Category: Leadership

“Leadership” is often an incoherent field of study. Often it’s anecdotal. “Here’s what I did to … win the game … make a lot of money … win the war … win an election.”
But below I sketch a few conceptual foundations of Leadership and note their practical value. 👇 

Properly, Leadership is a subdiscipline of Ethics (how to live well), which is a subdiscipline of Philosophy. 

Within Christianity, Leadership is also properly a subdiscipline of Ethics (how to live well with the presupposition God has spoken in Scripture and in Jesus Christ), which is a subdiscipline of Theology. 

The reason Leadership is its own subdiscipline under Ethics is that it treats how one should participate in groups that are trying to do something. Doing something by yourself may be Ethics but it is not Leadership. (“Self-leadership” is an oxymoron—cute for “self-discipline”). 

There is value in the field of Leadership because being part of groups that are trying to get things done is ubiquitous and unavoidable. You can either function within these groups productively and see positive progress accomplished or not. 

A person who grows in their understanding of leadership grows in their awareness of groups and what they are trying to accomplish. They then can contribute to the group finding the right goals and to the group using good means to work on those goals. 

It is crucial to notice that any group has multiple conflicting ends and that there are many possible means which are dismissed for ethical reasons. There is no end to the work of reassessing these. The referral to philosophy or theology is ongoing. 

A person who begins to understand leadership accepts the logical argumentation, the trade-offs, the balancing of values, the judgment calls, the disagreements, the discussion, the collaboration, the listening, and the learning because they are necessary for good work by a group. 

This understanding of the difficulty of having a group accomplish something good using good means sobers a person that work by a group is neither simple nor easy. They then can decide either a group’s work is not worth it or commit to persevere. 

An appreciation that leadership is group-oriented helps people realize that one’s fellow group-members are not the enemy or one’s minions to be ordered around but are one’s fellow participants, one’s partners, who must be worked with to accomplish the right ends with right means. 

Leadership has little to do with formal authority or position. Anyone contributing or participating in a group can help the group towards better goals and use better means. But the extent to which a person is silenced or muzzled or constrained by the group limits their influence. 

Long thread here articulating some thoughts on leadership:
The definition of leadership is helping a group work toward a common goal. See Northouse image👇
So, leaders are the people who push a group to do what they themselves wanted done but the group hadn't done it yet.

Therefore, theoretically, the work of leadership need not be coercive or violent or manipulative. The group wants something done but has needed someone to coordinate and organize the action. The group should be grateful for and cooperative with someone taking the initiative.

Often, happily, leadership involves progress toward common goals without much downside. There are often "low hanging fruit" or "easy wins" or "win-wins." "We all agree this should be done so let's just do it!" Common sense solutions—that is the ideal.

But there are also many difficult challenges where there is not a consensus about how to proceed and there are various negative ramifications. This is where leaders often make mistakes by failing to listen.

Leaders have learned from previous leadership successes that as the person coordinating, encouraging, and organizing, they should expect to hear minor complaints from people who are generally on board with the common goal. "We're too tired." "Why now?"

So leaders listen for important objections but often ignore what seem to them to be minor objections. The leaders thinks the reason the problem remains unaddressed is because of inertia and excuses so they give little weight to these minor objections.

Then leaders push through an attempt at a solution. "Let's try this!" "Let's experiment with this!" Why not? What do we have to lose?" This approach has worked in the past for them. It has helped a group make progress toward a common goal which others had allowed to fester.

But what if disregarding those "minor complaints" ("We're tired. Why now?") and pushing ahead with a bold new initiative ends up breaking people (so that they leave the group entirely) and the initiative fails? The group ends up beaten down, flogged, exhausted, and resentful.

The leader had thought "What do we have to lose?" but they did not consider that in fact their initiative or reorganization may destroy morale. There was in fact an opportunity cost to the initiative. There were hidden costs that came back to bite them.

I see this in microcosm with regard to "action items" in meetings. People avert their eyes from the leader because they don't want to volunteer to do what the group agreed should be done. This is a sign that more discussion needs to take place.

It is possible that they just need to break up the task into smaller manageable pieces so that someone can accomplish it without undue burden. Or maybe there needs to be a reward attached to the task. But there may also be real doubt whether the task is really the right solution.

Some leaders in meetings sense intuitively and relationally and socially that if people don't volunteer to do a task, we should let sleeping dogs lie. Annoyingly, the same issues pop up meeting after meeting and no progress is made.

Other leaders in meetings are determined to see follow-through and efficiency. They cold-heartedly insist people volunteer to do the task and then they also follow up. But forcing people to work on tasks they don't believe in fosters resentment fast.

Meetings with angry outbursts, finger-pointing, and sharp criticism of others are the inevitable consequences of a leader ordering people to do things they doubt should be done by them or even done at all.

The only solution to inaction or internal rebellion is better dialogue and conversation and discussion and collaboration about what is to be done. To review, sometimes this is mercifully brief. There is low-hanging fruit, easy wins. But often the way forward is complicated.

The "Let's try this. It is worth a shot. Hail Mary pass. Why not?" seems to most leaders like the way forward with such challenges. They think that is "casting vision" or "leading." But it often has many "unanticipated costs" that others *can* predict if the leader would listen.

Along the same lines, leaders do not often question their own ideas even if they are failing in practice. They blame the problem on poor execution by their underlings. "People are just not following through with the action items they were assigned."

But the truth is the leader shoved the idea down their throat. The other group members knew there were potential problems with the leader's suggested solution but their questions were dismissed.

The better way is to facilitate a free exchange of ideas upfront rather than taking a stab in the dark or bullying people into executing a flawed idea.

A leader will need to figure out how to get that good honest, feedback and information. It may not come just by demanding it in a meeting. "HERE IS MY IDEA. GIVE ME YOUR HONEST FEEDBACK!" It may have to be in less stressful, more informal settings.

Originally tweeted by Andy Rowell (@AndyRowell) on December 22, 2021.