Dr Daniel Goleman: pace-setting leadership lacks the vision

Everyone has a view on what constitutes effective leadership. We often look to sport for examples because it is an arena we mostly understand and usually identify with.

One of the best aspects of analysing team sports is that success is more easy to qualify and quantify – by the number of premierships, for example – than in the corporate boardroom. How many companies, for example, can claim a big rise in share price, or revenue, or profit, but are not rated for leadership? Conversely, how many “great” corporate leaders do you know who are well liked and respected, but run unsuccessful businesses.

Which gets me back to sports – the best player is not always the best leader. The best leader is often not the best player.

Wall Street Journal reporter Sam Walker last month published his book The Captain Class, in which he listed what he regards as the 16 greatest sporting dynasties of all time. Australia’s all-conquering and dual Olympic gold-winning Hockeyroos (1993-2000) are on the list, as is the team’s long-serving captain, WA’s Rechelle Hawkes. The Hockeyroos’ success is part of Australian sporting folklore and Hawkes has rightfully won every accolade on offer for her leadership.

Walker described Hawkes as a Tier One Captain and offered this justification for a player he said was not exceptionally fast, not the leading goal scorer nor the most skilled athlete. Instead, said Walker, Rechelle Hawkes focused on her conditioning and perfecting team-oriented skills.

The fact Hawkes has responded to Walker’s effusive praise by deferring to some of the Hockeyroos’ other senior leaders for ensuring the team’s success is a further example of the so-called “soft skills” successful leaders are increasingly credited with.

Daniel Goleman, the world authority on emotional intelligence (EQ) and special guest at AIM WA’s Signature Leadership Seminar in Perth, gave a fascinating insight into different leadership styles and the increased acceptance that brain power is more than just having a high IQ.

“It’s not how smart you are but how are you smart,” Dr Goleman told the 800-strong audience of Perth business, public service and academic leaders on May 29.

Dr Goleman’s central message is that the level of EQ – learnt over a lifetime - has overtaken IQ – acquired at birth – as the leading determinant of a successful leader.

Referring to academic research featuring 4000 business leaders and their direct reports, Dr Goleman busted some myths about leadership theory, including that the best and brightest is necessarily the best leader.

In fact, Dr Goleman said, the so-called pace-setting leader, who leads from the front and sets very high standards, also highlights failures. This has a negative impact on the workplace climate, in the same way that a command-control leader, who enforces compliance with his or her direction, ends up leading an unsatisfied workforce. And this is not a judgment call on the leader’s corporate strategy – which may be excellent – but their execution of the strategy, which fails to embrace the workforce.

This is not to say that warm and fuzzy is the way to go.

In fact, argues Dr Goleman, though democratic leaders and affiliative leaders have the support of the workforce because they build commitment through collaboration and create harmony in the workplace, it is only a partial positive for workplace climate.

The best leaders based on the amount of positive impact on the workforce, Dr Goleman says, are the visionaries and the coaches.

The visionary leader will provide a long-term direction and vision for the workforce, which demonstrates the leader’s self-awareness and understanding of the importance of embracing and engaging the workforce. The same traits apply to the coaching leader, who realises that developing employees for the long term has the biggest, positive impact on the workforce.

Scottish philosopher Thomas Reid wrote in the 18th century that “it is clearly a literal fact that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link”.

Your pace-setting leader will try to cover for the weakest link or even endeavour to remove and replace it. It happens not just in top-level sport on the weekend but in a corporate office near you.

But the smart leader will identify and understand the weakness, and work collaboratively to strengthen the link and make the overall chain much stronger. It may take time but puts you on the path to winning gold.