This is neither Pollyannaish cheerfulness nor wishful thinking. Our belief is completely consistent with history. To test this for yourself, try this exercise. Take out a piece of paper and draw a line down the middle. Think of a few well-known historical figures you consider exemplary leaders. Think about the men and women who've led organizations, communities, states, nations, or the world to greatness. Write their names in the left-hand column. In the right-hand column opposite each name, record the events, circumstances, or historical contexts with which you identify each of these individuals.
Now cover the names in the left-hand column and look only at the right-hand column listing the events, circumstances, or contexts. What pattern do you notice among the leadership situations?
We predict that your list will be made up of leaders you identify with the creation of new institutions, the resolution of serious crises, the winning of wars, the organization of revolutionary movements, protests for improving social conditions, political change, innovation, or some other social transformation.
The table shows a few representative examples of historical leaders people have mentioned when we've asked this question.
People become the leaders they observe. If we want to become good leaders, we have to see good leaders. "Modeling is the first step in developing competencies," says Albert Bandura, Stanford University professor of psychology and the world's leading authority on the topic, in Self-Efficacy: The Exercise of Control. We had this reinforced for us when we did some research on the leader-as-coach. In that study we found that of all the items used to measure coaching behavior, the one most linked to success is "this person embodies character qualities and values that I admire."
To increase the quality and supply of exemplary leaders in the world, it's essential to give aspiring talent the chance to observe models of exemplary leadership. To develop ethical leaders, allow aspiring talent to observe leaders behaving ethically. To build leaders who think long-term, allow aspiring talent to observe leaders taking a long-term view. To have leaders who treat people with dignity and respect, make sure aspiring talent can observe leaders' treating people with dignity and respect.
When we asked Taylor Bodman, general partner at Brown Brothers Harriman in Boston, about his personal leadership role models, he was able to name six. For each one he was able to tell us in great detail why he selected each person, what each did, how he felt about each, and what he learned from them. Here's an abbreviated example about one of his role models, Peter J. Gomes, the Minister of Harvard's Memorial Church:
"I learned from Gomes that people burn out less from a lack of energy than from a lack of a sense of purpose. That insight changed the way I lead at work. I started to engage others in some large, obvious, and therefore long-absent questions, such as, 'Why are we here?' and 'What are we trying to do?' Observing Gomes also taught me that it is possible to honor the past and at the same time to make real the failings that lead us to want a better tomorrow.
"I have found for myself that stories can offer the perspective and meaning that generate energy in others. I try to do this at work. I try to determine the cause that is greater than ourselves and to convey it."
Taylor Bodman considers himself very fortunate to have had many
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Without exemplary role models, all
the training in the world won't stick |
exceptional role models in his career. He found from each rich lessons that enable him to be a better leader. It's absolutely essential to the growth and development of leaders -- or of anyone, for that matter -- that they're exposed to the behaviors they're expected to produce. You can't do what you say if you don't know how, and you can't know how until you can see how it's done. Without exemplary role models, all the training in the world won't stick.
There's an oft-repeated management maxim that says, "What gets rewarded gets done." If this were actually true, then we'd be hard-pressed to find an explanation for why people embrace challenges that don't offer a lot of money, options, perks, power, or prestige. There is absolutely no correlation between courage of convictions and pay for performance.
Just ask Arlene Blum. Arlene earned a doctorate in biophysical chemistry but has spent most of her adult life climbing mountains -- literally and figuratively. She's had more than 300 successful ascents. Her most significant challenge -- and the one for which she is most well-known -- was not the highest mountain she's ever climbed. It was the challenge of leading the first all-woman team up Annapurna I, the tenth highest mountain in the world. We've learned many leadership lessons both from her book, Annapurna: A Woman's Place, and from talking with her.
"The question everyone asks mountain climbers is 'Why?' And when they learn about the lengthy and difficult preparation involved, they ask it even more insistently," says Arlene. "For us, the answer was much more than 'because it is there.' . . . As women, we faced a challenge even greater than the mountain. We had to believe in ourselves enough to make the attempt in spite of social convention and 200 years of climbing history in which women were usually relegated to the sidelines."
In talking about what separates those who make a successful ascent from those who don't, she says, "The real dividing line is passion. As long as you believe what you're doing is meaningful, you can cut through fear and exhaustion and take the next step." It wasn't because Annapurna was there. It was because the climb was meaningful.
Experience, we've learned, is the best leadership teacher, and challenging experiences offer the most opportunities. But it's not about challenge for challenge's sake. It's not about shaking things up or tearing things down just to keep people on their toes or give them a chance to show what they're made of. It's about challenge with meaning and passion. It's about living life on purpose. To create a climate for developing the best leaders we must make the challenge meaningful. As E. L. Deci points out in Why We Do What We Do, there has to be something significant in the challenge itself that makes the struggle worthwhile. When it comes to excellence, it's definitely not "What gets rewarded gets done" but rather "What is rewarding gets done."
Challenge brings with it a much higher degree of risk and uncertainty. That's why it's rich in learning opportunities. It's also why it can be a breeding ground for stress.
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It isn't stress that makes us ill, it's
how we resond to stressful events. |
Many of us associate stress with illness. We've been led to believe that if we experience serious stressful events, we'll become ill. Yet it isn't stress that makes us ill, it's how we respond to stressful events.
