Next Level Blog

The Leadership Theory Lack

Today’s post is a guest post by David Burkus, the force behind the LeaderLab blog where he focuses on how to put leadership theory into practice.  If you like what David shares in this post, you’ll love his new book, The Portable Guide to Leading Organizations.

Airport bookstores are crowded with books on leadership, and each one seems to promote a “leadership lack.” They’ll each begin with phrases like “The most pressing issue in organizations is that leaders lack integrity…or empathy…or strategy…or even humor. These books continue by laying out the author’s simple framework for developing the perfect leader. On and on the dialogue goes to the point where readers become be confused because the 21 Unassailable Edicts of Leadership are different than the Seven Routines of Really Efficient Leaders.  It would be a poor move to add to this confusion. With this in mind, we will admit that we do not believe our “leadership lack” to be the most pressing issue in organizations, just the easiest to fix.

Leaders lack an understanding of leadership theory.

These airport leadership books provide decent advice that is easily digestible. And because it is easily digestible, leaders continue to gorge themselves on it until there is very little room left for real, solid theory. Most see theory as complex and hard to digest. When leaders think about leadership or organizational theory, they think back to the 400+ page textbook they had to buy in business school. “Seems like quite an undertaking,” leaders think. So they cheerfully hand their money to the cashier and board the plane with the latest, pocket-sized “leadership” book.

Leaders lack an understanding of leadership theory because it isn’t presented in pocket-sized form.

Are You an Apple or a Google?

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a post titled "Are You an IBM or a Dell?"  Today's post continues with the tech ID theme and is inspired by an article in the New York Times by Randall Stross. In it, he makes the point that the big decisions at Apple are made by one person, Steve Jobs relying on his gut and sense of design.  In contrast, the big decisions at Google are made by groups of people relying on data.  As Stross frames it, it's the auteur vs. the committee.

I thought it was a great article because it makes the point that there is rarely only one right answer about how to get things done. In my own case, I'm more naturally inclined to the Google model where decisions are made by lots of people providing input based on fact based arguments. On the other hand, I'm writing this post on my iPad, totally love my iPhone and am the last person in my family who is not working on a Mac. I can see both sides of the argument.

So, which side do you come down on? Auteur or committee? What are your thoughts on when it's best to go with the edict of the genius and when it's best to go with the wisdom of the crowd?

One More Question

Sometimes the simplest things make the biggest difference. I see this all the time in coaching leaders. In fact, it's usually the simplest things that make the biggest difference.  Here's an example from my executive coaching files.

One of my clients was a senior executive I'll call Sam. He was brilliant in his technical domain, not so much in the people domain. I actually worked with Sam on a couple of occasions. The first time our focus was helping him establish better connections and engagement with his team. Based on the feedback we got over a number of months, he improved a lot on that front.

The second time I worked with Sam was after he had been promoted to senior vice president.  The issue now was how to work more collaboratively and effectively with his executive level peers.  Sam and I knew each other pretty well at this point so I thought we'd nail things pretty easily and quickly.  Boy, was I wrong.  Sam wasn't that enthused about engaging with his peers.

After about six weeks of getting nowhere, I showed up at his office for an appointment and was getting nothing from him in the conversation.  Lots of one and two word responses to my questions, lots of dead air, no questions back to me.  After about 15 minutes, I started putting my things away and suggested we try again in a couple of weeks.  Sam's response was a true to form, "OK."  As I walked toward the door, I asked him  if I could share an observation.  Sam said, "Yes."  I replied that, "My observation is that you're the most difficult person to have a  conversation with that I've ever met."  Sam looked stunned and puzzled and asked why.  My response was that in most conversations I had been in in my life, one person would say something and the other person would reply with some information or perhaps ask a question of the first person.  I told him that he didn't do much of either one of those and that made it difficult to have a conversation with him.

We were scheduled for a phone call a couple of weeks later and I wasn't expecting much from that either. Boy, was I wrong again.

Three Communication Lessons from Carmegeddon

Even if you don't live in Los Angeles you've probably heard of Carmegeddon.  This past weekend, a 10 mile stretch of interstate 405 was closed for a bridge demolition.  As Reuters reports, there was a full-on, flood the zone PR campaign mounted by local municipal leaders to encourage residents of the LA area to stay home and not get anywhere close to the 405 during the closure. The fear was epic traffic jams as the 500,000 cars that drive that stretch of the 405 on a weekend day looked for alternate routes.

I've been in SoCal this weekend as I came out a few days early for a group coaching session for a client on Tuesday. With a front row seat to the potential traffic apocalypse, I'm happy to report it was a non-event. Everyone apparently got the word, stayed close to home and enjoyed various 405 promos and events at local merchants and restaurants. Locals have been talking about how pleasant the weekend has been without traffic. Comedian Bill Maher might have summed it up best when he tweeted, "How's everyone coping with this terrifying apocalyptic nightmare of having to ... oh my God ... stay home with your family?!!!"

The weekend was a success in no small measure because of the job that L.A. municipal leaders did in influencing public behavior. They did a masterful job of communicating their message in a way that got people to do what they wanted them to do. Here are three communication lessons from Carmegeddon that are worth thinking about the next time you have to get an important message across:

Harry Potter as Servant Leader

This past Monday night, my wife Diane and I had a once a lifetime experience.  We got to attend the red carpet premiere of the last Harry Potter movie at Lincoln Center in New York.  Diane has to be in the top 1% of Harry Potter fans in the world and she won the trip through a local radio station.  It was a blast and a surreal experience to be in the same room with the cast and people behind the biggest movie franchise of all time.  If you want the inside scoop on red carpet night, Diane wrote it all up on her blog and included some really great pictures of the cast speaking before the movie started.

No doubt, many of you will be seeing Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows this weekend and in the days to come. Enjoy it. It’s a wonderful film and a fitting end to the series. If you have any mental and emotional bandwidth left over as you’re watching Harry save the world, you might also put your leadership lens on for some examples of servant leadership in action.

Servant leadership is based on the principle that the leader is the servant of the people that he or she leads. Servant leaders have a desire to serve first and lead second. The concept was first articulated by an AT&T executive named Robert Greenleaf in the mid 20th century and he eventually wrote a book on the subject. Today, the Robert K. Greenleaf Center shares and builds on his work. 

The president of the Greenleaf Center, Larry Spears, has identified ten characteristics of servant leaders.  Having been immersed in all things Potter in my house for the last ten years, it seems to me that Harry embodies all or most of them. Here they are: