Is leadership really about leading?

When I am approached by managers wanting to become better leaders, I always like to start with a warmup discussion around two simple questions.

• ?How would you define leadership?
• What would you like to achieve from your leadership coaching with me?

The most common responses that I get, which is the reason behind sharing this blog post, revolve around this extremely condensed and generalised idea that leadership is about leading people to achieve the desired vision/outcome, and that coaching will help develop their communication skills to better influence and convince.

I can’t stress enough how developing outstanding communication skills are crucial for any effective and successful leader, however, my focus here is on the misconception about leadership. Many will portray a leader as someone with a strong capability to influence people and take them in the desired, hence emphasising traits such as confidence, charisma and influence, but also implying that leaders thrive only in the presence of followers.

If we take the previous concept of “ leading followers” and flip it to “ leading by following”, not only do we give leadership a new dimension but we also add a new depth to its meaning.

Leading by following relies on a leader knowing their team members and their motivation.

If we take a look at the expectancy theory, it defines motivation as a function of three factors; Expectancy, Instrumentality and Valence (Vroom, 1964).

Expectancy is simply the relation between effort and performance where the relationship depends on the belief that higher effort will lead to greater performance (Yoes and Silverman, 2021). In other words, if someone doesn’t believe that putting in more effort will result in better performance, usually recognised by their leaders, then the chances of them being motivated are extremely low.

Instrumentality describes the relationship between performance and reward (Vroom, 1964), which can be considered the second step after expectancy. This means that even if the expectancy is fulfilled however the employee doesn’t believe that higher performance will be rewarded, then motivation will suffer.

Valence is the relationship between the reward and the value that it carries to the one receiving it, in other words: “the preference of the individual” (Vroom, 1964). Even when the first two factors are fulfilled, motivation will be low if the individual cannot see the value in the reward.

"You get what you reward." John C. Maxwell

Another interesting theory is Herzberg's two-factor theory of motivation, which talks about motivators and demotivators. It draws a clear distinction between the two factors, meaning that eliminating demotivators doesn’t imply an increase in motivation, instead it translates to moving towards a neutral state. When managers try reducing those demotivators, such as providing better equipment for their team, they are effectively reducing dissatisfaction but not working towards motivating their team.

The classic example of a strong motivator is finding meaning and value in the work that we do and the impact that we have, which is where brilliant leaders thrive by nurturing those values and recognising the impact.

In a nutshell, a large portion of leading involves following.

Following your team members starts by knowing their strengths, to use and recognise, and weaknesses to support and develop.

Following them also means knowing their values, preferences and motivators which help you to respect, encourage and reward, respectively. This is a glimpse of what leadership is about, however, it is a good start for creating a highly motivated team, naturally leading to an environment that promotes creativity and encourages new ideas.

Believing in your team and following their ideas reflects important traits in leaders; trust and faith. Having faith in your team and trusting them also means genuinely accepting the possibility of mistakes. When Steve Jobs, co-founder of the brilliantly successful Apple Inc., was asked how he managed to create such a flourishing new company (Maxwell, 2013), he replied:

"We hire great people, and we create an environment where people can make mistakes and grow." Steve Jobs

References

Vroom, V. H. (1964). Work and motivation. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Yoes, M. and Silverman, M. J. (2021) ‘Expectancy Theory of Motivation and Substance Use Treatment: Implications for Music Therapy’, Music Therapy Perspectives, 39(1), pp. 61–68. doi: 10.1093/mtp/miaa019.

Maxwell, J.C., 2013. Be a people person: Effective leadership through effective relationships. David C Cook.

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