Managing Leadership^®

We’ve covered a lot of ground over the past several years in these pages. We’ve talked about everything from free-market capitalism to history – even physics. But at bottom, it all has been about management and leadership; in particular, how the former is a proper and honorable individual undertaking in an organization, and how the latter is, not to put to fine a point on it, neither.

In due course we will talk more about what leadership in an organization really is, and how to manage it. But for the present, perhaps we should take a moment to summarize the fundamental problems with the current state of things – the intractable contradictions inextricably woven into the concept of individual leadership:

1. It is inescapably about the person – not the work. It encourages personal ties which rise to the level of cultishness. It describes these ties as existing between the “leader” & his or her “followers” – not among colleagues and their businesses or organizations.
2. It suggests that individual leadership can be developed. There is, however, no proof whatever for this contention.
3. It fails to connect leadership (especially inspirational or charismatic) with successful business management.
4. It is filled with fallacious proofs consisting of examples that seem to support it, but which ignore the multiples of examples that satisfy the posited parameters but that fail to support it, or that even contradict it.
5. Neither its presence nor its potential can be predicted.
6. It encourages adults to attempt to develop personality characteristics that may not be natural to them. This has not been demonstrated as possible; it may actually be harmful.
7. It further encourages adults to focus on developing these personal characteristics in order to attain a personally aggrandizing persona, rather than to improve their ability to contribute as part of a team to organizational work.
8. By seeking a universal individual leadership model it fails to see how individuals in “leadership” positions learn on their own to evaluate what’s working, what isn’t, and how to adapt to keep things going or to improve them.
9. It is irretrievably run through with contradictions – the most obvious being those among the widely touted and disparate lists of “essential” leadership traits.
10. It (often actively) encourages unaccountability by its recourse to superlative leadership skills and “intuition” beyond the ken of the rest of us.
11. It is, consequently, irrelevant, distracting, and thus destructive on numerous levels.
12. Flowing inevitably from the above, in its lack of system, resistance to definition, and inability to develop practitioners or predict outcomes, it is inherently unprofessional.

We will review most of these points in somewhat more depth over the coming weeks. Hopefully, we will then be able to move into more positive territory, discussing what organizational leadership really is (easily the most widely used search terms referring many of you to this site), why management is superior to it, and how to use the latter to manage the former.

Hoping you’ll join in!

—

Today’s tips: Speaking of pretending at being scientific about management, there is some movement toward applying harder scientific disciplines to the issue. Please see this fascinating piece about Homo adminstrans from The Economist.

And speaking of not being scientific at all – nor, even, of talking about management – perhaps you would like to view Managing Meanings, where I will be posting reviews about non-business books and music, the devices we use to appreciate them, and essays about these and various other artifacts or our cultures. I thank you now for your visit.

—

If you have enjoyed this post, please do join us by using the subscription links just below or at the top right of this page. And thanks – we look forward to your being aboard!

Technorati Tags: capitalism, history, physics, management, leadership, organization, individual leadership, leader, follower, business, organizational leadership, scientific, Economist