Steven Pinker’s recently published and really big book, The Better Angels of Our Nature, has attracted substantial attention from scholars and general audiences alike. Pinker has been one of our most influential thinkers for twenty years or so, and this book is not only startling in its wide-ranging research and rich insights, it’s also fun to read.
In Better Angels, Pinker argues very persuasively that the human species has become dramatically less violent over the millennia, and even over the last few decades. This argument may seem counterintuitive because we seem to be bombarded constantly by news of horrific violence just about everywhere just about every day. But that is actually part of Pinker’s point: violence nowadays is in fact newsworthy, not just an everyday run-of-the-mill feature of life on earth. To bolster that point, Pinker starts his analysis with a sickening parade of anecdotes about the savagery of life in human groups and communities before large-scale civilizing institutions like governments and commercial arrangements wrote new scripts for the human drama.
Pinker’s analysis is so useful to our understanding of collaborative leadership that I intend to cover it in my next four blogs on Leading Together. Each of those blogs will cover one of the following topics from The Better Angels of Our Nature: six trends, five inner demons, four better angels, and five historical forces. Those are the topics that animate Pinker’s arguments. If you want to understand those arguments better, I suggest that you buy the book or borrow it from your public library. Then you can compare your own reading to my summaries and interpretations in my next four blogs. In either case, happy reading.
Showing posts with label leaders. Show all posts
Showing posts with label leaders. Show all posts
Thursday, March 29, 2012
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Working Together in the Desert
For 32 years now, I’ve been conducting a decision-making game with my Ripon College students and with various mid-career groups. The game challenges participants to decide on the relative usefulness of fifteen items for survival in the desert after a plane crash. Participants first rank the items on their own and then rank them again in groups of six to eight. They then compare their own lists and their group’s list with the rankings of the military survival experts who concocted the game in the first place.
The game is supposed to demonstrate the advantages of group decision-making over individual decision-making in a situation like this. I have probably facilitated this game with more than 3,000 people since 1980, and every single time I have done it the group scores have been higher than the individual scores somewhere between 65% and 80% of the time. Every time I did it, I told the participants that someday the individuals would do better than the groups, but that never happened. Until last week in my introductory course, Leadership and the Human Spirit.
After trying unsuccessfully to figure out why this happened, I chalked it up to the law of averages and accepted the fact that it was bound to happen sooner or later.
Though the scores were out of kilter this time, the students and I were able to identify the reasons why groups normally do better than individuals on this game and why, in a minority of cases, individuals do better than the group. It helps to start with the observation that the decisions in this game are all about common everyday items and thus do not require complex knowledge of high-tech stuff. Everybody has some idea of what the items on the list can do but most people have never thought about them in a context like this.
At any rate, the explanations are apt for our Leading Together blog, so here goes.
The first reason why groups normally do better than individuals is that two heads are indeed better than one, and six or eight heads are better than two. More viewpoints mean more ideas.
The second reason is that people in isolation are unable to appreciate their own mistakes; but if someone else is present then mistakes become easier to detect. Group decision-making can weed out mistakes as well as contribute more ideas.
The third reason is that the process of communication is creative and tends to transform original ideas into better ideas as people express themselves, reflect on other people’s ideas, and consider new alternatives. Ideas piggyback on other ideas. Communication is not just a process of expressing what we know we know; it is often a process of finding out what we can learn.
And why do groups not always make better decisions than individuals? Well, they all have something to do with the non-rational and social influences on our decisions. When members of a group are unclear about the rational or logical reasons for a decision, they look to other cues.
If, for example, someone in the group speaks up quickly and confidently, as we expect leaders to do, we assume they know what they are talking about – unless, of course, we know they are wrong. In that case, we may be reluctant to follow their lead the next time.
The other two reasons are polar opposites of the same proposition. If we have or would like to have a positive relationship with someone in the group who advocates a particular position, we are likely to side with that person if we are unsure of any better reason. And if we just can’t stand someone in the group, we are likely to seek other options rather than agree with them. It may not matter if those other options make little sense as long as they satisfy our desire to avoid being on the same side of the fence as the person we just don’t like.
This is not to suggest that emotional factors and personal relationships are inherently bad; they are in fact extremely important within any group and they contribute to the commitment of members to try out and stick with the group’s decisions. And in fact, the best decisions are sometimes the ones we feel committed to whether they are rationally and objectively better than other decisions.
The classic example of that is a marriage. There is no way to verify that one’s spouse is literally the best choice in the world, but a strong commitment to the relationship from both partners can make for a happy and durable marriage.
