Leadership and Mindset

Does a leader need a special mindset to lead?

Gap International consulting firm conducted in-depth interviews with more than 500 global executives to get a sense of a leader's mindset. These interviews revealed that leaders accomplished great things when they envisioned a larger sense of purpose they contribute to. They become more energized and could better motivate followers to keep pushing for results.

Leadership, unlike management, cannot be reduced to a set of skills although many contemporary authors are just doing that (see Labeled leadership). But, while styles of a leader may vary, successful leaders share very similar mindsets. A personality radiating a proper mindset is then a defining factor for an exceptional leadership. Lacking it the leader’s chances of being effective aren't very good. Without a proper mindset a leader could be as well seen as powerful dictator but hardly a well-regarded or accepted person in charge.

The next issue in mindset research is represented by work of Warren Bennis who interviewed great leaders and found out that they all agreed in that leaders are made, not born. But they are made more by themselves than by any external means. This shows that mindset has to be properly attuned.

Pushing hands

What could pushing hands in Tai Chi and leadership have in common?

‘Pushing hands’ or ‘tui shou’ is a two-person training routines in T'ai Chi Ch'uan, one of Chinese martial arts (described in: Tai chi in the leadership world -1. It is a routine where both partners improve sensitivity, psychical and physical abilities.

The exercise comprises of “cooperative” moves of two practitioners, their arms, waist and legs combined are in a circular pattern. During movements each player attempts to be in light contact with the other practitioner’s arms while at the same time remaining in perfect balance. Practitioners are permitted to use their hands to attempt to unbalance the opponent. A practitioner who is pushed or pulled off balance will usually stumbles out of  stable position and has “to reset” the stance to resume the practice. If a balance is lost and the stability could not be immediately regained, a practitioner may be pushed, pulled, thrown or even hit.

In most cases this kind of practice is only a gentle way to ‘compete’ with one another without risk of injury. This “combat” is typically used by beginners who normally exhibit strong egos which should be curbed.  The advanced practitioners know when they’ve lost and what may occur – they have already pasted the threshold of egoism - so they just keep continuing the circular movements even after recognizing ‘the gain’. Pushing hands practice improves relaxation, flexibility, timing, balance, self-control and numerous other qualities. Although there is also a sportier, a more competitive version with much more force used, but we’ll leave it for another story.

Added value of leadership names or labels

In my previous post Labeled leadership I described some name labeled styles of leadership and argued that there should  always be more than one style used when leading. In this post I’d like to summarize my quest of different names, i.e. labels, given to leadership and my point of view why this is happening.

Let me wrap up my thoughts on the subject of ‘leadership naming/labeling’, i.e. different leadership styles that keep up coming in last couple of decades.

To better understand my points, allow me to present some important “ingredients” that remarkable leaders should possess. In previous posts on the topic I've described some examples of different constituents of leadership: Leadership and Charisma, EGO and Leadership?, Leadership and influence, Leadership and emotions, Inspiring others. All these frame the whole plethora of important views on leadership process. I have separately portrayed different “substances” necessary in leadership.

What then is a good leadership? Is it all about different behavior, different styles, or how to name label in front of leadership? Could it be that a good leadership is just one of those qualities that you recognize when you see it, but is so difficult to describe?

Labeled leadership

“A rose by any other name would smell as sweet” (Shakespeare).

Giving names or labels to differentiate leadership styles today is a huge business of how to invent and make up names and buzzwords from what should be part of normal human relationships between leaders and followers.

In my search for different leadership styles I was astounded by the fact that most of the times there is a unification of two important, but different, roles: management and leadership. In my blogs: Leader vs. manager, To manage people, To lead people I have already explained the issue and am not going to repeat it here again.

I am astonished that there are more than 20 different styles for just naming ‘different’ leadership approaches. Of some of them I have written in previous posts (Servant leadership, Authentic leadership, Charismatic Leadership, Transformational Leadership, Participative Leadership, Humble or Agile Leadership so here I’d like just to mention some more “styles” that are floating around: autocratic, coaching, laissez faire, quiet, situational, visionary, transactional.

Well, do we need so many of them?

Leadership and behaviors

This post I dedicate to certain behaviors of a leader that mostly all of us should be familiar with. The greatest challenge lays almost always in how to recognize and distinguish them. We may assert that “ill” manner of behavior creates poor business culture (e.g. Enron, Lehman Bros, etc.) which leads to poor business performance and output. But what kind of a manner is “ill behavior”?  Ever heard of badmouthing colleagues, taking credit for other people’s work, lying about skills and experience or hiding mistakes, cutting corners?

Leaders today talk a lot about loyalty, retention, business values, of empowering employees, changes in compensation structures to gain flexibility in work schedules, of team building etc. as behaviors needed for great performance of employee. This raises a question whether in any relationship the behavior is completely reciprocal? I don’t believe so, because one party always wields more power over the other. The example may be obvious already in US: workers these days are all multitasking and happy to have the job. They are certainly not going to complain if they work 10 to 12 hours per day without being paid for the extra time.

Some of us may have already experienced a so called ‘sleeping management’ that suddenly wakes up and demands to do ‘now’ for a work to be done ‘yesterday’.

Can such behavior bring or increase loyalty and engagement in the workplace? In a positive corporate culture extra work is a signal to hire extra personnel or part timer or maybe improve planning and performance approach.

Storytelling tool in leadership

What is the perfect tool to connect with, inspire or motivate another? If you are trying to sell something, present it, give a speech or you are just the audience, the difference between interesting and boring is storytelling.

Stories are changing the way we think, act, and feel and can capture our imaginations, illustrate our ideas, arouse our passions, and inspire us. If a story is well told it can create an intense, personal connection between the audience, the idea and the teller. Think just how you have been listening to them as a child.

What exactly is a good storytelling - the art of using communication: verbal, tone and also gesture to tell components and metaphors of a story to an audience? Throughout human history stories were the actual building blocks of knowledge and by teaching them we learned to anticipate the possible consequences. Stories formed the foundation for memorizing events, persons or other data and to learn about them. That is why we could say that stories connect us with past, present, and future...

Could this tool be used in a business environment to form the foundations of a different workplace culture where hard facts failed to? Could this tool communicate and connect employees, customers, partners, suppliers, colleagues, and more?

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.