THE REAL LEADERSHIP GAP - Motivation and idea
1. WHAT IS THE SITUATION?
Leadership is much more than a fancy, yet often misunderstood, word in organizational sciences. It is essentially the everyday practice of responsibility and knowledge. It means caring for the consequences of individual and collective actions, and knowing what you’re doing instead of just randomly throwing deeds in good (or bad) hope. Leadership is needed, as without it, the world is a reckless playground where every day is Groundhog Day.
As a consequence, leadership as an institution has huge potential not only in the business world, but in any context where one or more people take action. Looking around at a societal and economical system that can no longer hold its promises, it is apparent that the world needs more and better leadership to make more sense. The good news is: It is filled with people wanting to be leaders, and schools, universities and companies alike are addressing this need with leadership training of various kinds.
However, it is becoming increasingly clear that the current leadership paradigm is not helping us get where we need to be: In a more civil world, where egos no longer rule over common sense, and in a more humane global economy, where work and efforts are incentivized sensibly and no human destinies are sacrificed at the altar of the never-ending greed of those who have too much to feel it. Evidence for this is not hard to find: Events of the 2008 financial crisis tell one sad story of leadership in the financial industry, while reactions to it in various other fields such as politics, the legal system and public administration convey a message of a broader lack of real leadership in the world.
As a consequence, leadership as an institution has huge potential not only in the business world, but in any context where one or more people take action. Looking around at a societal and economical system that can no longer hold its promises, it is apparent that the world needs more and better leadership to make more sense. The good news is: It is filled with people wanting to be leaders, and schools, universities and companies alike are addressing this need with leadership training of various kinds.
However, it is becoming increasingly clear that the current leadership paradigm is not helping us get where we need to be: In a more civil world, where egos no longer rule over common sense, and in a more humane global economy, where work and efforts are incentivized sensibly and no human destinies are sacrificed at the altar of the never-ending greed of those who have too much to feel it. Evidence for this is not hard to find: Events of the 2008 financial crisis tell one sad story of leadership in the financial industry, while reactions to it in various other fields such as politics, the legal system and public administration convey a message of a broader lack of real leadership in the world.
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To get to a leadership paradigm that does not lead the human kind to devastate itself (or at least all human well-being), we need to start to understand what is wrong with leadership today. My thesis is: As a society, we are not good at incentivizing leadership that combines the ability to make things happen in the society and spiritual maturity. At the same time, it is virtually impossible to be able to come up with truly wise solutions to tough situations if you are lacking in one of these areas.
Let's look at our current leadership pool in a simple matrix organized by its will and skill to 1) get things done in our society, and 2) grow spiritually. The project calls it:
Let's look at our current leadership pool in a simple matrix organized by its will and skill to 1) get things done in our society, and 2) grow spiritually. The project calls it:
THE WILL & SKILL FRAMEWORK
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Looking at the picture, we can say a word or two about the current situation. In short, things are well on the Y-axis, but not on the X-axis. The majority of our society’s leaders are (relatively) good at getting things done (as that is how we judge them and hence incentivize their reaching of leadership roles), whereas spiritual growth is a luxury item few have even started to explore. The current leaders are simply not measured in this, and advancement on the X-axis is not expected from them.
The reason why we appreciate speed over direction is that the former is much easier to optimise than the latter. Determining how to do is not easy, but much more straight-forward: We can rely on examples from other contexts (e.g. the past, other organisations, other geographies) from doing the same thing, and we have ample norms on measures of efficiency and effectiveness. Determining what to do requires being able to make a decision without relying on any dogma: There are no handy rules of right-or-wrong textbooks to help us on the X-axis. The complicating truth is: Dogma cannot lead us to rise above the shortcomings of mankind. Individual, situation-specific use of intelligence, judgment and spiritual maturity is needed in every relevant "what" decision.
It is important to note that the message is not that the Y-axis is not needed. It is, indeed, in a very big way (and type A leadership is no more useful or noble than type C). The message is: The Y-axis is overemphasised, whereas the X-axis remains undervalued and under-measured while being equally important, real, and relevant.
