his fancies take him/her on a wild roller-coaster, as they are wont to do!
Often, leaders with this tendency have a bloated view of themselves. When this is mixed with surrounding themselves with sycophants then one can be certain that only disaster would be brewing and people will soon be drunk with such an illicit brew, like they would do with all illicit brews!
Another tendency is what is referred to as alexithymia or put simply, emotional illiteracy. Here, the leader fails to acknowledge and understand the emotional side of life. Those with this tendency on the outlook appear to be controlled, structured and dispassionate! Just the right kind of traits for a leader, aren’t they?
On the surface it may appear so. However, at the extreme such leaders lack the emotional ability to empathise, connect with others and their followers and often-times are dismal failures at dealing decisively and constructively with conflict. This alexithymia tendency is the mother of the idea of emotional intelligence, an approach to leadership which has become an industry in its own right.
Leadership can often be bad, and occasionally evil, not just in history but also in modern organisations. The nature versus nurture debate in leadership has inspired a number of modern business schools to devote acres of space to leadership studies.
This is the reason why at Bindura University of Science Education, we have such modules meant to develop a leader into a well-rounded challenge-buster of the highest calibre through a Masters in Business Leadership degree programme.
Westwood and Posner said values determine how we interpret things, establish priorities, make choices and reach decisions (Westwood and Posner, 1997). Values have been said to be standards, preferences or criteria established to determine desirability. The benefits that result when people confront and understand their values can be immense.
Research has shown that in the business world, organisations with strong cultures and clear values increase their chances of success and longevity. In addition, the personal values of the leaders have increasingly been shown to have an impact on their behaviour and performance and, ultimately, on organisational performance.
True leaders can be trusted. They model appropriate behaviours and uphold strong moral principles. Various studies have outlined the following as key leadership attributes: honesty; competence; forward-looking behaviour; and intelligence.
Businesses ought to realise, as one BHP CEO found out, that true success can only be had when the communities in which they operate value the businesses’ citizenship.
Leaders ought to prepare and live in accordance with some leadership credo. Some of the material one may want to incorporate therein include being wary of looking for easy solutions as these often lead to bigger problems; knowledge is power only when used wisely. Leaders ought to communicate clearly, consistently and reliably.
Leaders must speak with conviction after they have all the facts. Always remember, as a leader that people need to feel important, therefore as a leader learn to listen to what your subordinates have to say.
Rosabeth Moss Kanter when commenting on leadership had this to say: “. . . in many important ways, leaders of the future will need the traits and capabilities of leaders throughout history . . . a steadying hand to provide both vision and assurance that change can be mastered, a voice that articulates the will of the group and shapes it to constructive ends, and an ability to inspire by force of personality while making others feel empowered to increase and use their own abilities.”
So, the question is: are leaders made (nurture) or they are simply born (nature)? This instalment has exposed some of the debate surrounding the issue of leadership.
I leave you with this thought for this week: Should true leaders happily hand over decision-making power to their subordinates when the leader lacks the technical knowledge to make an informed decision?
Prosper Munyedza is the head of the Graduate School of Business at Bindura University of Science Education. The views expressed above are his own and those of fellow researchers none of whom is based at BUSE. The views are by no means those of BUSE. Feedback: [email protected]
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