The game is supposed to demonstrate the advantages of group decision-making over individual decision-making in a situation like this. I have probably facilitated this game with more than 3,000 people since 1980, and every single time I have done it the group scores have been higher than the individual scores somewhere between 65% and 80% of the time. Every time I did it, I told the participants that someday the individuals would do better than the groups, but that never happened. Until last week in my introductory course, Leadership and the Human Spirit.
After trying unsuccessfully to figure out why this happened, I chalked it up to the law of averages and accepted the fact that it was bound to happen sooner or later.
Though the scores were out of kilter this time, the students and I were able to identify the reasons why groups normally do better than individuals on this game and why, in a minority of cases, individuals do better than the group. It helps to start with the observation that the decisions in this game are all about common everyday items and thus do not require complex knowledge of high-tech stuff. Everybody has some idea of what the items on the list can do but most people have never thought about them in a context like this.
At any rate, the explanations are apt for our Leading Together blog, so here goes.
The first reason why groups normally do better than individuals is that two heads are indeed better than one, and six or eight heads are better than two. More viewpoints mean more ideas.
The second reason is that people in isolation are unable to appreciate their own mistakes; but if someone else is present then mistakes become easier to detect. Group decision-making can weed out mistakes as well as contribute more ideas.
The third reason is that the process of communication is creative and tends to transform original ideas into better ideas as people express themselves, reflect on other people’s ideas, and consider new alternatives. Ideas piggyback on other ideas. Communication is not just a process of expressing what we know we know; it is often a process of finding out what we can learn.
And why do groups not always make better decisions than individuals? Well, they all have something to do with the non-rational and social influences on our decisions. When members of a group are unclear about the rational or logical reasons for a decision, they look to other cues.
If, for example, someone in the group speaks up quickly and confidently, as we expect leaders to do, we assume they know what they are talking about – unless, of course, we know they are wrong. In that case, we may be reluctant to follow their lead the next time.
The other two reasons are polar opposites of the same proposition. If we have or would like to have a positive relationship with someone in the group who advocates a particular position, we are likely to side with that person if we are unsure of any better reason. And if we just can’t stand someone in the group, we are likely to seek other options rather than agree with them. It may not matter if those other options make little sense as long as they satisfy our desire to avoid being on the same side of the fence as the person we just don’t like.
This is not to suggest that emotional factors and personal relationships are inherently bad; they are in fact extremely important within any group and they contribute to the commitment of members to try out and stick with the group’s decisions. And in fact, the best decisions are sometimes the ones we feel committed to whether they are rationally and objectively better than other decisions.
The classic example of that is a marriage. There is no way to verify that one’s spouse is literally the best choice in the world, but a strong commitment to the relationship from both partners can make for a happy and durable marriage.
Saturday, August 20, 2011
Superleaders
What makes a Superleader? Several years ago, Warren Bennis, one of the most influential and prolific students of leadership ever, set out to determine what makes a superleader by interviewing 90 top corporate executives, university presidents, public officials, publishers, and winning coaches. His investigation turned up five major qualities.
The first is vision – the capacity to create a clear picture of a goal which inspires people to perform.
The second is communication – the ability to portray the vision in a way that enlists the support of followers.
The third is persistence – the ability to stay the course regardless of obstacles.
The fourth quality Bennis calls “empowerment” – the ability to create a structure that harnesses the energies of others to achieve the desired result.
The fifth is organizational ability – the capacity to measure the performance of a group, to learn from mistakes, and to use the resulting knowledge to enhance effectiveness.
Bennis also found that the most effective leaders did not pay much attention to fads in management theory or get-rich-quick schemes. They were all simply devoted to a vision of excellence and achievement and all very good at transmitting that vision to followers. Finally, Bennis’s superleaders all had a healthy disregard for risk; in other words, they consistently demonstrated courage without flirting with disaster. They put very little energy into protecting themselves against failure and most of their energy into making their visions real.
The first is vision – the capacity to create a clear picture of a goal which inspires people to perform.
The second is communication – the ability to portray the vision in a way that enlists the support of followers.
The third is persistence – the ability to stay the course regardless of obstacles.
The fourth quality Bennis calls “empowerment” – the ability to create a structure that harnesses the energies of others to achieve the desired result.
The fifth is organizational ability – the capacity to measure the performance of a group, to learn from mistakes, and to use the resulting knowledge to enhance effectiveness.
