I’ve been studying leadership for more years than I care to
remember and I’d like to make a few observations that are not mainstream.
Firstly, the literature is full of words that describe the attributes that
leaders are supposed to have. In fact, as a doctoral student of mine once
revealed, there are pages and pages of them: he called them ‘weasel word’s.
Another observation is that hardly anyone talks about bad or mediocre leaders,
just leaders and the odd person that really stands out as wonderful. Sure
Hitler was a bad person but he was a powerful charismatic leader: it is not
that kind of bad I am referring to but the bad as in incompetent.
Most of the characteristics or behaviours applied to
leadership appear, in my view, to be those things that are essential for
successfully negotiating life without difficulty in most endeavours involving
people, and that includes intimate relationships. These behaviours are: trust;
the ability to learn; being a team player; self-reliance; self-control;
self-awareness; self-actualisation; the ability to converse; managing change;
empathy; assertiveness; flexibility; being positive towards others; optimism;
relationship skills; and self-confidence. Then there are some personality
characteristics that are specific to certain situations and affect personal
effectiveness.
I think that anyone who manages life well or easily will, to
a greater or lesser extent, exhibit these behaviours. And anyone who wants to
be a good leader needs these attributes as a minimum set of competencies. Bad
leaders don’t do these things well and mediocre leaders are, well, mediocre. Some
people really find these skills difficult to learn and there are those that
probably can’t learn them.
The additional attribute, to my way of thinking, that a good
leader needs to possess, has to do with the ability to motivate others.
Motivation is always mentioned as a leadership attribute, buried in the list
with all the others, so I know that this is not something new to you.
But I think it is the leadership
mojo: the thing that makes the difference. Great leaders know how to
motivate people and expend a great deal of energy doing it. Sometimes there are
good leaders who are brilliant motivators when they are flawed in some of the
essentials mentioned above.
Neuroscience and biology tell us that predicting what motivates
others and being able to get on with them based on that understanding is a
critical survival skill. It enables us to relate and to work as teams. However,
in some people this ability appears to be better developed in some than others
and these people make leaders.
Motivation in leadership consists of a number of factors
such as providing purpose, enabling people to do what they do well and leaving
them to it (autonomy), being participative and democratic, providing people
with the necessary skills to perform their work, and providing intrinsic as
well as extrinsic rewards. While fear is a poor motivator a lot of people need
to be accepted by leaders and seek approval, and will respond when there is a
risk of disapproval. Others are less dependent and are self-motivated. Thus
good leaders respond to individual motivators.
Successful leaders know how to motivate. Whether the mojo is
able to be learned or not is an interesting question. Being born with the
charismatic gene certainly helps.
