Once in a great many moons you open up a book and step on a mental land mine like the following,
“Does Leadership Exist?”
This question has caused me confusion, frustration, anger, enlightenment and ultimately a humble clarity and desire for further thinking in the three days since having it posed to me in “The 52nd Floor: Thinking Deeply About Leadership” by Dr.’s David Levy, James Parco and Fred Blass.
Before you cross this off as a cute little Jedi mind trick take a second to chew on it. And while you’re at it here’s the story (my riff) the authors present to go along with it.
An elderly gentleman who once was the CEO of a Fortune 100 company is invited to give a talk on leadership to a group of senior executives. He starts as most would expect by talking about things like vision, hiring good people, empowering employees, etc. Then he suddenly pauses for an uncomfortably long period of time and says the following,
“I’m sorry, I don’t think I can continue this speech. The truth is that I don’t think leadership exists.”
The execs in the room look at one another with a bit of embarrassment and sadness for an elderly gentleman who has obviously lost his way…and possibly his mind. Before they can exhale the speaker continues,
“Believers in leadership can recite many phrases, slogans and variants of definitions regarding what they think leadership is, but it is always used to describe what happened in the past. Actually, it’s a bit of a tautology. Companies that have done well are said to have had great leadership. Poorly performing companies have had poor leadership. None can reliably tell us where it is going to be, how it will get there, and most importantly, whether it will succeed once it arrives. I’m not saying that leaders don’t exist; I’m not that crazy, yet. Leadership? Damned if I have a clue?” (emphasis mine)
Here’s what I wrote in the book after thinking about the question and story for a little while,
After spending four years at an institution dedicated to “producing leaders” and reading countless books on the subject, I know all of the canned definitions of leadership, all the phrases like “influence” and “common objectives.” But, of what help this is I’m not sure. I know good leadership when I see it, but I have begun to believe that so much depends on context — the specific time, place, leader, operating environment all dictate a unique approach or paradigm. Not only that, but a great deal depends on the follower as well. All this to say, it is complex, far too complex to sum up with a few bullet points or checklists. In fact, I wonder if these formulas do more damage than good, causing us to believe we have a map in our hands and calling off the search before it has even begun. What we need may be less about learning how to lead and more about learning how to think.
Those were my initial thoughts. Now that I’ve had some more time to think, here are a few more.
The majority of books on leadership are not just a waste of time, they are a fraud. As the elderly former CEO stated, leadership always describes something that happened in the past. As Nassim Taleb pointed out in “The Black Swan” we humans have an extreme penchant for what he calls the narrative fallacy, or our desire to simplify, summarize or otherwise explain complex things that happened in the past rather than having to deal with the uncertainty that comes with not knowing.
In other words, things that we can’t explain scare us, so we invent stories (or 5-step plans) to make ourselves feel better.
Leadership on a large scale requires dealing with complex, dynamic systems that never remain the same long enough to completely control. This requires more synthesis and less analysis, holistic thinking rather than strict reductionism, an excellent ability to OODA, build snowmobiles (see John Boyd) avoid the trap of the narrative fallacy…but here I go again, jumping down the rabbit hole of listing traits for what it means to be a great leader. I’ll stop before I do damage. My head hurts.
So what do you think? Does leadership exist? If you took it out of the dictionary would anything change?
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I think this is an excellent representation of what we meant with this story. On one level, all books on leadership are frauds. On another level these serve an important function. Greg Bateson (1973) describes four levels of learning. Most books written on leadership fit into the second level, the use of models. Most leadership books provide models to help leaders make sense of the overwhelming complexity of organizational life. Although these models cannot possibly be complete and accurate, they can help leaders move forward and do “something”. Once, however, leaders become too attached to a particular model, the model can limit further growth and understanding. Our book is meant to shake leaders out of their comfort zones and force reflection and growth.
I think this topic is very pertinent to aspiring leaders in both the private and public sector. Leadership in the military is obviously different than leadership in the private, profit-seeking sector. You and I can attest to the fact that Innovation can frequently be stifled in the military. In response to your post though, I want to direct your attention to a book that looks at this very issue: teams and their leaders failing to forward-think in a dynamic environment. Peter Senge wrote “The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of the Learning Organization.” I know that you mentioned an aversion toward 5 step programs, but hear me out here. Senge introduces five disciplines that organizations should follow to remain relevant. Short of writing a book review here in the comments section of a blog post, I’ll just highlight the two main points. Of the five disciplines, one includes breaking mental models (or our comfortable thought paradigms) and seeking to innovate. Another key takeaway is that organizations fail to think of future threats, or the delusion of learning from the past. We fail when we simply try to solve future problems with what we’ve learned in the past. Organizations that get comfortable with their processes will frequently fail to see the threats (GM failed to see the Toyota threat [pre-recall nightmare]). Anyway, this book is a gem, and it sounds like it fits your frustrations perfectly. On another note, great to see so many USAFA grads dominating the topic of leadership.
