Humble or Agile Leadership

So far I have explored several types of leadership and what constitutes them. This post I dedicate to another two leadership styles that, considering their terms, could not have anything in common.

The first is ‘humble leadership’. In the dictionary humble means ‘having or showing a modest or low estimate of one's own importance.’ Well, hard to imagine a leader that has low estimate of his/her importance and leads well. But let’s see how different sources define it:

• ‘humility means being honest’ - why then do we have two words? 
• a study on ‘humble leadership’ states that “when employees observed altruistic or selfless behavior in their managers … they were more likely to report feeling included in their work teams.” OK, I’m not to repeat again and again that management is not leadership, but would still point out that a leader that has emotions would surely have the same results. It is not about humbleness but emotions –Goleman would probably agree.
• another research found out ‘that managers who exhibit traits of humility—such as seeking feedback and focusing on the needs of others—resulted in better employee engagement and job performance.’ 
• Feedback is definitively not correlated with humility but rather with empathy and professionalism. 
• the important attributes that a ‘humble leader’ has to have are: engage in dialogue, not debates; admit mistakes; embrace uncertainty and accept ambiguity; be open to others’ opinions; let people do their jobs; be balanced; secure and recognize. The very same attributes we have already seen in other styles of leadership.

Participative Leadership

When I first encountered the term “participative leadership” I was kind of puzzled. What kind of a leader cannot or does not participate? Is it possible to lead at all without participation?

The search offered some answers on the topic, nevertheless I was amazed that most authors won’t distinguish two important but different roles, managers and leaders: “… as it is within the managers' whim to give or deny control…” or “…in the participative leadership style, effective managers solicit input from subordinates …”.  Participative leadership pertains to leaders, doesn't it? (see: Leader vs. manager).

Another statement “a participative leader, rather than taking autocratic decisions, seeks to involve other people in the process” was pretty much familiar - the same definition was ascribed to charismatic leadership (Charismatic Leadership).

Among many more publications about participative leadership I came across the definition “… the leader turns to the team for input, ideas and observations instead of making all decision on his or her own.”  Well, can a leader really lead without inputs from his team? I sincerely doubt it.

Charismatic Leadership

In my quest of different types of leadership I came across BusinessDictionary.com’s definition of ‘charismatic leader’:

“The guidance provided to an organization by one or more individuals seen as heroic or inspiring and who have therefore been granted the organizational power to make dramatic changes and extract extraordinary performance levels from its staff. For example, a business manager imbued with charismatic leadership could be enlisted to orchestrate a turnaround or launch a new product line.”

Well, my first dilemma within this definition is how one can mix up two different roles, namely business management and leadership (see: Leader vs. manager). Although both are needed in an organization they are not interchangeable. Next, in post “Leadership and Charisma” I wrote that  it is not about the definition of a bad/good leader, it is about how he or she should behave and what she or he should aim for to be the successful one. Therefore, the question is not about charisma but rather about what kind of personality has a good leader?

Lesson of Leadership by Biba

To post on the first day of a new year – a challenge in a way. But what else is a leadership if not that too?

Last year was a great year full of changes, challenges and a big loss too. After eleven years of being with us we lost our dog Biba. We've found her in a shelter and since the first moment she made an inseparable and very significant part of our family accompanying us wherever the path took us. She’s always been a very happy dog ready for any kind of action no matter the time, weather conditions or circumstances.

She taught our kids the responsibility for another living being. Yes, it was her doing to teach and to keep watch of our home and ‘our pack.’ She taught all of us how to be happy each and every day, she taught us what a real compassion means, she was watchful and mindful of all and she took her responsibilities with great care.

Inspiring others

For a leader a crucial tool to lead well is to ‘inspire’. I have already covered a difference between managers and leaders (see post: Leader vs. manager). Both roles are important in any organization and they are mostly not even interchangeable. A manager has plenty  management tools to make people work. What about leader?

In the TED talk on ‘How great leaders inspire action’ Simon Sinek said: “We follow those who lead, not for them, but for ourselves. And it’s those who start with ‘why’ that have the ability to inspire those around them or find others who inspire them”.