The reason why we appreciate speed over direction is that the former is much easier to optimise than the latter. Determining how to do is not easy, but much more straight-forward: We can rely on examples from other contexts (e.g. the past, other organisations, other geographies) from doing the same thing, and we have ample norms on measures of efficiency and effectiveness. Determining what to do requires being able to make a decision without relying on any dogma: There are no handy rules of right-or-wrong textbooks to help us on the X-axis. The complicating truth is: Dogma cannot lead us to rise above the shortcomings of mankind. Individual, situation-specific use of intelligence, judgment and spiritual maturity is needed in every relevant "what" decision.
It is important to note that the message is not that the Y-axis is not needed. It is, indeed, in a very big way (and type A leadership is no more useful or noble than type C). The message is: The Y-axis is overemphasised, whereas the X-axis remains undervalued and under-measured while being equally important, real, and relevant.
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2. WHY IS THIS A PROBLEM?
The fact that the majority of today’s leaders are “high-performing spiritual babies” is a problem for four reasons:
In short, the current leadership paradigm does not encourage rising above the shortcomings well known in the history of mankind: Difficulties in genuinely respecting and understanding other human beings, lack of courage, lack of integrity, and above all – laziness to use our brains to solve the real problems of chronic deficiency of love and acceptance.
Why is this so, then: Why are our current leaders not particularly advanced on the X axis? This is largely due to the fact that in the system as we have it today, achievement in society and spiritual growth are often seen as two alternative ends of the same dimension (which they are not). This illusion holds that advancement on one axis actually discourages advancement on the other.
- Fear and egos become the real leaders: If we continue to let the "Performance and drive" dimension dominate our leadership culture, then we accept that our organisations are mainly led out of fear. It is the fear of not being good enough (ultimately the chronic deficiency of love and acceptance which unfortunately cannot be fixed by any amount of achievement or status...), which is compensated by an overly inflated ego. Both elements fundamentally suck as leaders: fear does whatever is easiest and least scary, and ego does whatever makes it look big right now right here.
- We cannot grow in crises: If our leaders only master the "how" and don't really have a clue about the "what", a sudden or gradual change in the operational environment of an organisation can mean pretty ugly things. For example, if the world does not need VCRs any more, it doesn't really matter how efficiently you are able to produce them. Or, maybe a less simplistic example: If you are a politician being assigned to solve your nation's budget deficit but are unable to let go of your own ego (and fear of not being re-elected), you are likely to make some suboptimal decisions (at the very least: ones that optimize the short-term, not the long-term interest of your country).
- We waste the best leadership potential: If we continue to incentivize and define leadership as we do today, we lose a substantial amount of the real leadership potential as talented young people who have managed to challenge themselves on both axes scatter away from, and/or lose interest in, leadership positions. This happens when they realize they don't sincerely buy into the logic of achievement and hierarchy of their organizations. It could also be that they cannot find anyone to look up to in their organization, as their superiors might be spiritual babies and driven mostly out of desire to be liked and/or get promoted. This does not drive out everyone, as some are powerful/lucky/persistent enough to find a path through the jungle they want to change, but a great amount of the potential nonetheless – which is admittedly a societal, economical and humane loss.
- We also lose money (or the material well-being it is supposed to represent): This is not just “soft stuff". Anyone who ignores it as such will have a hard time ahead of them, as the capitalistic system as we know it today is going through some major changes. My bold claim is that in 5-15 years, there will simply be no way to make “real” (substantial, sustainable) money in a first-world economy by continuing to recruit spiritual babies as leaders. This is evident in the long term, but we can’t see it because we optimize short-term profit.
In short, the current leadership paradigm does not encourage rising above the shortcomings well known in the history of mankind: Difficulties in genuinely respecting and understanding other human beings, lack of courage, lack of integrity, and above all – laziness to use our brains to solve the real problems of chronic deficiency of love and acceptance.
Why is this so, then: Why are our current leaders not particularly advanced on the X axis? This is largely due to the fact that in the system as we have it today, achievement in society and spiritual growth are often seen as two alternative ends of the same dimension (which they are not). This illusion holds that advancement on one axis actually discourages advancement on the other.
