This is by far the least important question in leadership.
It’s not even the real question.
The real question – the question behind the question – is: can leadership be developed and cultivated in someone, or should we just try and find the natural leaders and push them to the front of the line?
So why do we ask the other question – the born or made question?
We ask it because it is so unimportant. Because any time we ask the question we begin a great debate about qualities and behaviors of leaders. We dance around and around question behind the question. We are trying to avoid settling on a firm answer because a firm answer has consequences – a firm answer means we have to get working.
If we believe leaders are born than we have to invest in a process to find them. If we believe leaders are made we have to begin to take accountability for developing leaders. Either way, we’re obligated to begin to take action to improve leadership in our world.
So let’s take action.
The answer to the least important question in the world is both – born and made. So let’s stop debating it and start finding those with natural abilities and developing them into great leaders. Let’s also develop those without abilities into better leaders.
It’s an unimportant question with a very important answer.
David Burkus is the editor of LeaderLab. He speaks, consults and serves on the faculty of management at Oral Roberts University’s College of Business.
In a time of unprecedented challenge, leaders don’t just need to lead their companies. They also need to lead themselves. They need strategies for improving their effectiveness while sustaining a sense of professional well-being. Every leader has an internal source of strength and stability. Without care and consideration these renewable resources are seriously at risk.
They need to practice personal leadership.
Defining Personal Leadership
Personal leadership is the leadership of the self. In addition to the visible and interactive work of organizational leadership, personal leadership is the private, introspective part of leadership that takes place within. Personal leadership is an introspective process that requires focus and attention. Given priority, it can be transformational. In fact, Peter Drucker once called it “the only leadership that’s going to matter in the 21st century.”
Putting Personal Leadership into Practice
So how does a leader actually practice personal leadership? It looks like this:
Take time to think. Leaders need to step out of the daily rush and think about what they’re doing and why. Doing so, they will find the clarity and focus they need to get back into the action in the most effective way.
Look inside. Instead of being driven by the demanding urgencies, leaders can discover their inner resources – their strengths, their values, and their aspirations.
Look for ways to align and integrate your life. We are who we are wherever we are. The closer leaders can tie their true selves to their leadership roles, the happier and healthier they will be – on all fronts.
The economic and business environment may be out of our control. Leaders’ ability to thrive within this environment, on the other hand, is very much in their own hands. Personal leadership gives leaders a way to fill themselves up with the motivation that will help them thrive again.
Joelle K. Jay, Ph. D., MCC, is an executive coach, speaker and author specializing in leadership development and executive education in Fortune 500 companies. She is the author of The Inner Edge: The 10 Practices of Personal Leadership. For a Free Executive Summary of The Inner Edge, go towww.JoelleKJay.com.
Marcus Buckingham is a soloist in the strengths movement choir. He has been a mouthpiece for the idea since seemingly the very beginning. Marcus is a gifted communicator with a talent for understanding the need for rigorous research. Which is why when he finally decided to create a market a self-assessment, StandOut, it should peak everyone’s interest. I’ll admit, I was actually a little confused at why Marcus had decided to create an assessment – I am a big fan of Go Put Your Strengths to Work and the accompanying Trombone Player Wanted film series. Both of these works rest on the idea that taking a test isn’t as useful as studying yourself at work.
The book itself is a quick read, meant to introduce you to the test, have you take it, and then help you analyze your results. It’s how the test itself is structured that is really cool. The entire assessment uses behavior-based questions. Rather than ask you “Do you like ______ or ______ better?” it gives you situations and then asked you have you’d respond. Eventually, it locks in on the pattern behind your hypothetical behaviors – these are your strengths roles. When you complete the test, it generates a report that can be view online or download. The report explains your result and provides tips for how to make an immediate impact and how to craft a long-term strategy based on your position in an organization.
I’m inherently skeptical of self-assessments because the usually just ask you to describe yourself and then re-label your own description – sort of like stealing your watch and then telling you the time. That said, I believe StandOut has the potential to make a real impact in an organization because it deals with how you ACT in the world, not how you THINK you act. I’m especially looking forward to the release of the manager dashboard function, which will allow managers to access a website (or iPad app) that houses the results of their team and provides tips for interactions).
[The following is an excerpt from our latest ebook published through LeaderLab Papers entitled The Portable Guide to Change. If you like the blurb, download the ebook for free. If you don't, download it anyway and then take satisfaction in dragging it to your recycle bin.]
Most people view organizational change the same way they view a clown standing down the street from them.
It may be a positive experience, but we’d rather it be someone else’s positive experience.
Despite our best efforts, the world continues to change and grow. In order to remain competitive, organizations need change alongside their environment. Changing certain parts of an organization are easy, but changing people is hard.
Most people try to avoid the clown.
For over fifty years, organizations have looked for help in leading people through change. They relied on thought leaders and researchers for help making sense of the mental processes people use to understand and cope with their changing roles. These models can help people become more willing and able to embrace change. At any level in the organization, leaders will be involved in leading change.
One element that fosters creativity is the ability to see an issue from multiple angles. When leaders build mechanisms that give them these various perspectives, they are more likely to see creative solutions.
One fascinating example is that of Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln was the surprise winner of a hotly contested primary that included personal attacks and attempted coup d’etats. Once he had secured the nomination, and later the presidency of the United States, Lincoln assembled his cabinet primarily of the very men he quarreled with for the nomination. This “team of rivals” was able to provide a variety of perspectives and create a tension over the solutions that avoided the traditional, yes-man saturated groupthink sessions that marked so many other president’s cabinets.
What is important is for the leader of such diverse rivalries to sustain the right amount of creative friction, taking care to produce the tension needed to refine new ideas and challenge old assumptions while ensuring that the tension doesn’t get overbearing and melt the team. While there was a team of rivals in Lincoln’s cabinet, I suspect it was always certain who that needed leader was.
We tend to think of creatives as artists, musicians and writers. However, Lincoln’s deliberate attempt to leverage tension provided him with a style of creativity he found quite useful in navigating us through an equally tumultuous feud.
David Burkus is the editor of LeaderLab. He speaks, consults and serves on the faculty of management at Oral Roberts University’s College of Business.
