Now, where were we with the definition of a leader?
So far I’m not convinced that attempting a definition is worth the candle, whatever Joseph C Rost may have to say about people looking at leadership who don’t define their topic. Still, post-mortems later.
We’ve covered the implications of points 1 and 2 of the definition in a previous post. This post, the implications of points 3, 4 and 5.
3. A leader sets out, or intends, to make change. A leader may or may not be successful in having the change occur. If the change does not occur, the leader is still a leader.
4. A leader takes on the risk of setting out to make change. A leader’s stance is “I’m willing to be blamed, criticised, attacked, ridiculed or worse if things don’t work out.”
5. A leader faces off the “tyranny of fear” and offers possibility in its place.
3. A leader sets out, or intends, to make change.
The leader intends change. He may or may not succeed in having the change come to pass. What counts is the intention, not the outcome.
The sooner we decouple the idea of “leader” from the ideas of “success” or “outcome”, the better. For one, we’d have more people willing to step up to being a leader. In addition, we’d have to become a certain way to allow people to do their best and not shoot them down when they didn’t pull something off.
We’d have to grow up at last and stop waiting for Santa Claus. Or Godot.
Now, to this word “change” …
In his definition of leadership, Rost qualifies it with the word “real”, which he says means, “substantive and transforming”. This doesn’t work for me for three reasons:
- once you introduce an adjective or other qualifier into a definition, you’re lost; it’s time to go back to the drawing board
- I explicitly reject the criterion of degree in my idea of a leader; people can be a leader in small matters or large
- part of what happens when someone is being a leader is that the unexpected starts to show up; unforeseen, even undreamt-of results start to occur. It’s this magic proliferation – a doing without doing – which is the surest marker of someone operating as a leader. So if you have to know a change is “real” or “substantive or transforming” at the outset, as in Rost’s definition, the magic dimension of the unforeseen is ruled out.
What I mean by change is novelty, as distinct from, say, change as reaction. I mean something new to the situation, new factors, new options.
4. A leader takes on the risk of setting out to make change.
More than half the people I’ve interviewed to date for my book have said being a leader is tough. They’ve talked about blame and criticism, and the fear of it, and they’ve talked about the lack of support, the loneliness. As one interviewee put it,
People are happy enough for you to get out of your comfort zone, but when it comes to them … people vanish.
As Seth Godin says in Tribes,
Leadership is scarce because few people are willing to go through the discomfort required to lead.
That’s it. Being willing to feel discomfort – even most of the time – is one of the requirements of being a leader.
5. A leader faces off the “tyranny of fear” and offers possibility in its place.
A person being a leader does not create or contribute to conversations that rehearse fear.
You know the ones. Conversations about imminent disaster, imminent catastrophe, imminent shortage; conversations which have the shape and content of the “downward spiral”, as Rosamund Stone Zander and Benjamin Zander describe it in The Art of Possibility.
Instead, a person being a leader creates conversations about possibility.
This new leader carries the distinction that it is the framework of fear and scarcity … which promotes divisions between people. He asserts that we can create the conditions for the emergence of anything that is missing … This leader calls upon our passion rather than our fear. She is the relentless architect of the possibility that human beings can be.
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Image: The Gold of the Azure, Joan Miró
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‘A leader creates conversations about possibility.’ I like that a lot.
Good. Same here.
Yes, point 3 is emerging as a challenge. The difficulty I see is that the words (as you mentioned in a previous post) are freighted with emotional as well as intellectual meaning. So although “novelty” is useful to a point it is also dangerous because it can conjure up the idea of different for the sake of being different–and lots of damage has been done by new leaders wanting to make a difference by changing things just for the heck of it. Also, “reaction” can be negative, but also might be a major driver of inspirational leadership–e.g., a reaction to tyranny or danger.
Could “contribution” be a substitute for “change” in point 3?
Does a make a difference if I say the definition is not intended as a definition of a person being a “good” leader, simply a person being a leader? ie, it’s an attempt to define a certain stance or posture or intention. I see the effectiveness of their stance or posture as another question.
“Relentless architect of possibility” might just be the best words I hear all day. Or week. Just love how they resonate.
Hi Sherilee, wonderful, aren’t they?
“People are happy enough for you to get out of your comfort zone, but when it comes to them … people vanish.” Some of my own experiences prompt me to wonder if leaders who “step out of the herd” are subject to even more criticism than leaders who are dropped in from elsewhere. You know the sort of thing–”who does she think she is?”.
Yep, I know the sort of thing and I think it’s an important factor. Being a leader without the imprimatur of a source of established legitimacy requires another level of what it takes to be a leader.
Maybe it also offers something extra too? What do you think? Have to ponder …
Let me think about it!
For leaders who start out with the best intentions, what changes them to doing otherwise? Not talking about those who have impure motives from the outset.
“Leadership is scarce because few people are willing to go through the discomfort required to lead.”
Are you saying there are a number of people in positions who are leaders in the sense of truly shaking things up to make whatever changes that are necessary to form a good team?
What changes a leader who starts out with best intentions? Here are some of my speculations …
1. The “system” — or, to dial back the melodrama, let’s call it the “game” — becomes bigger, more powerful than the leader’s stance; so the game ends up leading the “leader”, not the other way around.
2. Being a leader is tough, and at some point they give up or just need a rest. Instead of moving out of the position of leadership, however, they stay on because we have a view of leadership and being a leader as a fixed, once-and-shall-forever-be proposition. There’s no fluidity or grace or accommodation in our view of leaders and leadership.
3. They don’t change, we do. Example, they do something we don’t like or agree with, and we withdraw our approval, our listening of them as a leader.
Tots, I’m not clear what you’re asking in the last question. Can you say more?
Heck, I had a hard time reading that myself. LoL!
I meant
Are you saying there are a number of people in positions who are serving as leaders who don’t possess true qualities to transform or elevate the team?
ha! You bet I am.
What I’d say is they don’t possess the true “stance” or “commitment” or “posture” to transform the team. Maybe they had it once but they got tired or gave up. Maybe they never had it.
What do you think a leader should do after reaching a burn-out level, at least until a new opportunity presents itself? How can a leader continue to show commitment when there is resistance to change?
@totsy …
What should the leader do who no longer has the commitment?
If they can’t re-generate the commitment, they should step down and let something else have a go, or invite someone else to assist in the leading.
How can a leader continue to … when resistance to change? Few speculations here …
The leader can invent a new “game” or “context”; because it sounds like the current one sucks. The current one sounds like “I’m never going to change this team; it’s hopeless, it’s futile, I’m powerless.” Having that context won’t work for anyone. Invent a new game or context and invite the team into it.
The leader could start “giving an A” (in his/her mind) to the team, instead of the low grade the leader’s currently giving; it’ll have things start to shift.
Enlisting new energy sounds good. I mean, folk need their bread and butter. :-)