Do We Practice Real Leadership?
Do We Practice Real Leadership?
Date: 8th Jan 2020/Thursday
Date: 8th Jan 2020/Thursday
This is my second journal entry for the year 2020 focusing on real leadership and what it means to be a leader as far as Dean Williams definition of "Real Leadership" is concerned. In his book titled the "The Real Leadership" he talks about the various forms of leadership and how they are different from being a leader. It sheds light onto what is real leadership , its the kind of leadership that helps leaders in organizations face tough challenges and come up with the most authentic solutions. It is very different from the leadership we see in organizations mostly, whether schools, government sector, NGOs, private organizations and so on. What we see is, called Counterfeit leadership, where the followers simply follow their leader and do as they are told to do. Such a leadership provides false solutions to problems and tend to ignore reality. We see various situations around us where leaders use Counterfeit leadership. Real leadership lets people see reality as it exists, it helps them change their habits, values and beliefs systems, which is the tough part. Dean William further explains that leaders often make foolish mistakes because of lack of knowledge and expertise of how to handle the problem, and end up further worsening the problem than solving it. Real leadership is about letting people come face to face with their problems and find solutions for them. It throws the work at the people back. It mobilizes them to tackle the challenge at hand.
He further writes that leadership must be approached as an interactive art. It requires creativity and imagination, a single set of well honed practices will not always yield effective results. Real leaders do not treat it as a hard core science, where an experiment A will always produce result B. This will change as per circumstances. The real test of leadership is how they handle adaptive challenges, which requires change in attitudes and beliefs, habits and practices and not in applying technical fixes to a problem. Our leaders whether in organizations or schools or any other department heads apply technical fixes, meaning choosing from a repertoire of strategies available to them. Its when these practices do not yield expected results and end up in recurring similar situations that direct the organization heads to rethink about their decisions which are directing the organization toward adaptive changes.
It aims to get the various factions (share common values and a group of people who have similar thinking about a problem) to get together and find a solution to the problem. To a question about leadership everyone will give a different answer, to a political leader, it would mean being committed to something and having mass following, for Mula Omar it would have meant implementation of the teachings of the Quran and an Islamic system in practice through out the government, for an army general real leadership would mean ensuring the soldiers follow him and do as they are told to do, and for a Fortune 500 company chairman, it would mean developing a effective corporate strategy and creating an effective incentive system for the staff so they focus on the companies goals, for a school head it would mean being able to successfully manage her team and produce the best exam results and so on. But basically all these notions mean the same thing, it intends to make sure people follow you and showing the way to them, but this notion is not enough nor effective in today's world where organization face multiple diverse challenges at the same time. Real leadership has to do more than just showing the way and creating a line of followers. We are living in an ever changing world, where the organizational landscapes have evolved and their challenges we face are no longer similar as before. In order to face these challenges the leaders has to do more then just create a line of followers and show them the way.
I still remember during my previous work place, I was the voice of dissent, I had openly gone against the Directors decision to replace a senior school head with a junior person with no experience at all. And I was told I had no right to question his decisions. As a result people who were hired were replace later and no one questioned why. The purpose was not to disrupt the functioning of the organization but to direct towards an important area that needed attention, change in mindsets of people, giving space to ask questions, gathering data, engaging people in designing transparent hiring, promotion and transfer practices. It was about mobilizing the group that had the problem to come up with a solution. Similar situation and cases keep recurring in organization when they apply technical fixes and ignore the adaptive challenge surfacing in the air, which turns out to be heavy weight ton elephant in the end.
One of the important tasks that the real leadership must do is to decide which values to promote and which not to promote, so he/she needs more wisdom, only experience and knowledge would not be enough. Dean Williams shares a metaphor of a Norse God Odin, who was the god of gods, he could destroy and create. He was also called the god of poetry, magic, wisdom and battle. Odin basically reflects powerful organizational leaders and how they can be responsible. Odin was flawed god and knew he did not have enough knowledge and aimed to acquire knowledge through various ordeals getting himself in trouble. He never thought he has all the answers. Though he was a powerful god his hunger and foibles resulted in many errors, because he was more concerned with self gains and not real progress for the people. His quest for wisdom led him to the world tree known as yggdrasil - the creation tree. In order to gain more wisdom he had to hang himself up for nine days and nights on the tree. In a poem Elder Edda he talks about his experience:
The purpose of sharing Odins story was to reflect the importance of the burden of responsibility that a leader has , when he has power to lead. A real leadership goes through tough times to gain enough wisdom to make wise decisions. How many times when we have walked in a leaders office and he or she was able to share key facts, evidence or data with you, encouraging you and directing you towards a tough challenge at hand, mobilizing you to find answers to your queries. I am sure no one remembers any such instances, but what we remember is being told to obey orders, we are told about our dependencies related to behavior, issues with colleagues, discrepancies in work, listening to our superiors and so on. Because the leader who issues orders exercises leadership though force and dominance. He further explains that wisdom does not mean having all the answers, but searching for truth with passion, being sensitive to the context in which the problem has occurred and trying to find the answer to the question about what sort of work will make the lives of people around us worth while.
