Mantle of Authority

By Rob Goffee and Gareth Jones

(Professor Rob Goffee teaches on Essentials of Leadership and the Senior Executive Programme)

Each Leader is unique, and it is that difference that others follow.   There is no golden rule for top managers but the best have some traits in common.

There is one question guaranteed to bring a stunned silence to the boardroom or business school lecture theatre: “Why should anyone be led by you?”.  In this age of empowerment, it is difficult to do anything in organisations without followers – and they are becoming harder to find.  Increasingly, executives need to know more that just how to manage; they need to understand what it takes to lead effectively – to inspire and win commitment. 

Most executives admit they need help with this issue. If anything though there is too much advice.   Bookshops are full of self help manuals, autobiographical accounts and recipes for success, leading many to believe that replicating someone else’s style will make leadership easy.

Nothing could be further from the truth: leadership has much more to do with personal authenticity that an easily learnt formula.  The real challenge for aspiring leaders is to be true to themselves, not to emulate the habits of some other leader.  For some of course this means recognising that they have certain fundamental flaws that will always limit their leadership capability.

Without doubt the final truth about leadership will never be written.   However, there seems to be agreement that leaders need energy, a strong sense of direction and a clear vision.  Our work suggests that the most effective leaders also share four rather unexpected characteristics.

Strength in Weakness

The first of these is that leaders reveal their weakness, but let us be clear what this means.   We are not encouraging new finance directors to admit that they have problems with discounted cash-flow analysis, or operations directors to confess a limited understanding of supply chain management.   Weaknesses like these are so central that they would constitute a fatal flaw.

Rather, what we mean is that leaders should reveal their human foibles – perhaps they are irritable on Monday mornings, rather shy with new people or a little disorganised.   Such admissions reveal their humanity and send out an implicit message “I am like you – imperfect”

In effect, this confirms that the leader is a person – not merely a role holder.   But there are other benefits.   In revealing weakness, leaders show how others can help them and this builds good teamwork.   It is also undeniable that followers can feel better if they are offered something to complain about.   In effect it can become the psychological equivalent of the Wailing Wall.   Finally, by sharing at least some of their weaknesses, leaders can protect themselves against others inventing potentially more damaging problems.

In many workplaces, of course, the reality is that a manager’s weaknesses are often exposed by others.   This is rarely a positive experience and can cause feelings of inadequacy and defensiveness.   Further, large organisations can be regarded, rather bleakly as machines for the production of conformity.   The pressure to bureaucratise – to standardise, to make more predictable, to surround with rules is enormous.   In this environment it becomes harder to reveal one’s weaknesses.   Ironically, the current fashion for strong culture in large companies may reinforce this pressure to conform.

Rigid performance targets also encourages rule following rather than a willingness to think creatively.   Those at the top might have the confidence to challenge orthodox practices, but for those on the way up it may seem a risky strategy.   Finally the management development industry tends to distract from the development of leaders in its pursuit of technical perfection.   The endless polishing of competencies may produce managerial ability but has little to do with leadership qualities.

Leadership rests upon more than mature appreciation of strengths.   Great leaders acknowledge their incompetencies – they may even make it work for them.

Sensing the Situation

Good leaders rely extensively on their ability to read situations.   They “sense” an environment, picking up and interpreting soft data without having it spelt out for them.   They know when team morale is shaky or when complacency needs challenging.   Often they seem to collect this information almost through osmosis.

There are three levels of situation sensing, each of which has its own distinctive skills.   First consider individuals.   Effective leaders are continually learning about the motives, attributes and skills of their important subordinates.   They also know the best place to pick up such knowledge.   For example, many executives say that they learn the most about people when travelling with them.

Second, leaders read teams.   They analyse the balance between members, the tension between the tasks and processes, and how the team builds its capabilities.

Finally, they are concerned with decoding the cultural characteristics of organisations and are aware of subtle shifts in organisational climate.   Even those who are not great at situation sensing will at least realise the importance of gathering this kind of information and will find trusted colleagues to do it for them.

For example, Ray van Schaik, former CEO of Heineken, was always able to read the unspoken signals of Freddie Heineken, the person who was “always there without being there”, and translate them into clear messages for his colleagues on the executive committee.  His ability was based upon many years’ experience of working with Mr Heineken and a finely tuned ability to read people.

Is situation sensing a natural instinct, or can it be learned?   We suspect it is both.   Some individuals seem to have a natural ability – think of a gifted sales person who can judge a sales project on the back of a handshake and eye contact.

On the other hand, many executives have clearly improved their situation sensing through systematic training in interpersonal skills.   But this skill can be learned through experience as well as training.   Franz Humer, Chairman of Roche, for example, attributes his situation sensing abilities to early student experience as a tour guide.   Relying on tips he soon became skilled at identifying where he would earn his money among large groups.