Bennis also found that the most effective leaders did not pay much attention to fads in management theory or get-rich-quick schemes. They were all simply devoted to a vision of excellence and achievement and all very good at transmitting that vision to followers. Finally, Bennis’s superleaders all had a healthy disregard for risk; in other words, they consistently demonstrated courage without flirting with disaster. They put very little energy into protecting themselves against failure and most of their energy into making their visions real.
Thursday, July 28, 2011
Next Generation Calls for Collaboration
The Next Generation (NGen) project, funded by American Express and convened by Independent Sector, recently released a report on the major concerns of the 2009-2010 class of NGen Fellows, all aspiring leaders under the age of 40.
In essence, the report concluded that professionals under 40 feel that collaboration across sectors is necessary to solve society’s problems and agree on the most important issues to address, but don't know how to connect with people in other sectors working to solve these problems.
The top issues facing communities, the nation, and the world, they concur, are education, poverty, health, and the environment. Unfortunately, however, NGen Fellows had great difficulty identifying any of their peers who were currently effective at solving those significant social problems. Of the Fellows polled, 1,300 skipped this question altogether, and of the 1,000 who did answer it, the top vote getters were Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the founders of Google, who received just ten and eight votes respectively.
Finally, the Fellows believe that the nonprofit sector is best positioned to take the lead in engaging other sectors (government and for-profit business) to solve comprehensive social problems. They also believe that they need more leadership development, especially for the challenges of collaborating across the sectors.
The report goes on to recommend expanding the traditional definition of a “leader” and to stress the need for collaboration to reach out, find common ground, and build bridges.
Want to know more? Check out the summary yourself at http://buildingmovement.org/pdf/ngen_fellows_09_report.pdf.
In essence, the report concluded that professionals under 40 feel that collaboration across sectors is necessary to solve society’s problems and agree on the most important issues to address, but don't know how to connect with people in other sectors working to solve these problems.
The top issues facing communities, the nation, and the world, they concur, are education, poverty, health, and the environment. Unfortunately, however, NGen Fellows had great difficulty identifying any of their peers who were currently effective at solving those significant social problems. Of the Fellows polled, 1,300 skipped this question altogether, and of the 1,000 who did answer it, the top vote getters were Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the founders of Google, who received just ten and eight votes respectively.
Finally, the Fellows believe that the nonprofit sector is best positioned to take the lead in engaging other sectors (government and for-profit business) to solve comprehensive social problems. They also believe that they need more leadership development, especially for the challenges of collaborating across the sectors.
The report goes on to recommend expanding the traditional definition of a “leader” and to stress the need for collaboration to reach out, find common ground, and build bridges.
Want to know more? Check out the summary yourself at http://buildingmovement.org/pdf/ngen_fellows_09_report.pdf.
Sunday, July 17, 2011
To Collaborate or Not?
Here on “Leading Together,” we consistently promote the benefits of cooperation and collaboration over competition and inflexibility.
There are, of course, times when competition is not only appropriate but even necessary, and times when staunch commitment to principle is not only valid but even critical. Virtually all historians and social scientists would agree, however, that citizens of the United States inhabit the most individualistic and most competitive culture in the world, and possibly in the history of the world. In that context, we more often need reminders about the advantages of cooperation, collaboration, and willingness to compromise.
These issues are certainly prominent in the current debate about our national debt and the advisability of raising the debt ceiling to pay the bills we have already incurred. A national poll conducted last week, for example, asked respondents from both of the major political parties to state their preference for compromise in relation to their preference for “sticking to our guns.” It seems that one party is significantly more willing to compromise than the other, and the other is much more committed to “sticking to our guns” regardless of the issue or the problem.
The results indicated – at least as of last week – that one party favored compromise over “sticking to our guns” by 68% to 32%. The other party, meanwhile, favored “sticking to our guns” by 66% to 34%. Taken altogether, the poll’s participants favored cooperation by 53% to 47%. (Since we try to avoid partisan posturing here at “Leading Together,” you will have to figure out for yourself which party is which.)
The poll made no reference to any particular issue or any particular reasons for choosing one strategy over the other. Thus the difference between the two parties in this respect may lie deeper than any issue or any rationale for decision. In turn, the results of this poll may provide no clues to what we should be doing about any of the challenges we face, but it does seem to provide a clue to why we have so much trouble reaching any agreements at all.