A leader can never achieve sustainable results by using force, dominance or discipline, some tasks require use of wisdom only. Wisdom is about gaining insight about why the system works the way it does, finding what are the values people hold, what are they good at, what can they give in, how could people be engaged to give their best shot at work. Odin used to disguise himself and travel the world to see the world as it exists. He bargained with people to find what they wanted, and what could they give, in order to gain something of significant value. Dean Williams though says that wisdom should be seen as an ongoing process of learning and discovery. Its achieved through ongoing discussions with the people involved, taking feedback, taking reflective actions, its an interactive process.
The leaders first job is to diagnose the adaptive process, which means finding out what is that people are trying to hide, what resources are available to solve the problem at hand, trying to build an understanding of the threats that the group or the team faces. Second, the real leader should be responsible for managing the diagnostic process, it should not be left to a few people, who find the reality, look for solutions and so on. The process of diagnosis should be seen as an ongoing sense making activity, where people take corrective actions that are identified and needed,and adapt to new practices. The third and most important job of a real leader is to be responsible for oneself as an instrument of power, which means being aware and careful of personal experience, ways of operating should be treated as an asset and not a liability for the organization. It is must to have an awareness of how ones power, interventions affects the other persons thinking. The power and authority must be used to mobilize people to do the adaptive work , face reality, make adjustments, its not about making people follow you.
The opposite of real leadership is Counterfeit leadership, which is about engaging the group in false set of tasks, that do not lead to any progress. A false task could be a false goal or strategy, political game playing, inter-divisional strategies, tolerance of counter productive meetings where people waste time scapegoating one another. I am sure we could remember several meetings whether staff meetings, or meetings with organizational heads or department heads where we experience counterfeit leadership. A common example in our society is the appraisal meetings where the heads do the appraisal by simply informing the sub ordinate, most of the times they do not even share the appraisal forms nor objectives in the beginning of the term, they score them as they want and set future goals without the consent of the subordinate, this is both ways, if the employees have not been able to achieve the targets, they blame other employees and so it goes on. But since organizations have evolved over time and they have computerized appraisal systems things might have changed. They could set their appraisal objectives beginning of the year and get to discuss with the heads too.
During this they will be wasting useful resources, yielding no results. The following signs might inform you of a counterfeit leadership , when a leader fails to engage the group and factions in the real work, when the leader is not willing to explore beyond ones comfort zone, a conviction that only the leader knows the truth, and not the least but a leader who is always preoccupied with dominance. In order to engage people in adaptive work, face their challenges, the leader has to be creative, imaginative and resourceful.
Dean Williams shares the story of the superintendent of the Philadelphia School System, David Hornbeck, who was the best educational administrators in the country. He had a mission titled Child Achieving, he wanted to improve an ailing system where most of the students were failing state exams. Amidst being so knowledgeable and passionate his mission did not succeed. The mission was aimed at revitalize schools and ensuring every child develops fluency in math, reading and basic computer skills. He wanted to give more flexibility and autonomy to schools, working on teacher accountability to improve learning in schools. He visited mosques and churches and met community people to make them believe and become a part of his plan. But his plan did not work, and the evaluators of the program identified that he was not able to engage key stakeholders in his plan, which meant the school heads and teachers who had to implement the program in schools. School heads use to contact the administrators for issues who never got back , nor took feedback of the school head or teachers. As a real leader he failed to mobilize the people to do the real work of changing habits, patterns, practices.