How can one inspire others to do what has been previously envisioned?

For sure, a good leader is a good example and he ‘walks the talk’. People are disconnected from working environment when they feel they are not considered or if they are suppressed instead of encouraged and challenged (more in Leadership and “happy” organization post). A leader has to display  his experience but has to appear vulnerable at the same time. You remember how inspired you were in your youth when somebody  told you a story? So, as a leader, why not use the storytelling instead of commanding? All great leaders from the past used it.

Authentic leadership

In the post ‘Servant leadership’ I touched the meaning of added attribute(s) to the word ‘leadership’. Let me continue the subject with another example.

‘Authentic leadership’ puts an important stress on building leader’s legitimacy through honest relationships with followers (their input is appreciated) and is built on the ethical foundation thusly being able to improve individual and team performance (from: Wiki).

Authenticity has been explored throughout history, already in times of Greek philosophers. The ‘Authentic Leadership’ book written by Bill George in 2003 got the highest level of acceptance as part of a modern management science.

Hundred posts

WOW – when I started to write this blog hundred seemed a long time away. I even haven’t had a clue what topics to write about in first few posts. And now, this one reaches the number one hundred!

It took me a year and a half. It was not an easy time. Sometimes the day of posting was approaching and my mind was still not set on a topic, sometimes I had a topic but the thoughts could not be formulated to my satisfaction. There were “technical” problems, too, when I was spending time in places with no internet connection. How to write and not repeat myself too much? Sometimes other engagements took precedence. Other times the stuffiness of writing was taking over. But in all this time a lot of experience was gathered which helped me to overcome all the obstacles and arrive at this point.

At the beginning I set my mind to follow the path of “being different” in approach to leadership: I structured the blog posts in five categories which  are not arbitrary but rather serve the purpose of the content I was writing about.

Yin & Yang in Leadership

Yin and Yang is a brilliant symbol and a superb allegory approach to describe excellence in leadership. Let me point out some of the possible applications already posted in my blogs. In the post “IQ & EQ for Leaders” I've written about the importance of “intelligence and emotional quotients” to the leadership. For a leader it is crucial to find a proper mixture of EQ and IQ substances to achieve correct methods/processes that deliver desired results. It is not enough to possess one or the other, the same as in Yin and Yang concept. Another blog “Virtue – Morality – Ethics and leadership” I claimed that virtue motivates, morals and ethics constrain. The last two represent an ego which could be one of the biggest barriers for people to work together effectively (EGO and Leadership?) in multicultural organizations that are spread around the globe. Again here we have two opposite things in leadership that “conflict” with each other.

But Yin and Yang is much more than mere opposites.

Servant leadership

The servant leadership philosophy and/or a set of leadership practices have been expressed and described in many ways. There is a notion that a servant leadership is an age-old concept, a term loosely used to suggest that a leader’s primary role is to “serve” employees. On the other instances the notion is around the concept of an imaginary inverted pyramid organization in which top executives ‘report’ downward to lower levels.

The author of the term is Robert Greenleaf.  He described it in his paper ‘The Servant as Leader’ (1970): “The servant leader is a servant first … It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve and serve first. Then a conscious choice brings the aspiration to lead …”

Most authors in favor of servant leadership today explain the term as one of the best approaches to leading. They describe it as a method that consists of some activities and qualities a leader should possess or do: he/she values everyone’s contributions; listens; cultivates a culture of trust; understands and empathizes with others; helps people with a life and not only work issues; encourages; thinks and behaves as ‘you’ and not ‘me’; relies on persuasion (seeks to convince others), rather than authority; builds community; focuses primarily on the growth and well-being of people / employees and the communities to which they belong.

Loyalty at work

In working environment have you ever wondered about:

• Does a mutual feeling of trust within the organization increase productivity and commitment to set goals?
• Why can’t you handle an employee that frequently appears to undermine your authority or sabotage your projects?
• What is wrong when you entrust to employee and still, because of him, in team there is no teamwork attitude?