There are, of course, times when competition is not only appropriate but even necessary, and times when staunch commitment to principle is not only valid but even critical. Virtually all historians and social scientists would agree, however, that citizens of the United States inhabit the most individualistic and most competitive culture in the world, and possibly in the history of the world. In that context, we more often need reminders about the advantages of cooperation, collaboration, and willingness to compromise.
These issues are certainly prominent in the current debate about our national debt and the advisability of raising the debt ceiling to pay the bills we have already incurred. A national poll conducted last week, for example, asked respondents from both of the major political parties to state their preference for compromise in relation to their preference for “sticking to our guns.” It seems that one party is significantly more willing to compromise than the other, and the other is much more committed to “sticking to our guns” regardless of the issue or the problem.
The results indicated – at least as of last week – that one party favored compromise over “sticking to our guns” by 68% to 32%. The other party, meanwhile, favored “sticking to our guns” by 66% to 34%. Taken altogether, the poll’s participants favored cooperation by 53% to 47%. (Since we try to avoid partisan posturing here at “Leading Together,” you will have to figure out for yourself which party is which.)
The poll made no reference to any particular issue or any particular reasons for choosing one strategy over the other. Thus the difference between the two parties in this respect may lie deeper than any issue or any rationale for decision. In turn, the results of this poll may provide no clues to what we should be doing about any of the challenges we face, but it does seem to provide a clue to why we have so much trouble reaching any agreements at all.
Sunday, July 10, 2011
Zero-Sum Games
As I prepare this blog for publication, the President of the United States and several House and Senate leaders from both parties are trying to hammer out a deal whereby our nation can avoid defaulting on its debts. According to the most reliable economists and historians, an actual default would be catastrophic in several ways; they also tell us that there is no credible reason for us to be in such a precarious position in the first place. But we are.
The underlying causes for the impasse, it seems, are more about the kind of political games that are being played than any rational insights about spending cuts and taxation. The two sides – that is, the two political parties – are playing a zero-sum game, which means that one party will win and the other will lose. Just as in every sporting event ever played in the history of sport, the number of all the wins is exactly the same as the number of all the losses – hence the zero sum.
A non-zero-sum game, by contrast, leads to a positive outcome for both sides, or what we sometimes call a win-win outcome. Win-win outcomes also benefit people who aren't even playing the game but who are influenced by its outcome. People who study human effectiveness know that we can almost always achieve win-win outcomes as long as nobody is driven by non-rational ideologies or dysfunctional emotions like unjustified fear and anger. (Stephen Covey, author of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, lists “think win-win” as habit number 4.)
In the budget and deficit tangle now engulfing our national politics, it is becoming more and more evident that the larger good of the whole nation seems less important to some of our leaders than the narrow interests of some portions of the nation and certainly less important than victory over the other political party. Some of the beliefs driving the participants are in fact based on no rational evidence; they are really just ideological creeds. And a creed with no rational evidence behind it is really nothing more than an intellectual addition – what I like to call an ideaddiction. More than 30 years ago, John Gardner, one of the most insightful observers of our national life, called this kind of thing “the war of the parts against the whole.”
Non-zero-sum games are what most of us play most of the time. Education is a non-zero-sum game because everyone benefits from an educated population. Business is as well, since a successful business satisfies the needs of customers and clients and supports suppliers and the general community. Businesses cannot endure if they only satisfy their own desires; the function of any business is to provide goods and services for others. (It’s also true, of course, that businesses compete against each other in zero-sum kinds of ways.)
The fact is that groups, cultures, and nations can only survive, let alone flourish, if they play enough non-zero-sum games to create lots of win-win situations. The kind of extremist competition we are now witnessing in our political culture is ultimately destructive every which way, and if there is no progress from the talks going on in Washington right now, the destructive results will start to show up real soon.
Collaborative leadership, of course, attempts to play exclusively non-zero-sum games that lead only to win-win outcomes. Such leadership downplays or skirts the compulsion to compete and to perceive people with different ideas as dangerous or misguided. Leading together takes patience, empathy, and wisdom. That’s why it usually takes a long time to show results. But when results start to show up, they are virtually always durable and satisfying. When people are all in the same boat, it is always better to work together than to fight each other. And in this global community we now inhabit, we are all in the same boat just about all the time.
The underlying causes for the impasse, it seems, are more about the kind of political games that are being played than any rational insights about spending cuts and taxation. The two sides – that is, the two political parties – are playing a zero-sum game, which means that one party will win and the other will lose. Just as in every sporting event ever played in the history of sport, the number of all the wins is exactly the same as the number of all the losses – hence the zero sum.
