Leadership Philosophy
“If I speak in the tongues of men or angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.” (Corithians 13: 1-3)
Leadership has fascinated me for most of my life. As a child I observed how on the playground and in the classroom, we are instinctively drawn to follow certain individuals. As a history major in college I encountered stories of bold leaders who used fear to consolidate their own power, and of quiet leaders who asserted what influence they had to liberate others. As a professional I have witnessed how leadership from the top can set the tone for an organization’s culture and values, and how informal leaders at all levels of an organization can challenge that culture. As a graduate student I have spent three years studying leadership through the lens of academia. And what have I learned?
I’ve learned that leadership and management are very different mindsets.
I’ve learned while some qualities of leadership are inherent, any one with the desire can learn to be a leader.
I’ve learned that some of the best leaders hold no formal authority.
I’ve learned that leadership is a learning process.
I’ve learned that leadership is critical.
I’ve learned that leadership is rare.
Oh, and I’ve learned that leadership is hard to define.
All these years later and I’m still not sure that I have a coherent definition for what a leaders is. What I do have is a better understanding of what motivates authentic leaders, and how such leaders behave.
Of the countless quotes I’ve come across about leadership, this quote from Corithians captures the key distinction I see between managers and leaders. Managers are appointed based on ability (real or perceived) and operate from a desire to control and command. Leaders understand that without love, without genuine care and concern for people, without a deep commitment to relationships, our talents, treasure, all of our striving, is meaningless. But from a place of love, leaders have the ability to transform organizations and the people who participate in them.
Driven by an intention of love, leaders with widely varying educational professional backgrounds, religious beliefs, professional roles and skills profiles operate in surprisingly similar ways.
Leaders prioritize relationships.
There is both an ethical and pragmatic argument for prioritizing relationships. As a leader, my ethical priorities are grounded in kindness and justice, focusing on care for the individual. From a values perspective, I believe that prioritizing relationships is the right thing to do. However, I believe there is also a business case to be made for focusing on relationships. In their internationally acclaimed guidebook on leadership, James Kouzes and Barry Posner point to empathy as a cornerstone of smart leadership. As they write, “The real competitive advantage of the human worker will be their capacity to create relationship, which means empathy will count more than experience.” (Kouzees, Posner pg 204) On a much more metaphysical level, Margaret Wheatley envisions relationships as the connecting points of a quantum world. Envisioning organizations as a quantum systems she concludes, “…to weave here and there with ease and grace, we need to change what we do…We need to become savvy about how to foster relationships, how to nurture growth and development. All of us need to become better at listening, conversing, respecting one another’s uniqueness, because these are essential for strong relationships. The era of the rugged individual has been replaced by the era of the team player…More and more relationships are in store for us, out there in the vast web of life.” (Wheatley, pg. 39) We know from experience that companies with high levels of trust, engagement and collaboration out-perform companies without those qualities, and those qualities are impossible without prioritizing relationships.
Leaders ground their teams in reality and give them the courage to tackle the hard stuff.
Like many leaders, my greatest weaknesses are the flip side of my strengths. It’s natural for me to prioritize relationships. But my protective, conflict-avoidance tendencies make it challenging for me to tackle the inevitable tensions and disagreements that are a natural part of teamwork. Kouzes and Posner define this practice as “Challenging the Process”, and it’s one that I’m growing into. Interestingly, teams that normalize and embrace conflict as a healthy part of organizational life are stronger and more productive.. As Kouzes and Posner note, “If leaders are going to grow and thrive, people need to trust one another. They need to feel safe around each other and believe they can be open and honest.” As Brene Brown succinctly puts it, in much less academic but somewhat more relatable terms: “Clear is kind. Unclear is unkind. Feeding people half truths or bullshit to make them feel better (which is almost always about making ourselves feel better) is unkind. Not getting clear with a colleague about your expectations because it feels to hard, yet holding them accountable or blaming them for not delivering is unkind….Clear is kind. Unclear is unkind.” (Brown, B., pg. 48) I believe true leaders have courage themselves to be honest and real, and by their example give their teams permission to do the same.
Leaders honor the past.
Perhaps this belief is the result of studying history, but I think it is critical. We often see leaders as visionaries, those who look toward the future. But how many times do we hear “history repeats itself because nobody listens”? Stories are the way that we as humans being make sense of the world, and an organization’s story is its lifeblood. I think leaders have a responsibility to take an honest look at an organization, to identify what parts of its history need to be left behind, and to recognize the defining strengths that are foundation for moving forward.
Leaders help create a vision for a better future.
Peter Senge writes, “A shared vision is not an idea. It is not even an important idea such as freedom. It is, rather, a force in people’s hearts, a force of impressive power. It may be inspired by an idea, but once it goes further – if it is compelling enough to acquire the support of more than one person – then it is no longer an abstraction. It is palpable. People begin to see it as if it exists. Few, if any, forces in human affairs are as powerful as shared vision.” (Senge, pg. 192) Leadership is not about outlining a set of tasks that need to be accomplished and setting timelines. It’s not about delegating and managing to hit metrics. Leadership is about empowering people to see their role in a larger, inspiring shared vision.
Leaders foster a healthy culture.
Leaders, through words, action and attitude, set the foundation for a team’s culture. I have yet to see a toxic work culture that didn’t start from the top. In his study of organizational health, Patrick Lencioni discusses four sets of core values that create culture – core values, permission-to-play values, accidental values and aspirational values. Core values and permission to play values, in particular, shape culture. Core values are “behavioral traits that are inherent in an organization.” (Lencioni, 2012 p. 93) It’s important to note that there are not necessarily right or wrong core values –the point is they have to be authentic. An organization whose core values are competition and innovation is going to foster a very different culture than one whose core values are compassion and collaboration. One is not necessarily better than the other, but by being honest and intentional leaders recruit employees who can thrive in the culture as it truly is. Additionally, permission to play values, or “the minimum behavioral standards that are required in an organization,” deeply impact culture. (Lencioni, 2012 p.97) These can be as general as honesty and respectfulness; the key is that if the leader does not model them, others will not feel compelled to. Through their behavior, leaders shape the way employees engage with each other, their customers and the organization as a whole.
Leaders observe, adapt and evolve.
Leaders understand that in the modern world, handling change is an inevitable part of the leadership function. Rather than fight for control and certainty, leaders show their team how to embrace ambiguity and adapt. Margaret Wheatly describes this as a “participative universe”. As she describes, “Many former planning advocates now speak about strategic thinking rather than planning. They emphasize that organizations require new skills. Instead of the ability to analyze and predict, we need to know how to stay acutely aware of what’s happening now…Agility and intelligence are required to respond to the incessant barrage of frequent, unplanned changes.” (Wheatly, 2006 p.38) Leaders stay grounded in values and flexible in strategy.
Concluding Thoughts
What binds these behaviors together? Leaders lead from a place of love, a place of care, a place of authentic concern. Intention matters. When Kouzes and Posner interviewed US Army Major John H. Standford, a decorated veteran, public servant and education reformer, they asked him about the most important quality in developing leaders. He said this, “…I have the secret to success in life. The secret to success is staying in love. Staying in love gives you the fire to ignite other people, to see inside other people, to have a greater desire to get things done than other people. A person who is not in love doesn’t really feel the kind of excitement that helps them to get ahead and to lead others and to achieve. I don’t know any other fire, any other thing in life that is more exhilarating and is more positive a feeling than love is.” (Kouzes/Posner, 2017 p. 312) People are inherently relational, and were are tuned into whether people are trustworthy and caring. Leaders lead from a place of love.