Most of the times the answer to the above questions is about loyalty: the quality of “faithfulness” to you as a leader or your principles, your country, organization, work, your vision, your superiors and subordinates.

Loyalty is a two-way street. Majority understands it as being loyal to those above forgetting those below. But, a leader depends on team. All of them should be committed, productive and reliable so that the entire department, company or country could be successful.

Entrepreneurship and Leadership

Does a leader need to have entrepreneurship knowledge and/or attitude?

In my times I was an entrepreneur as well as a leader. It didn't take much to figure that those two roles have both: differences and similarities which are evident from the behaviors, in the strategies and achievements across a wide range of settings.

Summarizing the differences they fall into some of the categories:

• an entrepreneur builds a vehicle; a leader builds a superhighway on which it travels;
• an entrepreneur gets excited about innovative ideas; a leader creates creative work environments and supports brilliant ways to get things done;
• a leader keeps promises; an entrepreneur is excited by opportunities and may not always consider the time and effort it takes to follow through on their promises;
• a leader values and develops personal relationships at all levels; an entrepreneurs often tends to jeopardize important relationships for an idea to come through;
• an entrepreneur dances with failure; a leader with vision, strategy and policy tries to avoid failures;
• an entrepreneur mostly feels comfortable being alone in his/her mission; a leader attracts and develops the followers to lead.

Leadership: More Intelligence or Emotions

Should a leader use mostly intelligence or should the emotions be primary in dealing with people, decision making…?

Some of the definitions of intelligence say:

• Merriam-Webster: the ability to learn or understand things or to deal with new or difficult situations; the ability to learn or understand or to deal with new or trying situations.
• Dictionary.com: capacity for learning, reasoning, understanding, and similar forms of mental activity; aptitude in grasping truths, relationships, facts, meanings, etc.
• The free dictionary: The capacity to acquire and apply knowledge; capacity for learning, reasoning, and understanding; aptitude in grasping truths, relationships, facts, meanings, etc.

And emotions are defined as:

• Merriam-Webster: a conscious mental reaction (as anger or fear) subjectively experienced as strong feeling usually directed toward a specific object and typically accompanied by physiological and behavioral changes in the body.
• Dictionary.com: any strong agitation of the feelings actuated by experiencing love, hate, fear, etc., and usually accompanied by certain physiological changes, as increased heartbeat or respiration, and often overt manifestation, as crying or shaking.
• The free dictionary: A mental state that arises spontaneously rather than through conscious effort and is often accompanied by physiological changes; a feeling: the emotions of joy, sorrow, reverence, hate, and love.

Leadership attitude

In last two posts I have written about the difference between two, many times interchanged, organizational functions that are necessary to any organization: management (To manage people) and leadership (To lead people). As there is more to both of them, here I’d like to share with you some more of my views on leadership attitudes, the ones that I consider important.

Many of you will agree that leadership is more about who the leader is than what he/she is actually doing. Therefore, we may assume that the attitude is important when influencing, impacting and leading people.

To lead people

Have you heard of many great managers of the past? Probably much less than about great leaders. That is why “to manage” and “to lead” are two distinguishing roles. They are both needed in society and organizations.

The verb “to lead” has a great history down to the philosophical writings from Plato's Republic to Plutarch's Lives in which he explored the question “What qualities distinguish an individual as a leader?” In one of my previous posts “China’s history and culture impacting Leadership – 1” (and following ) I've written about the Far East’ perception on leadership. And what internet has to say about the verb “to lead”?

The Free dictionary 

• To show the way to by going in advance
• To go first as a guide.

MerriamWebster 

• To direct on a course or in a direction
• To guide someone or something along a way.

Dictionary.com 

• To go before or with to show the way; conduct or escort: to lead a group on a cross-country hike
• To take the initiative; begin.

Martial arts solution to conflict

In previous post Leadership and conflict I've explained what conflict is, the types of conflict and how to resolve them as a leader. In this post I would add my additional thoughts on the subject from a different angle of view.