So when a real leader is exercising leadership they must be open to new ideas, and go to all extremes to test deeply held assumptions. Think, how many times do our leaders do this, they don't, they just take decisions based on data that is readily available on the plate for them, they don't take pains to find the truth or mobilize people nor question existing truths. Odin's example reflects the importance of wisdom for a leader with power and responsibility, where as David Hornbecks case reflects the importance of taking factions along (people that share common values and look at the problem in the same way) and the damage they could cause to a real mission like Child Achieving. Both cases represent cases of leadership where one failed to exercise real leadership and thought that throw dominance the project could be successfully implemented. Odin had to go through tough times to learn the wisdom needed to be a true leader.
I hope this triggers some thinking about how a real leader should exercise leadership, being responsible and having enough wisdom to mobilize people to do the adaptive work. And I hope this post gives people who are in lead roles to think about their roles as real leaders or counterfeit leaders?
Enjoy Reading till my next journal entry soon :)
Regards and prayers
Sheeba Ajmal
8th Jan 2020
It aims to get the various factions (share common values and a group of people who have similar thinking about a problem) to get together and find a solution to the problem. To a question about leadership everyone will give a different answer, to a political leader, it would mean being committed to something and having mass following, for Mula Omar it would have meant implementation of the teachings of the Quran and an Islamic system in practice through out the government, for an army general real leadership would mean ensuring the soldiers follow him and do as they are told to do, and for a Fortune 500 company chairman, it would mean developing a effective corporate strategy and creating an effective incentive system for the staff so they focus on the companies goals, for a school head it would mean being able to successfully manage her team and produce the best exam results and so on. But basically all these notions mean the same thing, it intends to make sure people follow you and showing the way to them, but this notion is not enough nor effective in today's world where organization face multiple diverse challenges at the same time. Real leadership has to do more than just showing the way and creating a line of followers. We are living in an ever changing world, where the organizational landscapes have evolved and their challenges we face are no longer similar as before. In order to face these challenges the leaders has to do more then just create a line of followers and show them the way.
I still remember during my previous work place, I was the voice of dissent, I had openly gone against the Directors decision to replace a senior school head with a junior person with no experience at all. And I was told I had no right to question his decisions. As a result people who were hired were replace later and no one questioned why. The purpose was not to disrupt the functioning of the organization but to direct towards an important area that needed attention, change in mindsets of people, giving space to ask questions, gathering data, engaging people in designing transparent hiring, promotion and transfer practices. It was about mobilizing the group that had the problem to come up with a solution. Similar situation and cases keep recurring in organization when they apply technical fixes and ignore the adaptive challenge surfacing in the air, which turns out to be heavy weight ton elephant in the end.
One of the important tasks that the real leadership must do is to decide which values to promote and which not to promote, so he/she needs more wisdom, only experience and knowledge would not be enough. Dean Williams shares a metaphor of a Norse God Odin, who was the god of gods, he could destroy and create. He was also called the god of poetry, magic, wisdom and battle. Odin basically reflects powerful organizational leaders and how they can be responsible. Odin was flawed god and knew he did not have enough knowledge and aimed to acquire knowledge through various ordeals getting himself in trouble. He never thought he has all the answers. Though he was a powerful god his hunger and foibles resulted in many errors, because he was more concerned with self gains and not real progress for the people. His quest for wisdom led him to the world tree known as yggdrasil - the creation tree. In order to gain more wisdom he had to hang himself up for nine days and nights on the tree. In a poem Elder Edda he talks about his experience:
I know I hung on wind swept tree nine entire nights in all
wounded by a spear dedicated to Odin , given myself to myself,
On the tree which no body knows, from which root it grows,
With nothing to eat and nothing to drink, I bent my head down,
And groaning took the runes up, and fell down thereafter,
... Then I began to thrive and be wise, and grow and prosper
The purpose of sharing Odins story was to reflect the importance of the burden of responsibility that a leader has , when he has power to lead. A real leadership goes through tough times to gain enough wisdom to make wise decisions. How many times when we have walked in a leaders office and he or she was able to share key facts, evidence or data with you, encouraging you and directing you towards a tough challenge at hand, mobilizing you to find answers to your queries. I am sure no one remembers any such instances, but what we remember is being told to obey orders, we are told about our dependencies related to behavior, issues with colleagues, discrepancies in work, listening to our superiors and so on. Because the leader who issues orders exercises leadership though force and dominance. He further explains that wisdom does not mean having all the answers, but searching for truth with passion, being sensitive to the context in which the problem has occurred and trying to find the answer to the question about what sort of work will make the lives of people around us worth while.
