Chapter 3: on how the leadership bases you use are likely flawed – and a suggested alternative

Leadership! That oh so precious word summarizing what oh so many people on earth aspire to in their professional life: “being a leader”. If you're anything like me, dear reader, you'll likely abhor hearing that term about as often as you can physically hear it. From self-proclaimed management gurus to overvalued and toxic top executives, up to hundreds of would-be expert authors and all the way to that colleague of yours that speaks and acts as if he were leading one of the Forbes 500: it often seems that the people who talk the most about leadership are some of the people that have the furthest idea of what good leadership means... Which, in itself, is normal, for here is a secret: none of them know what they are talking about, not really anyways.

Here is a simple fact, dear reader: any work- and organisational psychologist worth his salt will quickly tell you leadership is one of the least well-defined and -understood constructs in the whole of work- and organisational psychology. Organisational citizenship behavior, psychological contracts, subclinical psychopathy? All pretty well-defined, useful and pretty thoroughly dissected constructs. “Leadership”...? Well, even in academic psychological circles, the construct remains hard to define, analyze, potentially segment and have any clear and proven usefulness.

So let me quite simply ask you: if people who dedicate their entire lives studying a concept using valid scientific methods aren't quite sure of what they can say on the subject, how on all that is holy would anyone else be able to speak with certainty about it...?

Wait, so what do we effectively know about “leadership”???

Easy there… As you'll read very shortly, it is quite possible that leadership is not even really about “leading”, so steady your horses and clear your mind!

Wait! Wait again… Leadership not about “leading”? Now, I'm all confused...

Perfect, then let's begin!

First, before anything, let us stop with foreplay and go straight for a head shot on the elephant in the middle of the room we are about to enter: validities for leadership research using the ever so classic framework of “transactional” and “transformational” leadership are most definitely on the low end of things. This is not to say that the constructs are entirely useless, but seeing as the base conceptualisations are unclear, the usefulness is naturally also quite restricted.

As an analogy, it would be like a cooking exercise where the ingredients you are given are everything but great. Something “okay” is the very best you'll ever get out of your dish simply due to the quality of your base ingredients – no matter if even the spirit of departed Anthony Bourdain or somehow still alive Gordon Ramsay would guide you the whole way through.

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So, now that we are clear the use of the ever so classic “transactional” and “transformational” leadership is not what it's cracked up to be, where do we go from here? I mean, isn't most talk about leadership today surrounding this “transformational” leadership?

Excellent point! The truth is that the conceptualisation of leadership still has a way to go. Much like in the making of anything, if you are unclear on what is what exactly, you won't make much of anything. Leadership is a construct that is so hard to define. Think of it, dear reader: how would you define leadership…?

Before you answer, remember, you must answer like a psychologist. You must define leadership in such a way that it will be able to differentiate (between non-leadership and leadership, or “good” and “bad” leadership), be observable (so it can be useful and analyzed) and operationable (meaning: you can measure and experiment with it)...

Not so easy, now is it?

The truth of the matter is that “leading” is quite vague a construct, especially when compared to say “management” or “supervision”. Therefore, seeing as there is uncertainty, let me introduce a leadership framework that is way less talked about, that of “servant leadership”. Servant leadership finds its roots in the work of Robert K. Greenleaf, more precisely “The Servant as Leader”, his essay from 1970. The framework of servant leadership essentially comes from a literature study older stories, more precisely, adventurer hero stories and even more precisely, Herman Hesse’s “Journey to the East”.

Journey to the East recounts a mythical journey whereby companions of a given knightly order live through an epic tale of adventures. The central figure of the tale, however, is Leo, the servant of the band of companions. Leo does not ony takes care of chores, but also lifts their spirits and supports their journey. In the story, all goes relatively well for the companions, until someday, Leo disappears. From there on, things take a turn for the worse for the companions, now deprived of their servant. Later in the story, it is in fact revealed that good old Leo, the man-servant, some years later has actually become the leader of said order.

Here, dear reader, lies the basis of servant leadership. For what are the companions without their servant? As it turns out: quite the lost bunch. Who or what is Leo, the simple servant who does their chores and provides all kinds of mental and moral support, in reality…? The leader of the entire companions’ order. The principle of servant leadership is the principle of leading by serving. It is a conceptualization of leadership that focuses on enabling and empowering others for them to perform optimally and – hopefully – achieve their own potential. It closely aligns with some of what so-called leadership gurus of today would like to impress upon the world surrounding them: “as a leader, what you need to do is that you need to inspire, you need to uplift the people who follow you!”. If only they actually truly knew how…

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You’ll no doubt recognize the expression of the man who many people still admire for his “great leadership”, even today over a decade after his death:?

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Now, the man may be quite overrated regarding his leadership skills – and somehow have a tendency to be able to make people magically completely forget he operated Chinese sweatshops in that context – but his now-famous expression has a very good point to it nevertheless. Indeed, why would someone ever hire a specialist to then start telling him/her what he/she should be doing? For if that person is a specialist, you don’t need to tell them what to do, they likely know it better than you do! Much like a Premier League football manager wouldn’t need to tell his star players how to kick a ball or how to shake off an opponent, as a leader in specialized environments you likely don’t need to explain your followers how they need to do what they do best. What they will need the most – as much as the aforementioned Premier League footballers – is inspiration, motivation and someone that takes upon him/her the global coordination of their efforts. Besides that, all they likely need is the adequate tools, space and support to do what they can do best. In other words: they would need a servant leader!

This is where servant leadership shines brightest considering its specific framework for leadership. The foundations of servant leadership are pretty simple and can be (broadly!) summarized by adapting the following 7 priority changes. In a shortened and non-scientific – perhaps somewhat superfluous dissection – servant leadership essentially comes down to:

1.????Honor Others (Before Yourself)

2.????Inspire Vision (Before Setting The Course)

3.????Choose Ethics (Before Profit)

4.????Empower Others (Before Personal Gain)

5.????Privilege People (Before Tasks)

6.????Balance Focus With Flexibility (Before Making Decisions)

7.????Serve With Humility (Before All Else)

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Servant leadership takes your classical vision of “being a leader” and spins it somewhat on its head: “As a leader, I’d first like to know how I can serve you, dear followers, not how you could serve me.”

I am secretly quite convinced it is actually what most of those would-be leadership experts you see pretty much everywhere today are trying to convey during their numerous exposés… Unfortunately for everyone involved, they aren’t work- and organizational psychologists, have a high demand for what they seem to be selling in the general population and also quite some money to make by acting with inappropriate certainty. Therefore, they also have no clue most of them are actually just misinterpreting a conceptualization that has literally!) existed for over 50 years now, while misappropriating the foundational work done by Dr. Greenleaf.

You however, dear reader, will from now on know better. Next time you perhaps get commended for your inspirational approach towards your coworkers and you get asked about Tony Robbins or Simon Sinek or whichever, you’ll reply: “No, I follow the one and the only O.G., Dr. Robert K. Greenleaf.”

See you on the next one, hopefully sooner than last time,

Your technocratic Don Quixote