To Find Leadership Look Beyond Labels

Leadership is perhaps the most written about topic in Business and Human Resources. This is unsurprising given that all businesses have leaders, and that the quality of leadership is one of the greatest determinants of individual employee, team, and organisational success. Yet despite its recognised importance to business success, and the copious volumes written about it, we still don’t quite understand leadership. Anyone who has stepped foot in the workplace can easily recount working for a “good” or “bad” leader, however we haven’t yet nailed down the recipe for good leadership.

If we take a simplistic and quick tour through how we have come to understand leadership across time we can see that it all began with the notion that leaders were men, born with great character and charisma (note the emphasis on men). We soon became a little more enlightened realising that while trait/personality theories of leadership were helpful in understanding leadership to a degree, they mostly ignored 50% of the population. As a result we moved on to consider specific behaviours as important in determining leadership success. Realising that different behaviours were needed in different situations we took a detour to contextual based theories of leadership. Finally we recognised that relationships, and sources of power (personal / positional) were further key elements to understanding the black box that is leadership. In modern times we probably haven’t finished defining and theorising about leadership, because while all theories to date have helped us to grasp at some of the important elements of leadership we’re not there yet. Although endless theorising and directing leadership has help to shed light on how we can create better leaders, it has also blinded us.

Today, the word “leadership” has become all encompassing, a catch all, meaning many different things to different people. This is a dangerous prospect because it prevents us from making real and meaningful progress in leadership and business development. What we must remember is that by trying to define leadership, we have sometimes tried to be too clever in the application of labels. The language we use defines our thoughts, and language is imbued with value. It is only by peeling back the labels, and venturing beyond assumed meaning that we can truly get to the heart of the matter and develop a shared understanding about leadership.

A recent conversation with a business owner really brought the value of questioning assumed knowledge by peeling off labels into focus for me. The person I was seated across from in the coffee shop was a smart business owner who had many years of experience and had read widely on all subjects business related, especially leadership.  As we chatted the conversation turned to the strategies and steps that the business owner wanted to take to improve their business. “I want my staff to show more leadership” concluded the business owner. “Oh… and what do you mean by leadership?” I enquired. This question caused a long pause, then the business owner, looking a little confused replied, “You know leadership”. “I do know about leadership, but I want to know what you mean when you say you want your staff to show more leadership” I replied. Then after a longer pause… a breakthrough. “Well… I really just want them to do their admin work more accurately and to go above and beyond in customer service”. From there, the conversation flowed and we were able to drill down to exactly the types of behaviours that the business owner had wanted from his staff. By taking a moment to peel off the label and question the common assumption that leadership means the same thing to every person in every situation we were able to arrive at the best interpretation for these people in this situation. At the outset of the conversation the business owner had wanted to implement a complex leadership capability framework, however answering a simple question highlighted that this would have been an expensive mistake, and other options were pursued.

The learning from this experience was that there’s truth in the saying that sometimes the simple solutions are the best, and that HR professionals can add great value by questioning conventional understanding. Yes, we all want good leadership in our organisations, but what do we really mean when we say that? If you are a leader, working with developing leaders, or an aspiring leader, I challenge you over the next week to put aside your preconceptions of leadership, peel off the label,  and go back to basics by asking – What are the objectives of my team? and how can I as an individual help the people around me to achieve them? You might just surprise yourself.

At HR Business Direction we can assist you with looking beyond labels, to focus on unlocking the leadership potential within your business. Contact us here.

Alistair Kerr MPsychOrg; PostGradDip Psych; BPsych
Organisational Development Strategist | Psychologist
alistair.kerr@hrbd.com.au
07 3890 2066
www.hrbd.com.au