Archives

In an intriguing set of experiments a few years ago, a group of American social scientists, led by Adam Galinsky at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, used the E test and some other techniques to investigate the connection between power and empathy.

Some managers are more likely than others to develop the climate of trust with employees which is needed for them to develop. These managers consider their people to be inherently ambitious, self-motivated and able to exercise self-control. They are also thought to enjoy their mental and physical work. Given the proper conditions, employees will learn to seek out and accept responsibility and to exercise self-direction in accomplishing assigned goals or targets. This approach assumes that most people will want to do well at work and job satisfaction is a strong motivator.

There is overwhelming evidence for the economic benefits for organisations which have happy employees. Often places where people are unhappy are places where the leaders are unhappy too – or at least, wouldn’t describe themselves as ‘happy’. Many leaders would say they’re ‘OK’ or ‘fine’, their criteria being the number and importance of the ‘issues’ or ‘problems’ they’re currently trying to sort out. But happy? Rarely.

One of the biggest risks of being in the leadership position in a big organisation is that no one is going to tell you the truth in an open and honest way. A few leaders are lucky or wise enough to bring in outside consultants to perform this task. Most hire consultants who tell them their baby is beautiful, because that’s the type of information that gets you invited back.

As a leader, have you thought about how you might empower those around you? Here are some pointers:

Have a vision broad and deep enough to inspire others and allow them to take parts of it and make it their own.
Help the group develop a strategy—a plan for getting from here to there, with milestones and goals along the way.
Use Command mode sparely. Most of the time, lead by example and persuasion.

Is it possible to focus too much on ‘leadership’ in business? We think the answer could be ‘yes.’ Seeing leaders as ‘special beings’ risks creating what Henry Mintzberg called ‘leadership apart’: leaders unconnected to their organisations, insulated from conflict, challenge, and debate; and unwitting creators of a culture of conformity and compliance rather than creativity and innovation.

From the myriad models of leadership, we offer our own three-dimensional approach as a valuable perspective from which to think about, reflect on, and implement leadership. Leadership, we believe, can be explored usefully through three aspects: strategy, performance and culture.

Take a look at job descriptions in almost any organisation, and you’ll find they’re broad statements of areas of responsibility, or maybe lists of activities. Job descriptions like this are concerned with activity rather than output, and fuel the culture of ‘hard work’ and long hours. What you don’t see is a short, complete list of the results people are accountable for producing.

The January-February 2012 issue of the Harvard Business Review was dedicated to exploring the value of happiness and wellbeing to organisations. And the evidence supporting the economic benefits for organisations with happy employees is overwhelming. However, many people we meet work in not-very-happy organisations whose leaders are invariably not described as ‘happy’! Many leaders describe themselves as “OK” or “fine”, their criteria being the number and importance of the issues or problems they’re currently trying to sort out. But happy? Rarely. But if you have a choice of being happy and working in a happy environment, why shouldn’t you choose to do so rather than a stressful, bullying, snappy work environment?

One of the key elements of leadership is partnership. Not everyone would agree with this; you could argue that, in the presence of a powerful leader, partnership is unnecessary – you will get the job done with or without the involvement of others. But in today’s organisations, this is not enough. You might achieve the result, but at what cost? If you don’t involve others, you leave them disempowered and demotivated. You don’t train them in how to produce results. Your organisation is the poorer, and if you leave, your knowledge and skill leaves too.