One of the things that first drew everyone to the concept of the individual leader is the romantically dramatic aspect of a visionary who attracts rapt followers. So in thrall to the grandeur of his (or her) vision, they follow him into the greatest risk with complete faith, loyally and energetically struggling to help him realize his dream.
Those enterprises that make it to the other side seem to validate this form of leadership – and followership. Those that don’t make it – well, as a rule they neither visibly influence our impression of what it all adds up to, nor do they contest the matter; they just reorganize and try again.
Whether from politics, military, or business, the concept of the daring, successful entrepreneur is so attractive that it may be the basis for the peculiar notion of individual leadership we have attempted to create in the various realms of modern organizational life. This is an error.
The case isn’t even clear that we can properly view the modern entrepreneur comprehensively as a leader in that sense, rather than simply as a striking exponent of one of the leadership functions. And, it must be said, that function (vision, or more prosaically, purpose) need not be so striking to be successful, nor need it be exhibited by an entrepreneur (owner/manager) but by an owner alone.
Nevertheless, the phenomenon of the entrepreneur stands out as a powerful example of what many in the modern leadership movement argue about individual leadership, so it needs to be dealt with. We have done that on these pages before, so I will content myself here with three points.
First, as noted, the defining characteristic of the entrepreneur is vision, which is only one of the leadership functions – there is nothing inherent in the entrepreneur about the others. So, it serves as an inadequate basis for the building of a model of individual leadership.
Second, arising from the first, and also argued here previously, vision is essentially the right – and the role – of an owner (which an entrepreneur is), rather than that of a manager or hired gun brought in as a “leader.” When you start expecting vision, regarding the employment of invested capital, from someone other than the investor, you are looking for trouble. The owner needs to keep firm control over this issue.
Third, some have sensed the previous two difficulties, so they have attempted to develop a transferable form of “entrepreneurial leadership” that can be employed by disciples of the modern leadership movement, who will exhibit it for hire as the “leaders” of organizations that they don’t own (other than via shares and options awarded to them, an incentive that is proving to be generally problematic in its own right).
The definition of this “entrepreneurial leader” also varies, according to what appears to be required of it. The most inane one I’ve seen is: “a leader who is concerned with the future.” Efforts like these can hardly undo the objections raised by the first two points above, which amount to this: only owners can legitimately generate vision, hired managers can help inform that vision, but cannot create it themselves; they can only execute it.
Of course, under the inspiration of the modern leadership movement, managers, aspiring to elevation to the false status of individual leadership, do so anyway. The news has been filled with the disappointing results of this for decades, now, with no letup in sight.
So, we’re going to leave the especially unfortunate entrepreneurial aspect of the teachings regarding modern individual leadership out of our current discussion. We will focus on the general concept of leadership as an individual characteristic. That will begin tomorrow – please do stop by!
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Today’s tip: Speaking of doubts about individual leadership, please see this interesting report by Nic Paton at Management-Issues, which describes how American employees see a difference between the presence of leadership characteristics in their bosses, and the presence of leadership.
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