A non-zero-sum game, by contrast, leads to a positive outcome for both sides, or what we sometimes call a win-win outcome. Win-win outcomes also benefit people who aren't even playing the game but who are influenced by its outcome. People who study human effectiveness know that we can almost always achieve win-win outcomes as long as nobody is driven by non-rational ideologies or dysfunctional emotions like unjustified fear and anger. (Stephen Covey, author of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, lists “think win-win” as habit number 4.)
In the budget and deficit tangle now engulfing our national politics, it is becoming more and more evident that the larger good of the whole nation seems less important to some of our leaders than the narrow interests of some portions of the nation and certainly less important than victory over the other political party. Some of the beliefs driving the participants are in fact based on no rational evidence; they are really just ideological creeds. And a creed with no rational evidence behind it is really nothing more than an intellectual addition – what I like to call an ideaddiction. More than 30 years ago, John Gardner, one of the most insightful observers of our national life, called this kind of thing “the war of the parts against the whole.”
Non-zero-sum games are what most of us play most of the time. Education is a non-zero-sum game because everyone benefits from an educated population. Business is as well, since a successful business satisfies the needs of customers and clients and supports suppliers and the general community. Businesses cannot endure if they only satisfy their own desires; the function of any business is to provide goods and services for others. (It’s also true, of course, that businesses compete against each other in zero-sum kinds of ways.)
The fact is that groups, cultures, and nations can only survive, let alone flourish, if they play enough non-zero-sum games to create lots of win-win situations. The kind of extremist competition we are now witnessing in our political culture is ultimately destructive every which way, and if there is no progress from the talks going on in Washington right now, the destructive results will start to show up real soon.
Collaborative leadership, of course, attempts to play exclusively non-zero-sum games that lead only to win-win outcomes. Such leadership downplays or skirts the compulsion to compete and to perceive people with different ideas as dangerous or misguided. Leading together takes patience, empathy, and wisdom. That’s why it usually takes a long time to show results. But when results start to show up, they are virtually always durable and satisfying. When people are all in the same boat, it is always better to work together than to fight each other. And in this global community we now inhabit, we are all in the same boat just about all the time.
Sunday, July 3, 2011
The Pursuit of Happiness
Tomorrow is the Fourth of July, so it seems appropriate to blog about the main themes of the Declaration of Independence, signed 235 years ago in Philadelphia. Let’s take a look at the phrase that is probably the most famous phrase in that famous document: “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
Thomas Jefferson, the primary author of the Declaration, claimed that those three items are “inalienable rights” – in other words, rights ordained by God and inherent in every human being, since we are all “created equal.” (We’ll skip the hassle over the reference to “all men” and assume that the phrase really meant “all people.”) Documents internal to the group that helped Jefferson draft the Declaration indicate that “life” and “liberty” were quickly accepted, but that “happiness” required a bit more conversation before it was accepted for the finished document.
One report notes that there was some support for the phrase “life, liberty, and property,” but that apparently seemed too mundane and materialistic. More interestingly, to my mind, is the report that an early draft qualified the term “happiness” as “public happiness.” Apparently the founders of our nation eventually felt that “happiness” was inherently and obviously bound up with the public good and thus there would be no possibility that anyone would misinterpret “happiness” as a simple self-centered preoccupation with personal pleasure, gain, or success at the potential expense of others. In that era of enlightenment thinking, happiness itself was seldom thought of as a selfish or self-centered proposition.
As we look back, perhaps the founders should have been more precise and retained the full phrase, “public happiness.” Philosophers of all persuasions have consistently noted the inseparable and reciprocal nature of freedom and responsibility to the community that provides that freedom. Contemporary psychology is now rehabilitating our notions of “public happiness” in its recognition that authentic happiness is never just a matter of self-aggrandizement, but is intimately bound up with networks of relationships, with one’s place in the community, and with larger visions of meaning and purpose.
Every Fourth of July we should all celebrate and give thanks for the blessings of life, liberty, and opportunities to pursue happiness, but we should also reflect a bit on our responsibilities as citizens.
Thomas Jefferson, the primary author of the Declaration, claimed that those three items are “inalienable rights” – in other words, rights ordained by God and inherent in every human being, since we are all “created equal.” (We’ll skip the hassle over the reference to “all men” and assume that the phrase really meant “all people.”) Documents internal to the group that helped Jefferson draft the Declaration indicate that “life” and “liberty” were quickly accepted, but that “happiness” required a bit more conversation before it was accepted for the finished document.
