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If you read last issue's article on Heroic Leadership, you may recall the 4 unique values the Jesuits' believed created leadership substance: self-awareness, ingenuity, love, and heroism. In Authentic Leadership, Bill George presents a thesis with striking parallels. George defines authenticity as being yourself; not
blindly George's thesis is that too many CEOs think only in the short term and of the stock price, eventually losing a company's focus in the hurtling pursuit of Wall Street validation. In his model companies need "authentic leadership"; that is leaders able to base their action on fundamental values and with the individuality to create their own path to success rather than following a recipe book. During his 12 years of leadership at medical technology
producer Medtronic, the company's market capitalization soared from
$1.1 billion to $60 billion, averaging 35% growth per year. George
utilizes many examples from this story backdrop in the demonstration
of authentic leadership at work. The strength of his conviction
in his principles can be found in the statement he once publicly
made that shareholders come third after customers and employees. |
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The author maintains that authentic leaders demonstrate five qualities:
Leaders with these qualities are able to tap the courage required to stand their ground in the face of external forces trying to drive them off course. They are able to foster the innovations that come from the ideas of motivated employees and ensure the growth of their organization. Understanding Purpose According to the author, to become a leader it is essential that you first answer the question "Leadership for what purpose?" because if you lack purpose and direction why should anyone want to follow you? And to find purpose, you must first understand yourself, your passions and your underlying motivations. You then must seek an organization that offers a fit between the organization's purpose and your own.
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Leaders are defined by their values and their character. The values define their holder's moral compass and are shaped by personal beliefs and developed through study, introspection and consultation with others. And although the development of fundamental values is crucial, integrity is the one value that is required in every authentic leader. If you cannot exercise complete integrity in your interaction, no one can trust you and if they cannot trust you, why would they follow you? Leading with Heart In today's information based economy successful company's must engage the minds of their employees but the most successful companies go one step further and engage their hearts through a sense of purpose. When employees believe their work has a deeper purpose, their results will vastly exceed those who use only their minds and bodies and this becomes a competitive advantage. Establishing Enduring Relationships According to George the capacity to develop close and enduring relationships enables the authentic leader to connect deeply with his or her employees and realize from them a deeper commitment to their work and greater loyalty to the company. Demonstrating Self-Discipline Without self-discipline you cannot gain the respect of your followers. The authentic leader has the self-discipline to demonstrate his or her values through their actions and when they fall short are able to admit their mistakes. Relevance to the Holy Grail George also addresses how these qualities of the authentic leader are vital to the holy grail of all companies - sustainable growth.To accomplish it, leaders must be able order to plot a course through a minefield of missteps defined by what George terms the "seven deadly sins" growth companies succumb to:
The author then goes on to look at overcoming obstacles, dealing with ethical dilemmas and fostering innovation. Authentic Leadership is an interesting and easy read and the wide range of examples George provides does a good job of putting his theory in context. —————— |
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following what most of the literature on leadership says or what
the experts in corporate America teach or what leadership styles
or characteristics are currently in vogue. 
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In "Driven: How Human Nature Shapes Our Choices",
Harvard Business School professors Paul Lawrence and Nitin Nohria,
postulate that human behaviour is motivated by a small set of
innate, subconscious, brain-based drives. Their theory is that
human motives begin as subconscious drives that are only later
manifested as conscious emotions and influenced by rational calculations. It's no secret that in today's information economy, the behaviour of a company's employees is a major factor in achieving competitive advantage. And it is for this reason that the theories in Driven deserve attention from today's business leaders. Challenging Traditional Management Science The authors challenge one of the time-honoured assumptions of economics: that people are rational maximizers of their own self interest. At the turn of the century, Fredrick Winslow Watson developed a set of tools to promote consistency and efficiency in controlling individual's behaviour and compelling employees to comply with management dictates. Traditional management science, which is rooted in Taylor's time and motion studies, encourages a preoccupation with allocating resources, creating economic incentives and rewards, monitoring and measuring performance and manipulating organizational structures to set lines of authority. However, any experienced business manager can recite plenty of examples where the behaviour of individuals flies directly in the face of Watson's premise. The theories in Driven provide a new perspective that help explain these incongruities and can help leaders and managers address behavioural issues in their organizations. Four primary Drives Lawrence and Nohria conclude that Darwinian evolution has established four primary drives in the human brain:
The Drive to Acquire (D1) D1 is defined as the drive to seek, take, control and retain objects and personal experiences that humans value, in terms of both 'regular' and 'positional' goods. Regular goods include material objects such as food, clothes and housing as well as pleasurable experiences such as eating, drinking and sex. Positional goods are goods that confer status or recognition in a social hierarchy. Although a given individual object can be both, the distinction between these two classes is important because people are driven to acquire both material and positional goods and neither is entirely reducible to the other. Out of this drive, the authors contend, come two of the most powerful human emotions - ambition and envy. Ambition is the positive manifestation of this drive and envy the negative. Many people believe that the atrocities humans commit on each other are evidence of the existence of an innate aggressive drive in humans. The authors believe it is more accurate to describe aggressive action as only one of several means to the end of acquisition. |
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A fundamental difference between the drive to bond and the drive to acquire is that D2 can only be fulfilled with another human who is acting voluntarily. The bond must have some degree of mutual commitment. In everyday life, bonding means sticking together. It is important to note that the drives to acquire and to bond can come into clear cut conflict with each other and place individuals in real dilemmas because they have two clear cut drives tugging in different directions. (For example, do you go against your group for a substantial monetary reward?) However, in other situations the two drives can work together to complement each other such as in the performance of teams. The Drive to Learn (D3) The drive to learn is defined as the drive to satisfy curiosity, comprehend, believe, and develop understandings of environment and oneself. It is expressed in consciousness by an emotion labeled variously as inquisitiveness, curiosity and wonder. The drive is satisfied by a feeling of understanding, a feeling that things make sense. It pushes humans to collect information, examine their environment, make observations and develop ideas and theories. The theories of the self and the environment that the mind builds up become important in determining the response to the drives to acquire, bond and defend. From an organizational perspective, the drive to learn and make sense of one's environment can be seen in the unstoppable rumour mill that exists in any organization. And any experienced manager will be able to recall instances where territorial/silo behaviour has resulted as a consequence of the theories people have built up about their environment. The Drive to Defend (D4) Lawrence and Nohria hypothesize that humans have an innate drive to defend themselves and their valued accomplishments whenever they perceive them to be endangered. The fundamental emotion manifested by this drive is alarm which in turn triggers fear or anger. This drive is reactive whereas the other three drives are always proactive in the sense that they activate searching behaviour, the seeking of some desired object, experience or condition. Interaction Between the Drives The authors maintain that a significant number of individual behaviours and institutional responses derive from the single drive to defend in interaction with the other three major drives. In conjunction with the drive to acquire, in an organizational setting, individuals will react to a threat of loss of resources and status. If you add in the drive to bond, you'll find individuals assuming defensive behaviour as a response to a threat of a loss of resources or status not only to themselves but also to their group. Combine the drive to defend with the drive to learn, and you'll find people reacting to a threat to their belief systems. And of course, if you combine the drive to bond with these two, the result will be a group's defensive response to a perceived threat to the group's belief's or positions. Lawrence and Nohria use historical case studies to show that successful organizations are those that give their employees opportunities to fulfill all of these drives, while those that fulfill only the drive to acquire are ultimately less stable. They provide examples of both types of organizations and Driven is a worthwhile read for any leader trying to mould the behaviour of his or her employees. —————— |
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©Copyright 2004
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