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Savants and sinners

Thursday, August 7, 2008

We have been discussing how personal characteristics of a particular type tend to come paired with others that, while not exactly opposite, are nevertheless frequently counteracting. This appears to be especially true when we are talking about peculiarly salient expressions of these traits.

For example, if someone is especially intelligent, he or she may be (or have become) equally arrogant. Or, if someone is “visionary,” he or she may be ill-disciplined and unsuited to execution. Similarly, one who is forceful and courageous may also be close-minded and a bully.

This phenomenon – the pairing of putatively vital leadership characteristics with decidedly unproductive personal ones – has attracted increasing attention in recent years as the individual leadership model undergoes continuing exposure to the real world. Some dismiss the negative traits as the price we must pay for the supposedly positive ones. Others actually celebrate the former for heralding the latter.

But let’s consider, in this context, a quote from Warren Buffett:

When a management with a reputation for brilliance tackles a business with a reputation for bad economics, it is the reputation of the business that remains intact.”

Now (bearing in mind that no analogy travels without some wear), let’s imagine that directors are considering hiring a CEO widely regarded as a leader of surpassing intellect and drive – passion, even – but also one for supreme arrogance and narrow, full-steam ahead bull-headedness. Might not one side of this reputation outlive the other? Which one?

Recall that we know that the performance of people commonly viewed as superior leaders – particularly those renowned for especially prominent leadership characteristics – can vary remarkably, even swinging from stunning achievement to desperate failure. The question is: do we know which characteristic from the good/bad pair caused which result?

The truth is, we often find that the success enjoyed by certain individuals, who we then celebrate for specific remarkable leadership qualities, turns out to be largely ephemeral. This leader, we come to discover, is unable to replicate the performance emanating with supposed inevitability from these characteristics.

So, the reputation of that person’s positive leadership traits fails to survive subsequent tests. And yet, might not the reputation of the accompanying negative traits remain intact – even robustly so?

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Today’s tip: Speaking of confusing cause and effect, please see this insightful piece, by Eric Brown, about results and process. Please also view this excellent article by Miki Saxon about “in the moment” leadership.

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Sins and sanctimony

Wednesday, August 6, 2008

Is there an unavoidable link between great strengths and great shortcomings? If we believe we must have extraordinary characteristics in our leaders, must we accommodate ourselves to these coming inevitably in positive and negative pairs?

The trait-theory of leadership assumes that leadership comes from specific vital characteristics possessed by extraordinary individuals; these traits must be had at all cost. When it is pointed out that this cost often includes sometimes painful levels of arrogance or narcissism, as well as other unpleasant and even decidedly non-constructive characteristics, we are indeed advised that we must find ways to pay the price. These are stars, after all – they will have their idiosyncrasies; sometimes we are even encouraged to view them as roguishly quaint.

Is that how you view them?

Here are some questions to consider in this context:

  • Do strongly positive and negative leadership characteristics indeed accompany one another? For example, does arrogance inevitably follow great intelligence; does bullying behavior come right along with strength of will (or what some would call personal or even moral courage), or will narcissism typically be found alongside great self-confidence and force?
  • Indeed, is it really the case that great positive characteristics must, or ought to, be accompanied by great faults? That is, might a lack of the latter undermine confidence in the actual presence of the former?
  • How about this: can we even take the view that evidence of narcissism, for example, should encourage us that we will find levels of confidence and self-assurance that we need in a leader in order to imbue our organization with sure-footed confidence?
  • Have you seen organizations led by such people? If they had character trait pairs like these, did one tend to predominate? Which one?

Have observations like these had any effect on your view of the trait-theory of individual leadership for organizations?

They sure have on mine. Why not share your experiences and thoughts?

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Today’s tip: Speaking of speaking of sins and sanctimony, please make a point of seeing The Becker-Posner Blog for Gary Becker’s rejection of the ever-resurfacingAmerica in Decline argument, and Richard Posner’s response. Are these two talking past one another? Are cause and effect being confused? Is there unintended undermining of one’s own argument?

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Vices and virtues

Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Vendors of lists of leadership characteristics can certainly develop plausible arguments for those that they insist upon as being vital for a successful leader. Better still, they can provide real-life exemplars for each of these essential traits, demonstrating how inextricably bound up with each person’s success were the highlighted characteristics.

But one of the many problems with this approach resides in the often less pleasant aspects of some of these characteristics as exhibited by particular sampled leaders, or of some other distinctly undesirable traits that often appear to inevitably accompany the celebrated ones. For example, as often as we hear about the importance of courage in a leader, we find it expressed as bullying. Or, enjoined to attract leaders with high levels of self-assurance, we find them bringing along similarly high levels of arrogance in the same baggage.

When confronted with problems like these, the trait touters sometimes fall back on the “price you pay” argument: if you want this, you get that – learn to deal with it. This is taken frequent recourse to in literally every realm peopled with supposedly exceptional individual leaders – from politics to the military to business – where the virtues initially sold to us are writ large, but no larger than the vices we eventually discover there as well.