One report notes that there was some support for the phrase “life, liberty, and property,” but that apparently seemed too mundane and materialistic. More interestingly, to my mind, is the report that an early draft qualified the term “happiness” as “public happiness.” Apparently the founders of our nation eventually felt that “happiness” was inherently and obviously bound up with the public good and thus there would be no possibility that anyone would misinterpret “happiness” as a simple self-centered preoccupation with personal pleasure, gain, or success at the potential expense of others. In that era of enlightenment thinking, happiness itself was seldom thought of as a selfish or self-centered proposition.
As we look back, perhaps the founders should have been more precise and retained the full phrase, “public happiness.” Philosophers of all persuasions have consistently noted the inseparable and reciprocal nature of freedom and responsibility to the community that provides that freedom. Contemporary psychology is now rehabilitating our notions of “public happiness” in its recognition that authentic happiness is never just a matter of self-aggrandizement, but is intimately bound up with networks of relationships, with one’s place in the community, and with larger visions of meaning and purpose.
Every Fourth of July we should all celebrate and give thanks for the blessings of life, liberty, and opportunities to pursue happiness, but we should also reflect a bit on our responsibilities as citizens.
Sunday, June 19, 2011
The Pitfalls of Success
Everybody wants to succeed, to be a success. Yet strangely enough, success can be one of the hardest things of all to deal with – especially for leaders.
Leadership emerges in a group when the group faces a problem, and the worse the problem is, the more group members are willing to give leaders power. On the other hand, if a group is doing just fine, not facing any particular problems, it doesn’t need much leadership. So those who hanker after the power, prestige, and visibility that comes with leadership should recognize that leadership can also be a booby trap.
If a leader is called upon to solve a group’s problem and actually does solve it, then there is no more need for a leader regarding that particular problem. This is one reason why totalitarian or autocratic leaders spend so much time manufacturing crises and telling their followers that terrible problems will ensue if someone else is made their leader. Hitler was a genius at it. This is also the reason why groups are often better off without leaders if they can solve their problems for themselves.
There is really only one way a leader can remain a leader and still compile a consistent record of success and effectiveness, and that is by rolling with fate. Persistence is a good trait in a leader, but stubbornness is not. Winston Churchill may be the 20th Century’s best example of a leader who served brilliantly under one set of circumstances – namely, war – but failed to keep his credibility after his side won the war.
Business leaders and entrepreneurs who succeed time after time do so mostly because they have a knack for responding to or anticipating the fickle demands of the marketplace, not because they have any power to dictate the decisions of consumers. Once a group’s problem is solved, members almost automatically seek new problems and challenges. If leaders don’t want to get run over by their followers, they have to seek new problems and challenges too.
Leadership emerges in a group when the group faces a problem, and the worse the problem is, the more group members are willing to give leaders power. On the other hand, if a group is doing just fine, not facing any particular problems, it doesn’t need much leadership. So those who hanker after the power, prestige, and visibility that comes with leadership should recognize that leadership can also be a booby trap.
If a leader is called upon to solve a group’s problem and actually does solve it, then there is no more need for a leader regarding that particular problem. This is one reason why totalitarian or autocratic leaders spend so much time manufacturing crises and telling their followers that terrible problems will ensue if someone else is made their leader. Hitler was a genius at it. This is also the reason why groups are often better off without leaders if they can solve their problems for themselves.
There is really only one way a leader can remain a leader and still compile a consistent record of success and effectiveness, and that is by rolling with fate. Persistence is a good trait in a leader, but stubbornness is not. Winston Churchill may be the 20th Century’s best example of a leader who served brilliantly under one set of circumstances – namely, war – but failed to keep his credibility after his side won the war.
Business leaders and entrepreneurs who succeed time after time do so mostly because they have a knack for responding to or anticipating the fickle demands of the marketplace, not because they have any power to dictate the decisions of consumers. Once a group’s problem is solved, members almost automatically seek new problems and challenges. If leaders don’t want to get run over by their followers, they have to seek new problems and challenges too.
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
The Business of America
Calvin Coolidge is one of the least quoted America presidents because he was usually reluctant to say much of anything. But one thing he did say has stuck with us. “The Business of America,” said Calvin Coolidge, “is business.” His declaration epitomizes an influential school of thought which claims that business is and should be the dominant American institution. Some have proposed, in fact, that the United States government should be run like a business.