A leader can never achieve sustainable results by using force, dominance or discipline, some tasks require use of wisdom only. Wisdom is about gaining insight about why the system works the way it does, finding what are the values people hold, what are they good at, what can they give in, how could people be engaged to give their best shot at work. Odin used to disguise himself and travel the world to see the world as it exists. He bargained with people to find what they wanted, and what could they give, in order to gain something of significant value. Dean Williams though says that wisdom should be seen as an ongoing process of learning and discovery. Its achieved through ongoing discussions with the people involved, taking feedback, taking reflective actions, its an interactive process.
The leaders first job is to diagnose the adaptive process, which means finding out what is that people are trying to hide, what resources are available to solve the problem at hand, trying to build an understanding of the threats that the group or the team faces. Second, the real leader should be responsible for managing the diagnostic process, it should not be left to a few people, who find the reality, look for solutions and so on. The process of diagnosis should be seen as an ongoing sense making activity, where people take corrective actions that are identified and needed,and adapt to new practices. The third and most important job of a real leader is to be responsible for oneself as an instrument of power, which means being aware and careful of personal experience, ways of operating should be treated as an asset and not a liability for the organization. It is must to have an awareness of how ones power, interventions affects the other persons thinking. The power and authority must be used to mobilize people to do the adaptive work , face reality, make adjustments, its not about making people follow you.
The opposite of real leadership is Counterfeit leadership, which is about engaging the group in false set of tasks, that do not lead to any progress. A false task could be a false goal or strategy, political game playing, inter-divisional strategies, tolerance of counter productive meetings where people waste time scapegoating one another. I am sure we could remember several meetings whether staff meetings, or meetings with organizational heads or department heads where we experience counterfeit leadership. A common example in our society is the appraisal meetings where the heads do the appraisal by simply informing the sub ordinate, most of the times they do not even share the appraisal forms nor objectives in the beginning of the term, they score them as they want and set future goals without the consent of the subordinate, this is both ways, if the employees have not been able to achieve the targets, they blame other employees and so it goes on. But since organizations have evolved over time and they have computerized appraisal systems things might have changed. They could set their appraisal objectives beginning of the year and get to discuss with the heads too.
During this they will be wasting useful resources, yielding no results. The following signs might inform you of a counterfeit leadership , when a leader fails to engage the group and factions in the real work, when the leader is not willing to explore beyond ones comfort zone, a conviction that only the leader knows the truth, and not the least but a leader who is always preoccupied with dominance. In order to engage people in adaptive work, face their challenges, the leader has to be creative, imaginative and resourceful.
Dean Williams shares the story of the superintendent of the Philadelphia School System, David Hornbeck, who was the best educational administrators in the country. He had a mission titled Child Achieving, he wanted to improve an ailing system where most of the students were failing state exams. Amidst being so knowledgeable and passionate his mission did not succeed. The mission was aimed at revitalize schools and ensuring every child develops fluency in math, reading and basic computer skills. He wanted to give more flexibility and autonomy to schools, working on teacher accountability to improve learning in schools. He visited mosques and churches and met community people to make them believe and become a part of his plan. But his plan did not work, and the evaluators of the program identified that he was not able to engage key stakeholders in his plan, which meant the school heads and teachers who had to implement the program in schools. School heads use to contact the administrators for issues who never got back , nor took feedback of the school head or teachers. As a real leader he failed to mobilize the people to do the real work of changing habits, patterns, practices.
So when a real leader is exercising leadership they must be open to new ideas, and go to all extremes to test deeply held assumptions. Think, how many times do our leaders do this, they don't, they just take decisions based on data that is readily available on the plate for them, they don't take pains to find the truth or mobilize people nor question existing truths. Odin's example reflects the importance of wisdom for a leader with power and responsibility, where as David Hornbecks case reflects the importance of taking factions along (people that share common values and look at the problem in the same way) and the damage they could cause to a real mission like Child Achieving. Both cases represent cases of leadership where one failed to exercise real leadership and thought that throw dominance the project could be successfully implemented. Odin had to go through tough times to learn the wisdom needed to be a true leader.
I hope this triggers some thinking about how a real leader should exercise leadership, being responsible and having enough wisdom to mobilize people to do the adaptive work. And I hope this post gives people who are in lead roles to think about their roles as real leaders or counterfeit leaders?
Enjoy Reading till my next journal entry soon :)
Regards and prayers
Sheeba Ajmal
8th Jan 2020
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