But is it true? Must we accept certain disagreeable personal shortcomings in order to enjoy supposedly must-have leadership capabilities? Indeed, are the former inescapably paired with – even indicators of – the latter?

We’ll take a brief look at those questions and more tomorrow. Please do stop by, and bring your observations with you!

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Today’s tips: Speaking of vices and virtues, they, unsurprisingly, are often in the eye of the beholder. Please see these contrasting views of one such issue: Vice: A WSJ article about Carl Icahn and the Yahoo board; Virtue: Icahn’s response posted at his blog. Which do you find more convincing?

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Leaders without leadership

Monday, August 4, 2008

Let’s take another try at getting a handle on what leadership is by considering where it comes from. The standard belief is that it comes from people – in particular, from the boss, the “leader.” As we’ve noted over the past couple of days, this seems particularly obvious in times of crisis, when the leader decisively casts aside paralyzing confusion and sets the organization into enthusiastically focused forward motion.

Actually, there are a number of potential problems with this view, even if it accurately describes leadership. But let’s just consider here the issue we touched upon at the close of last Friday’s post: when that decisive leader dispels enervating fear, where is the displayed leadership really coming from?

Consider the leader in question. We clearly viewed the behavior we saw, when she electrified everyone with her call to action, as the injection of leadership, originating in her, into the organization. Moreover, we likely have seen evidence of this leadership in various other, albeit less striking, circumstances during her stewardship of the outfit. So, we conclude, she is a leader.

And I don’t question that she is, or was, in the moments when she demonstrated leadership. My question is: did the leadership she demonstrate come from her?

Imagine this person in any other circumstances. Walking down the street, let’s say. Is she displaying leadership? If an event occurs – one with which she has no more personal connection than any other pedestrian, but that demands decision or action – will she inevitably exhibit the leadership required to resolve it. Because, after all, she is a leader?

What about a situation in which she might have somewhat more personal identification? For example, watching a chid’s sporting event, or a social gathering of friends. If something occurred that required a leader to step in, would everyone turn to her, or would she instinctively assume the role?

That is to ask, for all that there is a display of leadership in one or another set of conditions, does the leadership arise from the leader who expresses it? Or, does it come from the conditions in which it is displayed?

Is the “leader” the source, or the vehicle, of leadership?

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Today’s tip: Speaking of leadership, if we’re not sure where it comes from, there certainly is one place where we can get a lot more insight about it: the second Leadership Development Carnival has been posted by Dan McCarthy, author of Great Leadership. This one includes a recent post from these pages on Leaders and Conflict, as well as dozens more from the likes of Wally Bock, Michael Wade, Steve Roesler and many more. Please stop over for a truly worthwhile selection - a carnival - of thought-provoking and engaging reading on this important topic.

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Standing up

Friday, August 1, 2008

When someone takes a clear position on an issue, we typically are inspired with admiration. If it is a political or social question, the person has told us who he or she is, without apology and with full awareness that there will be those who will take, perhaps vociferous, exception. We respect that. Some of us are even encouraged by such an example to become more like actual people, ourselves – to not merely think about who we really are, but to test that supposition by subjecting it to criticism.

But when the boss does it – now that’s something else again. The boss doesn’t do it for him- or herself – although that can be a factor – but for organizational issues upon the outcome of which much, even our own personal livelihoods, depend. Often, given that we are talking about something exceptional, here – not a mere routine event, but one that claims territory or strikes out boldly on an uncharted path in uncertain times – this is done in what had been, until the moment of decision, paralyzing crisis.

And that, as we discussed in the previous post, is clearly evidence of individual leadership, as well as of its exceptional value to organizations. And yet, for all that, might there be more going on here?

Let’s look at the situations again. First, in the case of the individual who announces his stance on a social issue, there is not necessarily any pressure on him to do so. He is merely that sort generally, or he feels that the matter is of such import that citizens should step forward and be counted.

But what about the boss? Is her decisive stand solely a matter of personal civic or organizational philosophy? “This is just my job, of course I’ll make the decision.” Or is it the result of tremendous pressure arising from the immediate crisis, the scope and consequences of which grow with each moment that passes without it being resolved?

In the case of the boss, on the one hand how much of her decision was prompted by whatever degree of individual leadership she may possess, and on the other how much of that individual leadership was prompted by the pressure of the situation? If we agree that she displayed leadership, is it not reasonable to ask where it actually came from?

It is our habit to assume it came from her – that the organization’s fate issues from her possession of it. But is it not possible that – at least to some degree – her possession of it emanates from the organization and the dynamics its very existence sets in motion?

If that is the case, is she the only person so affected, or so imbued with the instinct, in this organizational context, to leadership?

Who is standing up, here, or who is being stood up? Do we really know?

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Today’s tip: Speaking of standing up and attracting lightening, please see this Economist article about how one private equity executive views the varying rewards for managers and staff.

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