The notion that leadership in all sorts of organizations and enterprises should mimic the behavior of business leadership is rooted in the history of business itself. About 160 years ago, when large-scale formal organizations first began to appear all over the landscape, business organizations had one definite advantage over democratic governments and other multi-purpose organizations. The clear and constant discipline of the bottom line, which separates profit from loss, gave business leaders a target and a method to measure all aspects of performance. The development of management as an academic subject made its initial gains in the world of business. Nowadays management principles are taught to leaders and would-be leaders in education, religion, government, medicine, and dozens of other fields.
In times of economic recession, the pressures of budgets make the application of business methods even more logical. Ironically, the success of business management principles, the affluence produced by American business, and concern for certain side effects like environmental pollution, have given rise in some quarters to a shift in emphasis from production to service and from preoccupation with the bottom line to social responsibility. One of the most promising developments in the realm of organizations, including businesses, is the focus on the "triple bottom line:" people, profits and the planet. If Calvin Coolidge were around today, he might be tempted to revise his most famous remark. “The business of America”, he might say, “is America.”
The notion that leadership in all sorts of organizations and enterprises should mimic the behavior of business leadership is rooted in the history of business itself. About 160 years ago, when large-scale formal organizations first began to appear all over the landscape, business organizations had one definite advantage over democratic governments and other multi-purpose organizations. The clear and constant discipline of the bottom line, which separates profit from loss, gave business leaders a target and a method to measure all aspects of performance. The development of management as an academic subject made its initial gains in the world of business. Nowadays management principles are taught to leaders and would-be leaders in education, religion, government, medicine, and dozens of other fields.
In times of economic recession, the pressures of budgets make the application of business methods even more logical. Ironically, the success of business management principles, the affluence produced by American business, and concern for certain side effects like environmental pollution, have given rise in some quarters to a shift in emphasis from production to service and from preoccupation with the bottom line to social responsibility. One of the most promising developments in the realm of organizations, including businesses, is the focus on the "triple bottom line:" people, profits and the planet. If Calvin Coolidge were around today, he might be tempted to revise his most famous remark. “The business of America”, he might say, “is America.”
Friday, May 20, 2011
Two Heads Are Better Than One
Two heads, they say, are better than one, and that’s often true in leadership situations. For one thing, the public pressure of leadership often calls for a loyal colleague or assistant to take care of vital behind the scenes work. For another, the temperamental qualities make for inspirational leadership often conflict with the temperamental qualities that make for effective organization, and the two functions are often best handled by two separate people. Finally, the pressures of task achievement in any group often conflict with the need to maintain good relationships within the group. Very few leaders are good at both.
Every group or organization, from a neighborhood scout troop to a multinational corporation, exists in order to achieve certain goals. At the same time, every group has to maintain workable relationships among its members. In a social club where relationships are most important, a hard-driving leader would be out of place. In a dire emergency when survival is at stake, group members are often willing to submit to hard-driving authoritarian leadership and forget about relationships for the time being. But in between those extremes, where most of the world’s work is done, tasks and relationships are both important and both need attention from leaders. Unfortunately, very few people are outstanding at both task leadership and human relationships. Thus we often find different people specializing in different roles under different conditions. Every now and then exceptional leaders emerge who can handle both the public and private, the inspirational and organizational, and the task and relationship problems of leadership. But we shouldn’t rely on them, for they are rare. In many cases, two heads are better than one.
Every group or organization, from a neighborhood scout troop to a multinational corporation, exists in order to achieve certain goals. At the same time, every group has to maintain workable relationships among its members. In a social club where relationships are most important, a hard-driving leader would be out of place. In a dire emergency when survival is at stake, group members are often willing to submit to hard-driving authoritarian leadership and forget about relationships for the time being. But in between those extremes, where most of the world’s work is done, tasks and relationships are both important and both need attention from leaders. Unfortunately, very few people are outstanding at both task leadership and human relationships. Thus we often find different people specializing in different roles under different conditions. Every now and then exceptional leaders emerge who can handle both the public and private, the inspirational and organizational, and the task and relationship problems of leadership. But we shouldn’t rely on them, for they are rare. In many cases, two heads are better than one.
Saturday, March 26, 2011
The Drive to Achieve
What motivates people to seek leadership roles? Well, some people who wind up in leadership roles don’t seek them at all but find themselves accepting leadership through accidents of fate or circumstance. Some simply enjoy relationships in groups and like working with followers and peers. Some seek power, prestige, and other forms of ego gratification.
Over the long haul, however, the most effective leaders tend to be motivated by achievement and problem solving.
