The Emperor's New Clothes" is a short tale by Hans Christian Andersen about two weavers who promise an Emperor a new suit of clothes. They tell him that his suit is invisible to those unfit for their positions, stupid, or incompetent. When the Emperor parades before his subjects in his new clothes, everyone pretends to see the clothes until a child cries out, "But he isn't wearing anything at all!
I am no child; I have been developing leadership for over 30 years. However, I can honestly say that leadership isn’t what it used to be. I’m afraid that it looks to me as if the leadership emperor is wearing no clothes.
You see over the years a massive industry based on Leadership has emerged. Large consultancies (mainly ex accounting organisations) all offer leadership programmes; numerous leadership ‘gurus’ have emerged; credible universities have all adopted leadership divisions some becoming separate organisations such as the Centre for Creative Leadership in Greensborough; major networked conferences and leadership ‘clubs’ have emerged world wide and thousands of books on the subject are published every year. Leadership is big business.
Leadership development has become the basis for profit and in the process it has been intellectualised (to make it appear more complicated in order to make more profit). So, I found myself wondering a few days ago ‘has all this time and money invested worked? Do we have better leaders? Have we created an abundance of potential to lead us forward'? I think not. We have created a lot of profit and confused a lot of potentially good leaders.
The basics of good people leadership are the same as they were 30 years ago. Thought leadership may have shifted along with the internet and globalisation, but people leadership principles and practices remain the same. We still follow a leader who has a clear vision that everyone can identify with; we trust a leader who exhibits personal character strengths; we work hard for someone who gives us regular feedback on our progress; we are loyal to leaders who set a framework and then give us the freedom to achieve worthwhile results with others.
Think of some great leaders we all admire: Lao Tsu, Churchill, Kennedy, Ghandi or Mandela (insert your own preferred leader here). In a business context, think of any leader of an organisation that you admire in the same way. Be careful not to confuse the position with the result; there is no shortage of highly paid CEO’s and executives in important leadership roles who are simply producing ‘smoke and mirrors’.
My first experience of a great leader was man called John Garnett. He embodied all of the above characteristics; if engagement surveys had been invented, our organisation would have scored incredibly highly. We were successful and were prepared to move mountains to achieve results. The test of that engagement was to happen during a year of recession when work almost dried up. We all agreed to a pay cut to keep the organisation going; John naturally led the way by taking one himself. We continued working for customers without charge to help them through the recession. When the economy picked up again, we had more work than we could deal with because we had built trust and support in our customers.
John did not have an MBA. In fact he dismissed everything intellectual in favour of the practical and common sense. He just knew what to do; he had a few rules and wisdom.Wise leaders automatically intuit what is needed, they are practical. Can we please get back to a simple leadership framework of ethics, best actions and experience? Then other capabilities such as strategy and culture will be easy to build on a firm and wise foundation.
Leadership should be something that we all build in stages as we grow older. We do not all have to reach wisdom; many leadership positions simply need good leaders. However, the road to ‘wise’ is through ‘good’ and it only comes with years of practical experience and reflection. I feel sad to see people who think they can’t be good leaders without an MBA and even more for those who think that they can be because they have one.
Let’s get back to basics and start building wisdom through leaders and stop this obsession with complex leadership theory. Good and wise leadership is not based on intellectual capability. You see we can’t easily develop people to be leaders but we can help them to know what good leaders do. In the process of doing those things over and over again in different situations, they gain the invaluable experience needed to become good leaders. This experiential development should also be combined with ethical practice and then around the mid forties our neuro-biological ‘wiring’ will have matured enough for some to become wise. Let’s give the leadership emperor some good basic clothes.
Let’s get back to basics and start building wisdom through leaders and stop this obsession with complex leadership theory. Good and wise leadership is not based on intellectual capability. You see we can’t easily develop people to be leaders but we can help them to know what good leaders do. In the process of doing those things over and over again in different situations, they gain the invaluable experience needed to become good leaders. This experiential development should also be combined with ethical practice and then around the mid forties our neuro-biological ‘wiring’ will have matured enough for some to become wise. Let’s give the leadership emperor some good basic clothes.
Janis specialises in developing wisdom at work and in society. She works with leaders, teams and delivers powerful speeches.www.workplacewisdom.co.nz
Great article, Janis. 'Be careful not to confuse the position with the result'...a quotable quote.
ReplyDelete