What role do followers have in terms of Leaders? How important is a Leaders style, or substance? One thing that is often overlooked when discussing Leaders is followers. Leaders aren’t Leaders without followers. However, this can be a trap. Leaders can be misled by thinking that what they do or say is why people are following. It can be that their followers perceive they have something to gain either individually or collectively by buying into what their leader is or was selling. A different way to look at this is; if leadership is so dependent on people, why are we so energized by leaders who prioritize their mission over their people? This is the catch 22 for military Leaders, ‘what’s more important, the mission or people’? How would you prioritize your company’s or personal mission versus people?
How important is style? Psychopaths are usually very charismatic, a common personality characteristic of politicians. Successful business Leaders such as Steve Jobs or Walt Disney were never characterized as having a charming style. This is not to rationalize successful Leaders who have a ‘mean’ steak. It’s simply to say that a nice personality is not necessarily required for attracting people and holding a compelling vision for the future and when people are forced to choose, they will sometimes take a Leader’s vision over their style. Look at the stories about Founders personality styles such as Walt Disney or Steve Jobs. Extremely demanding and caustic personalities but drew talented people like flies to honey to work for them. More broadly, if a leader is giving us what we think we need, we don’t always care about style or how they get us there.
Do organizations need ‘different’ types of Leaders at different stages of an organizations life? This question is debated frequently in terms of entrepreneurs and is called the Founders Dilemma. Can the entrepreneurial Founder lead the organization over the long run to continued success? Other historical Leader questions are; can a successful Leader in one industry transfer that success in another industry? Can a Leader transfer their skills from the for-profit world to the non-profit world? The business world has a number of built in basis on the answers to these questions. On the one hand we always say ‘group think’ is bad but isn’t that what we are doing when we look at the accepted or baked-in answer to these questions?
Here are some things to ponder on as you think about how you or others Lead.
- Leaders run an organization not a single Leader.
- Followers are about shared consciousness and purpose but not necessarily the same motives.
- Founders are those who create. They don’t tweak the margins or incrementally improve what already exists. Instead, from whole cloth they conceive and build. I believe they are a unique breed among Leaders.
- Good Leaders can serve bad causes as often as lousy leaders can represent the most noble of efforts.
- What should Leaders be measured by, organizational results, followership, communication skills, problem solver? What are your criteria? How do you measure yourself?
- There is a fine line between humility, self-confidence, and narcissism.
- Successful Leadership is not: a solo endeavor, a popularity contest, a matter of charisma or a biological trait.
- Should Leaders be less concerned about past or present results or more about future or expected results?
- Should you be pulled more by what could be in positive terms of hope or in negative terms of fear?
What has challenged Leaders over time and probably always will; speed of change, complexity of what they deal with (especially with growth in employee size and or geographic distance), PEOPLE in general and not learning from personal mistakes.
I think effective Leaders are dynamic, not in personality but in their ability to modulate from situation to situation. Their greatest strengths should be self-awareness and continual learning. They understand that everything they do is evaluated by someone in their organization, like or not. I always tell Leaders to be careful what they say. I relate the story of the Leader who thought he was joking when he thought out loud what his office would look like colored pink and came back from vacation to find a pink office.
A final thought about learning. The most profound learning insights I believe come from understanding other Leaders approach to leadership and how it might apply to their situation. True learning isn’t through a weekend retreat, workshops, or personal coaches. It’s a continual endeavor of self-learning and self-evaluation. Plutarch’s ‘Parallel Lives’ is a series of 48 biographies of famous men, arranged in pairs to illuminate their common moral virtues or failings, thought to be written at the beginning of the second century AD. [Wikipedia]
At one time it was the number two bestseller and referenced frequently by many world Leaders. Churchill was said to always have his battered cover of Parallel Lives close at hand. “They just don’t come any better than old Plutarch,” President Harry Truman told biographer Merle Miller after he’d left office. “He knew more about politics than all the other writers I’ve read put together. When I was in politics, there would be times when I tried to figure somebody out, and I could always turn to Plutarch, and 9 times out of 10 I’d be able to find a parallel in there.” [AEI]
A few learning recommendations on different types of Leaders. Probably the least known and understood in terms of his modern-day impact is Genghis Khan. Known as a military Leader but not as much for his governance. [Wikipedia]. Gordon Moore, founder of Intel along with two partners. How three Founders made it work. [Amazon]. Steve Jobs who learned to shave the edges off his style in-order to achieve his vision. [Amazon] MLK volunteered his church, Dexter Avenue Baptist, for the organizers of the Montgomery bus boycott. As a compromise the group chose MLK as the spokesperson for the boycott. King had to learn in real time how to Lead the civil rights movement.
In Part III, I will talk about Founder’s Dilemma. This dilemma is not solely a Founder/Leader dilemma, it also becomes a dilemma for others within and outside the organization and in my experience, mistakes are made by everyone involved.