A number of years ago, a psychologist named David MacClellan did a series of studies which suggest that a very important motive for many people in leadership roles is achievement. Subsequent studies seem to agree that some people simply like to accomplish things and take great satisfaction in setting and achieving goals.
Business leaders and entrepreneurs seem to be particularly driven by achievement motives, even more so than by dreams of wealth or material comfort. The most effective leaders of all, in fact, seem driven not only to solve problems for their group or community but also to seek new problems to solve. Such leaders are particularly effective because they never cease to help their group or community to identify and address the problems confronting them.
Solutions to social problems always contain the seeds of new and different problems, so leaders who rest on their laurels don’t stay leaders very long.
Over the long haul, however, the most effective leaders tend to be motivated by achievement and problem solving.
A number of years ago, a psychologist named David MacClellan did a series of studies which suggest that a very important motive for many people in leadership roles is achievement. Subsequent studies seem to agree that some people simply like to accomplish things and take great satisfaction in setting and achieving goals.
Business leaders and entrepreneurs seem to be particularly driven by achievement motives, even more so than by dreams of wealth or material comfort. The most effective leaders of all, in fact, seem driven not only to solve problems for their group or community but also to seek new problems to solve. Such leaders are particularly effective because they never cease to help their group or community to identify and address the problems confronting them.
Solutions to social problems always contain the seeds of new and different problems, so leaders who rest on their laurels don’t stay leaders very long.
Sunday, March 13, 2011
What Is Leadership?
The English language has included the word “leader” for a very long time. But the word “leadership” didn’t make it into the dictionary until around the year 1800. The new word reflected the emergence of a new approach to human organization and governance: democracy. Since then all sorts of definitions of leadership have cropped up – some good, some less good, and some downright silly.
Back in the nineteen sixties, a scholar at the Ohio State University program in leadership studies set out to categorize all the supposedly scientific definitions of the term “leadership” that he could find. He found about 130 different kinds of definitions. That’s not 130 different definitions, it’s 130 different kinds of definitions. Some focused on the traits of leaders, some on the power of leaders, and some on the roles and responsibilities that leaders share. One social scientist had the audacity to claim that leadership is whatever social scientists say it is.
I like to define leadership as a reciprocal process of mobilizing resources and motivating individuals in pursuit of goals shared by leaders and followers alike. My emphasis is on reciprocity between leaders and followers and on shared goals. But I must say I am partial to some of the more interesting statements made by people who have lived with the realities of leadership in important places. Harry Truman’s summation is one of my favorites. Truman said that a leader is a person who gets other people to do what they don’t want to do and like it. But probably the most quoted description of leadership isn’t a definition at all, but a paradoxical statement by an ancient Oriental philosopher and politician named Lao Tsu. The best of all leaders, he said, is the one who helps people so that, eventually, they don’t need him. Then comes the one they love and admire. Then comes the one they fear. The worst is the one who lets people push him around. Where there is no trust, he said, people will act in bad faith. The best leader doesn’t say much, but what he says carries weight. When he is finished with his work, the people say “we did it ourselves.”
Lao’s ideal leader sounds a bit like Harry Truman’s.
Back in the nineteen sixties, a scholar at the Ohio State University program in leadership studies set out to categorize all the supposedly scientific definitions of the term “leadership” that he could find. He found about 130 different kinds of definitions. That’s not 130 different definitions, it’s 130 different kinds of definitions. Some focused on the traits of leaders, some on the power of leaders, and some on the roles and responsibilities that leaders share. One social scientist had the audacity to claim that leadership is whatever social scientists say it is.
I like to define leadership as a reciprocal process of mobilizing resources and motivating individuals in pursuit of goals shared by leaders and followers alike. My emphasis is on reciprocity between leaders and followers and on shared goals. But I must say I am partial to some of the more interesting statements made by people who have lived with the realities of leadership in important places. Harry Truman’s summation is one of my favorites. Truman said that a leader is a person who gets other people to do what they don’t want to do and like it. But probably the most quoted description of leadership isn’t a definition at all, but a paradoxical statement by an ancient Oriental philosopher and politician named Lao Tsu. The best of all leaders, he said, is the one who helps people so that, eventually, they don’t need him. Then comes the one they love and admire. Then comes the one they fear. The worst is the one who lets people push him around. Where there is no trust, he said, people will act in bad faith. The best leader doesn’t say much, but what he says carries weight. When he is finished with his work, the people say “we did it ourselves.”
Lao’s ideal leader sounds a bit like Harry Truman’s.
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