Situation sensing is a critical leadership attribute, but it carries certain dangers too.   Imagine a radio that picks up a range of signals, many of which are weak and distorted.   Situation sensing can be similar – messages can be obscured by the static.   Leaders must continually test their instincts against reality.   The skilful leader may have sensed from other colleagues that moral is low in the finance team but they must always check if that perception is accurate before acting.

Concern is Paramount

Sadly it has become almost platitudinous to say that leaders care for their people.   And there is nothing more likely to prompt cynicism in the workforce that seeing a manager return from the latest people-skills training course with apparent concern for others.   Effective leaders don’t need a training programme to convince their employees that they really care.   They empathise with the people they lead and they care intensely about their work.

Executives often see the word care as a synonym for softness or weakness.   But genuine care is of course, very difficult because it always involves personal risk – showing some part of yourself and your most strongly held values about work and how it should be carried out.

For example, Alain Levy, Chief Executive of EMI Music, passionately communicates his views on album track selections to his colleagues and subordinates, often in colourful language.   In many businesses this might be considered obtrusive and unwarranted, yet Levy’s passion for the music business echoes the obsessive concerns of his younger executives.

The general point is that when people care strongly about something, they are more likely to reveal their true selves.   In doing so they communicate authenticity – they show others that they are doing more than simply playing a role.

Genuine care typically balances respect for individuals against the requirements of the task the organisation is addressing.   Maintaining this balance is not always easy.

It should not be assumed, for instance, that caring always translates into standing shoulder to shoulder with your staff.   It may take some detachment – the ability to stand back, see the whole picture and sometimes take tough decisions.   Leadership is not a popularity contest.

Stress the Difference

Early social scientific theories of leadership attempted to measure universal traits that uniquely characterise good leadership.   Various leaders were weighed, measured and subjected to a battery of psychological tests.   But the attempt to identify common characteristics attempted in failure.   Trait theory, as it was called, found only a set of weak links where causal relationships were difficult to determine.   Was personal confidence, for example, a cause or consequence of gradual exposure to leadership experiences?  

Effective leaders use their differences   - whatever they might be.   In one way, leaders might express their differences in dress style or physical appearance.   More importantly though they move on to distinguish themselves through personal qualities such as sincerity, creativity, expertise, resilience or loyalty.

How do leaders know which differences to use?   Typically this is a learning process.  For example, Jan Timmer, former president of Philips, learned to use his physical presence as a leadership asset.   His broad shoulders and bull neck topped by his bald dome dominated situations or him.

Leaders can also use their powerful and distinctive motives as leadership assets.   Examples include a desire for power – “you know me, I like to run things” – or wanting to develop a satisfying relationship – “I like to build string teams around me.”

The particular skills they have acquired over the years are also useful.   These could be technical skills – superior marketing knowledge or mathematical wizardry – or social skills such as listening or coaching.

Finally, passions – overriding goals, compelling missions and deeply held beliefs – can differentiate leaders. Think of Anita Roddick’s passion for a different kind of world, which proved a great asset to her leadership at the body shop.

Leaders get to know which of their attributes are most powerful mainly through experience and interaction with others.   In the world of leadership development courses, conventional wisdom holds that leaders should interact with as many different types of leaders as possible; hence the current drive to encourage executives to seek new experiences in prisons, charities or even zoos.

Yet learning through experience and interaction can only really work when leaders have time to reflect.   In fact, many report that they are too busy to adequately exploit their experiences for insight.

In some cases, women and members of minority groups may feel that stereotypical differences are attributed to them, which are not necessarily the ones that they would chose.   They then use a number of strategies to cope with this – not always successfully.

Some women, for example, dress conservatively to keep a low profile and avoid stereotyping; others attempt to turn stereotypes such as helper, nurturer or seductress to personal advantage.   There are costs in both strategies.   The former prevents women from revealing their true differences and the latter results in the persistence of potentially harmful stereotypes.

Using one’s differences is a critical leadership skill.   But as always there is a danger; leaders can over differentiate.   The determination to express separateness leads some to loose contact with their followers, and they find themselves moving phantom armies around the board.   Too much distance makes it impossible to sense situations properly or to communicate effectively.

Be Yourself with Skill

All of these qualities are necessary for effective leadership, but they can not be used formulaically.   This is why leadership recipe books often fail.   The challenge facing all those who aspire to be leaders is to be themselves but with more skill.   Awareness of these qualities can help individuals develop a unique style that works for them.   If you want to be a leader, you have to discover and express your authenticity.   This is easier said than done.