Leadership Defined
- Jerry Kraus
- Apr 6, 2017
- 3 min read
Introduction
The name of my Blog is “Lead, Follow, AND Get Out of the Way.” It’s a play on the old saying, “Lead, follow, or get out of the way,” which I truly despise almost as much as the paraphrased, “Leaders are people who turn around and have followers.”
Hitler had followers. Jim Jones had followers. Charles Manson had followers. It’s not a good definition, and leading and following is not an either/or proposition, and nobody should have to get out of the way. Unless, of course, a train is coming or they’re running with the bulls. So, please stop spewing this bull.
If you Google, “leadership is when you have followers,” you will find that leaders are also good followers. How can that be? In an interesting article by Barbara Kellerman in the Harvard Business Review, she says,
“The modern leadership industry, now a quarter-century old, is built on the proposition that leaders matter a great deal and followers hardly at all. In an era of flatter, networked organizations and cross-cutting teams of knowledge workers, it’s not always obvious who exactly is following (or, for that matter, who exactly is leading) and how they are going about it.”
The 1985 British film, “The Emerald Forest,” is based on a true story set in the Brazilian jungle where a hydro-electric engineer moves his family to build a dam. As the forest is being cleared, his son is abducted by indigenous tribe of the Invisible People to protect him from the destruction and he ends up living with the tribe for ten years. My favorite line is that of the Chief of the Invisible People – he says,
“If I tell a man to do that which he does not want to do,
I am no longer Chief.”
You can make people comply through threats, intimidation, or bullying, but you can’t make them like it, and it won't help with commitment.
Leadership Definition
One of the best operational definitions of leadership that I know is from Robert Freed Bales, Ph.D., based on fifty years of research at Harvard on social interaction culminating in a integrated field theory and measurement system of unification and polarization in groups called SYMLOG – A System for the Multiple-Level Observation of Groups. I had the distinct pleasure and honor to meet and learn from Freed Bales before his passing. His associates and flag bearers, Bob Koenigs and Margaret Cowen of the SYMLOG Consulting Group, are two of my most revered mentors.
Bales said,
“Leadership is an ability to unify a group by:
eliminating scapegoating, reducing domination, and
maximizing the mediation of differences.”
Now that’s a definition into which you can sink your teeth!
Conclusion
If you are an executive or manager at any level, it is important to search out meaningful leadership theories and methodologies as a part of your ongoing learning and development. Find good consultants and coaches who can help provide new insights and perspectives on your important role of leading people and unifying teams and organizations.
If you would like to learn more about SYMLOG as a powerful tool for leadership development, feel free to contact me! In the meantime, consider how you might get better at leading, following, AND getting the hell out of the way of your incredible staff and workforce! Good luck!
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