Cameron,
It’s great to see you’re expanding your mind … still … and that the lessons from classes like MGT 303 are paying dividends. Great blog and good thoughts … keep fighting the hard fight.
Cheers
Geoff
I currently work at USAFA, and in recent years a couple of leadership training models have been adopted here. As you mentioned, the idea of a model might be helpful on a conceptual basis to describe what is taking place and what goals you hope to achieve in the training process, but I don’t think it’s something that is at the forefront of everyone’s mind as training is being conducted. At a character development seminar for firstclassmen a few weeks ago, I asked the cadets at my table for a definition of leadership and character, and even though they’re finishing up 4 years of intense leadership and character training, they couldn’t come up with a clear definition. I think that’s ok, because the fact that there are so many books about leadership show that there probably isn’t a clear definition of it. What I hope the institution does do is provide graduates with the ability to think and reason critically, the ability to provide leadership in situations as required, usually by being able to adapt to changing situations. I think USAFA has done a pretty good job of this since its inception, although it always falls to the individual to synthesize and apply what they’ve learned.
@ Dr. Levy,
What an honor to have one of the authors stop by my humble blog! Thanks for reminding me that not everything found in today’s leadership books is worthless! You’re right that at least they provide paradigms and inspire action.
I like the fact that your book is set up with the intent of thinking deeply rather than memorizing a couple bullet points. This is a skill that seems to be in short supply. I am hesitant to add “today” at the end of the previous sentence and join the crowd that says this is due to a shortened attention span caused by the internet, technology, etc., but regardless the questions have caused me not only to think, but to talk my wife’s ear off…she thanks you by the way.
@ Mark,
It sounds like I’m going to need to read something by Senge, I like the point about not resting on certain methodologies or practices…much like what Dr. Levy pointed out above.
It also sounds like the type of leadership needed to tackle “wicked problems.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wicked_problem
Soon I’d like to discuss Wicked Problems with you and the other commentators on this post.
Another reason we can’t be settled on one particular method of leading is because we don’t know what the future problems will be. Black swan events like the latest Toyota recall, the Icelandic volcanic eruption and subsequent disruptions by their nature cannot be predicted with any accuracy. Therefore we must be able to improvise.
@ GC,
Mgt 303 did more to challenge my thinking and inspire further inquiry than any class I’ve ever taken. Something about it clicked with me and I’ve been trying to figure it out ever since.
@ Rob,
Sometimes I think models are of great use for planners, but not so much for the people being “modeled.” I think it’s awesome that you see the lack of clear leadership definitions on the part of cadets as a reality of the subject matter and not a deficiency requiring more training.
One of the biggest challenges I think USAFA faces (maybe the Air Force in general) is fighting the temptation to add more and more classes, seminars, training days, etc. to an already jam-packed schedule.
These additions may provide some good OPR bullets for the leadership, but it is a case of diminishing returns. Each new requirement decreases the time available for a cadet to do any sort of deep thinking as he or she is forced to jump through hoops rather than sit and process what is going on.
One thing I love about USAFA is quality of people in the organization…so many great thinkers. Sounds like you see this as well. Thanks for the comment!
Great Post! On the topic of leadership you might be interested to see this video post “the irrelevant boss” by Vineet Nayar. http://www.vineetnayar.com/the-irrelevant-boss/
I believe leadership is a a mindset. I won’t necessarily say leadership exists or does not exist. Leadership is merely a mindset that as said before somewhere Cameron is in short supply (please excuse my ignorance, trying to study and type this comment at the same time.) I am a first year cadet in a JROTC program and our NS1 (Naval Science 1) books talk strongly in the first few chapters about leadership (and followership). I have been told that I am a great leader but how is that defined? I ask people in my JROTC unit what makes me a good leader and they can not give me a single reason why. So I believe that this topic is merely a mindset we put ourselves in when we need to.
I curiously looked up the definition of this “word” leadership as this post and others comments made me curious: The definition (as provided by dictionary.com) is as follows:
lead·er·ship
–noun
1.
the position or function of a leader.
2.
ability to lead.
3.
an act or instance of leading; guidance; direction.
Leadership as I said before a mindset we put ourselves in when we are put in the position where “leadership” is required. Whatever that word “leadership” means. The definition of leadership supports this. The first definition “1.
the position or function of a leader. supports this argument if you will. In my mind’s eye (may not be the same for others) to be in a position you have to enter another mind per say. You have to become someone different to hold a position properly. For example, most people who lead platoons in my JROTC unit become different. Their tone of voice, their discipline, serious etc.
So leadership doesn’t exist in whole to the skills or models of that person, but exists only in the mind of a position and status.