Martial arts are mostly thought of as being violent. At the beginning of each enrolment year there come those that want to fight. They see martial arts as a solution to their way of solving conflicts on streets, in bars or other locations. They feel that they will be “equipped” with better tooling and can turn the outcome of the conflict in their favor.

The main question is: “Is that so?”

There are two ways to answer this question that may mislead the answer to just one direction: the direction in which one is able only to fight back.

Leadership and conflict

Searching for a good definition of a conflict I found on Internet:

• a conflict is a serious disagreement or argument, typically a protracted one,
• a state of mind in which a person experiences a clash of opposing feelings or needs,
• a fight, battle or war, or struggle, especially a prolonged struggle; strife
• a psychic struggle, often unconscious, resulting from the opposition or simultaneous functioning of mutually exclusive impulses, desires, or tendencies,
• a state of opposition between ideas, interests, etc; disagreement or controversy.

Therefore, a conflict is inevitable natural occurrence; it is a part of our experience demonstrating that we all have our respective ideas. Also at workplace a conflict is an integral part of leadership and management process. Definitively, if all conflicts were erased from the workplace, there would be a feeling of unease, because the atmosphere might appear a bit too sterile and unrealistic. In literature there are different types of conflict(s):

• Intrapersonal conflict occurs within an individual,
• Interpersonal conflict refers to a conflict between two individuals,
• Intragroup conflict is a type of conflict that happens among individuals within a team and
• Intergroup conflict takes place when a misunderstanding arises among different teams within an organization.
• Grouping them, literature suggests that at workplace there are (only) two types of conflict: healthy and un-constructive. So, it is said that a healthy conflict can benefit a business and leads to a more innovative, inclusive and learning mind-set around disputes.

Tai chi in the leadership world – 2

In the previous post (Tai chi in the leadership world – 1) I've written about basics and fundamentals of the wide and profound wisdom of Tai Chi. By the end I have indicated some ways to use it in leadership. In this post I would like to expose some essentials of Tai Chi that may be an advantage also in leadership.

To empirically learn so-called internal martial art aspects of Tai Chi one begins with Tui shou or pushing hands (see post: Pushing hands and Virtue). Pushing hands is a distinctive Tai Chi practice very similar to Chi shou (sticking hands) used in Wing Chun (see post: Wing Chun basics and Wing Chun and leadership). The latter is more combative while pushing hands is less aggressive and more oriented to using opponent’s energy. With pushing hands the endurance needed in a contest is developed. The method softens stances, movements, and stiffness of a whole body. You need to be perceptive of your partner. Pushing hands diminish your natural instinct of resisting force with force enabling to correctly respond to the external stimuli: your body simply yields to force and redirects it. It is a Yin and Yang or strong and soft principle that governs pushing hands. With age we tend to become inflexible and our reactions jerky, as often obvious when (if) we slip and plunge to the floor. Kids are still much more natural in the same situations just collapse softly or roll, like usually lucky drunk person.

Pushing hands method is extremely good for a person with a big ego too (see post: Ego and Leadership) as it covers our senses and therefore conceals our reactions. A person should be very relaxed, stable in the proper stance that allows moving back and front, left and right, up and down. All thoughts should be wiped and nothing expected. When opponent’s action comes, you react naturally.

Tai chi in the leadership world -1

In my post Tai Chi Quan Leadership I have given you some historical information and points to be used in leadership process from Tai Chi. In this and the next post I’d like to share with you some of my experiences and knowledge that I have gained by practicing Tai Chi. I will conclude with another set of views on how to transfer them to leadership.

Yoga is known as a still meditation technique as opposed to Tai Chi, which is a moving one. As opposite to India where food and temperatures could allow yoga Tai Chi in China evolved differently but with the deep, profound and meaningful theory.

Many of you think of Tai Chi as an exercise normally practiced by older people. You have probably seen it as such practiced in Chinese parks. It looks so benevolent and an easy practice and is probably a reason why it rarely attracts young people to begin practicing it. Very few people see Tai Chi as a martial art that can be very efficiently used to protect life. Some blame for it can be put on numerous schools where Tai Chi is practiced just as a type of coordinated movements with health improvement in mind. It is a type of Tai Chi learning by practicing form(s) only. Bare hand practice is just one of various aspects of Tai Chi. Still available practice may use sword, saber, spear and staff, up to ball, and ruler. It is also true that some of training with those tools is not worldwide spread as there are very few masters who still know and practice them.

