Have the Qualities of Effective Leadership Fundamentally Changed?
A recent ad for the Harvard Business Review’s newsletter read, “The qualities of the most effective leaders are always changing. Read our latest.”
The marketing geniuses for HBR often use hyperboles to describe their journal’s ability to give you the right answer on leadership. I’m mostly okay with that. But when they make a declarative statement about leadership like the one above, it makes me raise an eyebrow.
The skeptic in me says, “Reeeaaally? Are the QUALITIES always changing?”
No. They are not ALWAYS changing. Other things are changing, but not the qualities of effective leadership.
Hear me out.
The Shift
A change did occur in the qualities of effective leadership when the workforce shifted from predominantly assembly-line work to more knowledge- and service-based work. Douglas McGregor captured this transition in his development of Theory X and Theory Y styles of leadership during the 1950s and 60s.
Since then, a lot has stayed the same:
Leaders tap into an individual’s motivation by creating an environment that fosters a sense of autonomy, mastery, and purpose.
Leaders must be fluent in the languages of business AND psychology.
A leader’s character and integrity set the tone for the organization and form the foundation for trusting relationships.
Leaders must maintain awareness of the dichotomies that determine their team’s success…keeping an eye toward the future with an understanding of the organization’s past, cultivating support from outside as well as within the organization, and exploring new territory while appropriately managing risk, to name a few.
This list is a reminder that leading others is not for the faint of heart. It’s hard work!
And it’s become even harder because one fundamental thing has changed: the degree of complexity that leaders must manage has increased alongside the exponential advances in technology we’ve seen over the last 60 years.
The Good News
Though leaders’ jobs are more mentally and emotionally draining than ever, there are several resources that leaders employ to help manage complexity.
Access to information and learning has enabled skill development anywhere, anytime, for anyone.
Technology platforms organize communication and data to keep us connected to each other and to reality.
Leadership approaches have expanded from a Tell-Teach-Mentor model, which is very dependent (and draining!) on the leader, to include a Coach model of leadership, which transfers ownership and learning from the leader to the coachee.
I would argue that the QUALITIES of leadership have not changed much in the last 60 years. The skill requirements and level of awareness needed have changed in order to keep pace with growing complexity.
What’s a Leader To Do?
We can reduce the overwhelm that complexity imposes by simplifying a few things. Take a Get Back to Basics approach that mirrors the 4 fundamentals above:
Get smart about motivation. Pick up the book Drive, by Dan Pink, and evaluate the environment you’re fostering in terms of autonomy, mastery, and purpose.
Seek a mentor to help you identify gaps in business knowledge. Partner with a coach to identify aspects of your current paradigm that are not in sync with the complexity of your operating environment.
Capture your values, turn them into verbs, and evaluate yourself periodically. Does your behavior match your intent?
Gather feedback (through a formal 360-degree assessment or informal conversation) to understand the degree to which you’re meeting stakeholders’ needs. Develop a plan to address unmet needs that works within your context and personality. (Want help with this? Let me know! I’m happy to share my two decades’ worth of experience with you.)
In a Word: Areté
You don’t need to follow HBR’s advice, or mine for that matter, in order to be an effective leader. HBR’s marketing team is wrong: the qualities of effective leadership are not always changing. Your people, technology, and the environment are always changing, but take comfort in knowing that the qualities of effective leadership have essentially stayed the same.
Commit to your own path of mastery—an ever-evolving and imperfect thing—and remember another piece of Gandhi’s wisdom:
“Our greatest ability as humans is not to change the world, but to change ourselves.”
This is why we, as leaders, walk the path of areté. It is the surest way to change ourselves, and, in so doing, to change the world.