There is a clear attitudinal difference between high-stress/high-illness people and high-stress/low-illness people. Salvatore Maddi and Suzanne Kobasa have found in over 30 years of research that this latter group makes three key assumptions about themselves in interaction with the world. First, they feel a strong sense of control, believing that they can beneficially influence the direction and outcome of whatever is going on around them through their own efforts. Lapsing into powerlessness, feeling like a victim of circumstances, and passivity seem like a waste of time to them. Second, they're strong in commitment, believing that they can find something in whatever they're doing that's interesting, important, or worthwhile. They're unlikely to engage in denial or feel disengaged, bored, and empty. Third, they feel strong in challenge, believing that personal improvement and fulfillment come through the continual process of learning from both negative and positive experiences. They feel that it's not only unrealistic but also stultifying to simply expect, or even wish for, easy comfort and security.
To create a climate that fosters the development of leaders, we not only need to set an example and make the challenge meaningful, we also have to promote "psychological hardiness" -- a condition in which stress does not promote sickness but instead promotes success.
People can't lead if they aren't psychologically hardy. No one will follow someone who avoids stressful events and won't take decisive action. However, even if leaders are personally very hardy, they can't enlist and retain others if they don't create an atmosphere that promotes psychological hardiness. People won't remain long with a cause that distresses them. To accept the challenge of change, they need to believe that they can overcome adversity. Leaders must create the conditions that make all that possible.
Take Dick Nettell, for example. As corporate services executive for the Bank of America, Dick greets challenge as if it were his best friend. He's been doing it since he first began his career at the bank. Dick doesn't let circumstance overwhelm him, and he's never been intimidated by higher authority.
When the Bank of America was acquired by NationsBank, creating the new Bank of America, there was a major restructuring, to put it mildly. Two huge organizations merged, and two very different cultures collided. There were sizable layoffs and wholesale changes at the top. Dick was asked to stick around and to help pick up the responsibilities of his former manager.
Early on in the process of this painful transition, Dick's manager at the time came out from bank headquarters (in Charlotte, North Carolina) to San Francisco to address Dick's group and talk about the cuts and all the changes. It was a bit of a risk, but Dick asked her if he could say a few words to the group of about 200 employees assembled in the room. In his familiar straightforward style Dick said, "Let's cut to the chase. David Lynch [the former head of the business unit that had been merged into Dick's part of the organization] built this organization. He was here for 35 years, and he did an outstanding job. We're at a crossroads right now. We can sit here and moan and feel sorry for ourselves because it's not the same old bank. Or we can do what he would want us to do, which is build on the legacy he left behind and really show people what this organization is made of -- its pride, its personal responsibility in delivering excellence. That doesn't change." You could feel the spirits lift and the attitudes shift the day that Dick made those comments.
What Dick did in this situation promoted psychological hardiness in three simple ways. First he was proactive and encouraged others to be proactive -- to take charge of change. He showed them it was within their abilities to do it. Second, he infused the challenge with meaning by invoking the work of his predecessor and values that people shared. Third, he increased commitment by recognizing the abilities of everyone in the group to do it. He appealed to their personal pride and their ability to deliver excellence.
This is the kind of fertile field that makes leadership everyone's business and enables people to grow and develop.
In the thousands of cases we've studied, we've yet to encounter a single example of extraordinary achievement
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Leadership is not a solo act. |
that didn't involve the active participation and support of many people. We've yet to find a single instance in which one talented person -- leader or individual contributor -- accounted for most, let alone 100 percent, of the success. Throughout the years, leaders from all professions, from all economic sectors, and from around the globe continue to tell us, "You can't do it alone." Leadership is not a solo act; it's a team performance.
Turbulence in the marketplace, it turns out, requires more collaboration, not less. The increasing emphasis on networks, business-to-business and peer-to-peer e-commerce, strategic acquisitions, and knowledge work, along with the surging number of global alliances and local partnerships, is testimony to the fact that in a more complex, wired world, the winning strategies will be based on the "we not I" philosophy. Collaboration is a social imperative. Without it people can't get extraordinary things done in organizations.
At the heart of collaboration is trust. It's the central issue in human relationships both within and outside organizations. Without trust you cannot lead. Without trust you cannot get extraordinary things done. Exemplary leaders are devoted to creating a climate of trust based on mutual respect and caring. Individuals who are unable to trust others fail to become leaders, precisely because they can't bear to be dependent on the words and work of others. Their obvious lack of trust in others results in others' lack of trust in them.
Creating a climate of trust is exactly what Jeanne Rosenberger, dean of student life at Santa Clara University, did when she was faced with a very challenging situation on campus. Jeanne found herself the link between the administration and a student group protesting SCU's acceptance of a $50,000 gift from a major government defense contractor. Jeanne needed to find a way to keep the protest from escalating, to ensure everyone's safety, to safeguard the health of the students who were fasting as part of their protest, to use the event as a learning opportunity, and to formulate a win-win outcome.
Jeanne's aim was to create a calm, collaborative setting rather than a confrontational one. This she managed step by step, gaining agreements and trust from both groups along the way. She made sure that a neutral location was used for meetings. She emphasized the importance of face-to-face communication and careful listening. She began each conversation with the students by asking about their health and well-being -- not with an ultimatum. She gained the students' trust by advocating that the university call the local police department or campus safety office only if needed, rather than having a constant police presence or threat of action.
As a result, the protest remained peaceful, the students fasted for four days -- all with no health problems -- and a dialogue began about the development of a gift policy. In addition, after the demonstration, Jeanne made use of the educational opportunities, involving students in reflecting on what they had learned -- about the demonstration, about the university, about corporations, about leadership, and about themselves. For these youthful activists, learning the importance of trust in the resolution of differences is a powerful leadership lesson they will carry with them beyond the grounds of the campus.
Copyright © 2003 by James M. Kouzes and Barry Z. Posner. Reprinted with permission from Leader to Leader, a publication of the Leader to Leader Institute and Jossey-Bass.
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Kouzes, James M., and Posner, Barry Z. "Challenge is the Opportunity for Greatness" Leader to Leader. 28 (Spring 2003): 16-23.
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