As years roll into decades the image of
leadership seems to be sadly going downhill fast. While there is an increase in
firms and individuals offering leadership development solutions, the world as a
whole seems to lack the face of even one inspirational leader. Which makes one
wonder what current leadership development is focusing on and why it isn’t
having any impact – at least noticeable impact.
There are excellent inspirational
leaders out there – I have the pleasure to meet more than my fair share; as
will many reading this – but these leaders aren’t becoming visible to make a
real difference where it counts; which is way beyond the walls of their own
organisations.
As much as we’d like to think business
and politics are miles apart – sadly in today’s world the umbilical cord
between the two has not been cut; with most politicians and their respected
parties around the world being financed through big corporate donors. Where for some strange reason politics has
simply become entertainment – where, for example, the media parade future
leaders out in front of the public and either attempt to humiliate them; or the
candidates seem to have a natural instinct to humiliate themselves.
If our current and future world leaders
are being portrayed as a ‘form’ of entertainment – what ‘inspirational’ impact
can this have on the millions around the world watching – wanting to be
inspired to be better, but being ‘taught’ sets of values that have absolutely
no place in an effective leaders repertoire. This must lead to complete
confusion in the emerging leaders mind – reading what leadership is about from
the millions of related articles; and hearing what leadership is about from an
abundance of courses; and then comparing these ‘stories’ with seeing today’s
leaders in action. What are they more likely to believe and react to – what
they read or what they see in action?
In a brilliant 2016 Harvard Business
Review article by Jack Zenger and Joseph Falkman entitled ‘the trickle-down
effect of good (and bad) leadership’ they highlight how “we know that emotions
are contagious. Research by UC San Diego’s James Fowler and Harvard’s Nicholas
Christakis has shown that happiness is contagious, for example. If you have a
friend who is happy, the probability that you will be happier rises by 25%. We
also know that behaviours are contagious. Christakis and Fowler determined that
if you have overweight friends, you’re more likely to be overweight yourself.
If you quit smoking, your friends are more likely to quit. Rose McDermott of
Brown University found that divorce is contagious; etc.
We wanted to know how such ‘social
contagion’ affects leaders. We already know that good leadership creates
engaged employees and that leaders influence a variety of outcomes such as
personnel turnover, customer satisfaction, sales, revenue, productivity, and so
on. But if you’re a good leader, do you make the people around you more likely
to become good leaders as well? And which behaviors are most readily ‘caught’?”
So we should be aware that today’s bad
leaders and the portrayal of bad leadership behavior is simply creating future
generations of poor leaders; and worse still poor leaders who actually think
they are good – and will be able to pull out of the archives video clips of
supposed top leaders behaving in the same way they do.
The media seem to assume that the
population of future leaders can see through the entertainment aspect of their
portrayal of effective leadership – but that is a bridge too far in their
thinking and the fundamental flaw in their theory.
Zenger and Falkman highlight how “specifically,
we tested 51 behaviours and found significant correlations in over 30 of them.
(All 51 showed some correlation, but not all the correlations were
statistically significant.) Within the behaviours that appeared contagious,
there were some that appeared even more contagious than others. Behaviours that
had the highest correlations between managers and their direct reports
clustered around the following themes, listed in order of most contagious to
least contagious:
1) Developing self and others
2) Technical skills
3) Strategy skills
4) Consideration and cooperation
5) Integrity and honesty
6) Global perspective
7) Decisiveness
8) Results focus
We also examined overall performance.
Unsurprisingly, the direct reports of the worst-performing HL (high level) managers
were also below-average performers.”
It’s worth looking at the list one more
time, slowly, and then visualizing the impact both positive and negative
influencers would have on each of these behaviors and how this would manifest
itself in the work place and in future leadership development.
As the world waits for the inspirational
leaders to show themselves; we also have a responsibility to not just talk
about effective leadership; but enact it on a daily basis as well – and that’s
in all our interactions, including social media as well.
It’s worth concluding with a 2014 report
from the Center for Creative Leadership, which stated that “more complex and
adaptive thinking abilities are needed” and “leaders are no longer developing
fast enough or in the right ways to match the new environment.”
References:
Zenger, J. and Falkman, J. (2016). The
Trickle-Down Effect of Good (and Bad) Leadership. Harvard Business Review.
January.
