Leadership is actually a very difficult thing to pull off
Leaders exist because of followers, and followers - in some sense - choose to follow a leader. While performing the leader-follower game, all kind of things get out of hand. Leaders get arrogant and authoritarian, followers don't take responsibility for the organisational performance. This is the opinion of Keith Grint, Professor of Defence Leadership at Cranfield University. Is there an easy solution to this state of affairs? Josette de Goede, Director InCompany & International Affairs de Baak, talks about this with him.
By Petra Baars and Marleen Bijleveld
Someone has to pay
As distinct from the trend nowadays Professor Grint is less interested in whether leaders are born or bred, but more interested in what type of leadership is necessary in a certain time. Grint: "Momentarily I am working on Leadership as a sacred issue. For example I'm trying to understand why followers attribute godlike qualities to their leaders. They want this creature to lead them and take away their responsibility. But another aspect is that if things go wrong someone has to pay…That's the deal with leadership: you get the reward and privileges, but when things go wrong (and they will!) you are the blame…It's not our fault, it's our leader will be the cry of the followers. He or she will be sacrificed. On the other hand, quite a view leaders love their top position a little bit too much. Of course, organisations do need leadership, but what kind? You don't necessarily need individual leaders who aggregate power to themselves, but it's really easy to do that. That's the problem."
Followers and leaders bound together for ever
One of Grint's important notions is that we construct the situation of leadership together. Employees bring people to leadership because they want to follow the vision and need scapegoats. Leaders lose themselves in stardom. There is a constant relationship between followers and leaders. Grint: "Separation between the two is not analytically possible. If you merge them, then you don't have leadership, because most of the time the leader takes control. If you separate them, you have this problem concerning responsibility. I'm just trying to see were this ends and what alternatives you can construct. Which mechanisms can constrain leadership? It doesn't need to be authoritarian. But what is the space between authoritarian leadership and the absence of leadership?"
Leaders don't need data, they need trust
"A difficult thing with leadership is charisma. The leader is often seen as a superhuman with godlike qualities, who can't do anything wrong. People don't realise that they are just normal. It's not about data. Who knows if Nelson Mandela did anything wrong? What matters is whether we trust him or not. You can loose trust quickly and it takes quite a while to build it up, but it is a crucial part of leadership. The interesting thing about Hitler and similar people is that their self confidence is extraordinary high. Such a leader would say I'm absolutely certain that this is right. That relieves others of the anxiety of not knowing what to do."
A great leader makes mistakes
Grint thinks leaders need people around them that tell them This is crazy, why are we doing this? Grint: "But it is very hard, because for a follower this is a career limiting move." De Goede wonders if that means that the concept of the learning organisation is something we cannot realise together. Grint: "A learning organisation is one in which we learn how not to put your neck over the parapet because somebody chops it off. We learn that if we make a mistake, to bury it, so no one ever finds it. No one says Thanks for making that mistake, now we can all avoid it. It is self-protective learning, not about helping the organisation." Some humility is important, because you don't need to be perfect to be successful. A great leader makes mistakes and won't know the answer all the time. It is better to turn to your followers and say You're the expert, what do you think we should do? But that is hard, because you get paid so much to 'know the answer'. Leaders who can live with this ambiguity, are the most likely to be successful. Quite often there isn't a 'right' solution to anything. Errors are made by those who have a desperate desire to be certain."
'Followership' development is worthwhile
De Goede: "Can a solution be found in considering leadership as a constant negotiation between the followers and the leaders?" Grint: "Yes, If you perform as a leader you need to bring people with you, rather then drive them on. The way to do that is to engage in a conversation with them, and not try and solve all their problems. Leadership is actually a very difficult thing to pull of. What followers do is look for the person with the most skills, qualifications or charisma and hope that he or she will 'solve our problems'. I think we should divert the huge amount of money we spend on leadership development and think about followership development. Not in the sense of training people to be subordinates, but training people to take responsibility for their organisation to function properly. They play the crucial part of failure or success of an organisation. When things go wrong, I want everybody to say There might be a way around it. Leadership is not the formal responsibility of one person."
It's not science, but an art
De Goede is surprised about Grint's statement that leadership can only be looked at as a craftwork, as an art; not as something scientific. Grint: "Science can be used for the resolution of management problems, but not for leadership problems. Leadership problems are all about ambiguity; you can't know what the answer is so there can't be a scientific approach to it. Leadership is learning by doing. Experimenting and getting it wrong and often trying to improve things incrementally. What worries me is the assumption that you can generate a framework for competence or psychometric assessments for leadership. This effort to measure is again trying to avoid ambiguity."
The perfect organisation is not going to happen
Grint does believe there is light at the end of the tunnel: "We have to work with what we've got. And think about solving the existing problems, rather then start with a fresh piece of paper trying to create a perfect organisation or even society. That's not going to happen. If you do that, you end up as an egocentric leader sacrificing your followers to get the perfect organisation: 'you are not complying with my level of perfection, so you have to go'. All you can do is make it a little bit better. It's just being realistic."
Keith Grint is author of the book 'Leadership: Limits and possibilities'.