The bare handed Tai Chi is a set of eight hand movements and five leg movements. Hence it is sometimes called the thirteen techniques. The eight fundamental Tai Chi hand movements are: warding off, rolling back, pressing, pushing, spreading, taking, elbowing, and leaning.  The five fundamental leg movements are: moving forward, moving back, moving to the left, moving to the right, and remaining in the center.

Tai Chi and all Chinese martial arts are not something that a person could grab instantaneously. They are meant as a lifelong learning and developing and definitely not something to grasp or understand immediately or even learn in the first hour. It took me more than ten years to do the form alone. I still may need a suggestion or external help.

Learning Leadership from Martial Arts - III

Let me continue this blog miniseries with a leadership methodology.

In one of my previous posts - “The Way” of Leadership I compared two fundamental Chinese philosophies Daoism and Confucianism, the Yin and Yang of Chinese culture. They are well routed in Chinese everyday life, culture, politics and as well in martial arts of which two Wing chun (blog Wing Chun basics 4 Leadership) and Tai Chi (blog Tai Chi Quan Leadership)  I already explained. These philosophies are used as a background to describe ideas on how to use old martial arts wisdom, explained more in previous blog (Learning Leadership from Martial Arts – II), and are now transformed in a leadership.

• Control: We said that only when relaxed a person may possess a self-control. A wise leader, for that matter, creates an atmosphere of clarity, of purpose and a sense of unity. Leader works selflessly and simply allows the team to do what needs be done. Through self-control a leader can influence (control) the outcome and not directly the people.

• Trust: The saying we used in martial arts was about trust in practice. A good leader understands the processes in the team and the fact that leadership does not require the application of force or pressure. There is no room for mistrust either. A remarkable leader trusts his/her people and is consequentially trusted by them. A well led team is not a battlefield of egos, as in teamwork there is no place for individual ‘victories’ or ‘defeats’.
• Stability: Being ‘on the ground’ (well grounded) reflects our terms and our values -- those that a leader expects from subordinates. A respectable leader is focused, firmly and confidently on the ground with his/her decisions and with clear aim in the mind. He does not flip-flop his decisions.
• Adjustment: if you drive yourself too much, this does not produce fruit, if you try to rush into things, this does not lead anywhere. The same is true for leading a team. If the leader is too aggressive, subordinates ‘are suppressed.’ If a manager is too soft, he is not taken seriously. A virtuous leader adjusts correctly to the circumstances and leads by example.

Leadership and influence

Within lots of studies and researches on and about the nature of leaders, many aspects of leadership still remain a secret. There are books and programs that teach how to be a leader. They give a list of what constitutes a leader. With over 200,000 respondents describing 20,000 leaders Zenger, Folkman, and Edinger conducted a four-year study to determine what makes an outstanding leader. The results showed that the ability to ‘inspire and motivate to high performance’ was the single most powerful predictor of being perceived as extraordinary leader. Why the single most? There definitely are other qualities engaged too.
I believe that there is no recipe or checklist on how to be a leader and how to influence others.

Does a leader firstly need to build an effective interaction to exert influence or is he able to influence people without building relationships first? Is it really necessary to influence others? if we are looking at the public media: Is a journalist able to influence society without having a relationship with majority or every one of them?

Have you ever tuned out on a conference or a meeting because the speaker was too wordy? Is your mind wandering when someone doesn’t get to the point? On a lot of business meetings the importance of getting to the point rather sooner than later is often overlooked. The people that do not comply with it cannot command or influence others. Why, for some people, it is easier to get attention? The key ingredients of it are “listening and hearing”. If you don’t stop talking, you have no way of knowing if you’re being heard. From this one would deduct that ‘if you want to have influence, learn to get to the point quickly’. Not necessarily...