Over at the Harvard Business Review, Susan Cramm has written a very interesting piece about leadership malpractice. The article starts:
“There’s only one kind of leadership malpractice: wasting the lives of those we lead.”
I imagine there must have been a huge temptation to just leave it at that and submit the shortest HBR blog ever. Susan Cramm goes on to highlight a few leadership howlers that can soak up and waste huge amounts of precious time. These include:
• Sponsoring a project that isn’t ready for prime time.
• Overloading star performers.
• Managing jobs rather than careers.
• Refusing to address performance issues.
The article is worth a read to learn more about these, however one point in particular stood out for me. Cramm calls it: Negatively Labelling Others.
She uses a particularly angry example that makes me think of a spoiled child stamping their feet to try and get what they want. The outcome she suggests is a self fulfilling prophecy where staff just act out, rather than act right. I prefer to think of it as doing what we say we will, or maybe just actions speak louder than words.
Authentic leadership is powerful stuff. It can make, and break an organisation. You probably think I’m talking about the guys and (regrettably few) gals who sit round the top table, right? Well it’s not just them. In the West, we seem to be obsessed with looking upwards for leadership. In doing so we miss out on lots of creative, energetic, engaging work being led at all layers in the organisation.
Too often the leader is called upon to make a great speech. Rallying the troops I think they call it? My experience shows me that too often their subsequent behaviour completely contradicts their bold words. For example I know of a CEO in a global business who implores his staff to complete the quarterly attitude survey, and yet has never done so himself. So how can he even contemplate what it feels like to participate, let alone understand the huge frustration that comes from the subsequent lack of action? He talks about the importance of open communication yet he won’t blog, he says it’s a waste of time. Is he fearful of what his staff may ask of him and say to him? I don’t know but I do know he says one thing and does another. I don’t know about you but I couldn’t trust or follow someone like that.
Today I would like to start a campaign for authentic leadership. Leadership demonstrated by action, not by title, position or words. I hope you’ll join me.