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Since we do not see the link between these seemingly opposite objects of human development, we tend to incentivise the emerging of one dominating axis per person. In plain English, that means that if a person is leaning towards taking the X-axis as their guiding light in the society (e.g. showing great strengths in empathy, caring and listening, and studying to be a nurse to work in an orphanage for severely disabled children), it is rarely expected of them to develop in the Y-axis attributes (e.g. skills in mathematical and logical thinking, assertiveness, taking on more responsibility and positions of power). And vice versa, once someone has shown great business smarts by building up the fastest growing IT company in India, we rarely encourage them to take a breather and think whether they should actually be doing something completely different (requiring them to step out of their comfort zone and develop their X-axis skills) - say, be a nurse.
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Naturally, our position in the skill and will matrix is not stable. We evolve all the time. The project aims at better understanding how and why we actually change our position in the matrix, but the working hypothesis is that in our society, it is not possible to go directly from B to D - i.e., all leaders who reach the "box of really good leadership" visit either "high-performing spiritual baby" or "enlightened hedonist".
Current hypotheses of some of the basic evolution patterns:
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3. WHAT CAN BE DONE?
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This project lies on two fundamental base assumptions on human beings: goodness and capacity to grow. |
People: |
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Okay, now that we've clarified that, let's structure what can be done to shrink the Real Leadership Gap. To save the human kind from devastating itself via seriously undermining our potential of real leadership, we need to:
Quite simply, there are 3 shifts that can bring us closer to reaching our real leadership potential:
- Understand where we need to be compared to where we are (what are the most impactful and relevant "shifts" in the Skill & Will framework)
- Figure out how to get there (how the most impactful and relevant shifts can be enabled and encouraged)
Quite simply, there are 3 shifts that can bring us closer to reaching our real leadership potential:
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Out of these, the project believes #2 and #3 have the most potential in making practical improvement happen. #2 demands a real, gradual and tangible transformation in our educations systems. #3 needs to be approached via the existing businesses, public sector organisations, NGOs, and other real-life organisations of today.
The first effort is to find out why and how we incentivize suboptimal leadership. The wisdom for this is not in the author, nor any other individual person alone, but within a wide range of established and up-and-coming leaders in business, public sector, politics, academia and the arts – the “successful” as well as the “failed” ones. That is why a wide range of interviews will be conducted with the intent to gather perspective on the real root causes, implications and possible cures of the real leadership gap.
Unlike many other leader interviews, this project's interviews aim at personal engagement in the question "how did I end up finding my path through the will & skill matrix and which factors played a role in that journey". This means asking the leaders to be filmed for the project to draw their personal story in the will & skill matrix while telling what led them to choose each course of action at each relevant point of their lives. This enables the project to get close to questions not answered before when studying the problem of poor leadership from a more mechanical point of view.
For more about how this project is concretely carried out, see the Project overview.
The first effort is to find out why and how we incentivize suboptimal leadership. The wisdom for this is not in the author, nor any other individual person alone, but within a wide range of established and up-and-coming leaders in business, public sector, politics, academia and the arts – the “successful” as well as the “failed” ones. That is why a wide range of interviews will be conducted with the intent to gather perspective on the real root causes, implications and possible cures of the real leadership gap.
Unlike many other leader interviews, this project's interviews aim at personal engagement in the question "how did I end up finding my path through the will & skill matrix and which factors played a role in that journey". This means asking the leaders to be filmed for the project to draw their personal story in the will & skill matrix while telling what led them to choose each course of action at each relevant point of their lives. This enables the project to get close to questions not answered before when studying the problem of poor leadership from a more mechanical point of view.
For more about how this project is concretely carried out, see the Project overview.
MORE CLARIFICATION TO TERMINOLOGY AND CONTENT
- There is a lot of talk about "leaders" and I'm not sure what kind of leaders we are talking about. Who is a leader?
Something else you're wondering about? Leave a question through the contact page.