The service of leadership - one idiosyncracy at a time!

It is indeed quite intuitive to think about the correlation between leadership and parenting. Do you treat all your kids in the same way? Sounds foolish doesn’t it? Just like brothers and sisters are never alike (even if they are twins), no two team members are alike either.

How different are we from each other in that sense? It is actually confounding to think this through, because we often relate personality to factors like upbringing, place of birth, kind of family background, situations faced – essentially from birth. However, we know for sure that kids from the same family can be very different, for which you may give several explanations – like the genes that they took up (from the side of the father or mother).

BTW, science says that siblings only share 50% of DNA. Other differences are explained by the school they go to, people they hang around with, and even their own attempts to be different.?And if you go by Hindu religious texts, the purusha (self) even carries tendencies/character traits from one birth to the other. While memory of past lives disappears, mind and senses are carried on in future births. While it is difficult to establish the right or wrong, I do think that even babies are not blank slates. They start showing varying tendencies a few months after birth, much before social conditioning even begins to play any role.

And how many times would you see the common disagreements between parents and children when it comes to life choices, especially careers. A statement like: “Why wouldn’t you be a lawyer? You come from a family of lawyers!” would be commonly heard in families with different versions. But if the particular child wanted to choose, say a creative field like cooking, what would you say about gene connection with his/her lawyer father? Genetics has a critical role, but it does not explain everything.

Stages of the leader-follower relationship

As he/she grows up, the same child shows various stages of character development from the toddler to pre-school to school and adolescence. In different stages of career, he/she has to be dealt with differently. A very popular model of leadership that goes by the stage of the follower is the situational leadership model.

The first stage in this model is the 'telling stage'. In the initial stages as they start their careers, people have to be told what they do. The new, young employee is not used to professionalism, handling pressure, adapting to various situations etc. He/she may even tend to waver/slacken or fear taking ownership of anything. This is understandable due to the lack of experience, confidence and maturity. At this stage, people will need handholding as well as a firm hand till they get a good grip on their role.

The next stage, which should come after 2-3 years of experience is selling. When the person is relatively skilled at the job, you cannot micromanage or keep trying to exert control, as you will encounter resistance. At this stage, the person may have to be tackled logically and be motivated through some form of incentivization for meeting targets and showing high degree of professionalism.

After the selling stage, or few more years of experience, the employee is just about experienced enough to be a leader in his/her own right. But he/she needs to be comfortable with seeing the larger picture, taking big decisions, managing his/her time and mental states, putting others before himself/herself etc – basically all the traits that it takes to be a great leader. That is when the leader makes the follower ‘participate’ in decision making and help him ease into the role of a leader. This is the participative style of leadership.

And finally comes the stage of delegation, when the leader is ready and confident enough to pass on the mantle to his protégé and make his next move, whatever that may be.

This tells us that if a leader-follower role were to go full cycle (as in the present job market, it often doesn't), the ultimate goal of a leader is to create another one. The same goes for a parent and child. You enforce behaviour first by authority (telling), incentives (selling), involving in family matters (participative) and then leaving them to handle things on their own (adulthood). Fortunately, employees often leave organisations, but children do not select new parents.

Types of followers

At the same age or experience level, people differ vastly in their personality traits and response to situations. This is why empathy plays a very important role in the evolution of the leader-follower relationship. You have to be sensitive to what unique personality traits your people are showing, which will allow you to adapt your leadership style to each of them.

Here I will take up the Kelley model of followership first, which classifies followers into five types based on two parameters – engagement and critical thinking:

Exemplary followership: High in active engagement and independent critical thinking. They think for themselves and are therefore willing to challenge leaders by providing alternative solutions if they disagree with the leader. They will stand behind organizational goals and leader decisions that synergise with their beliefs. Interestingly, they also will tend to take up responsibilities “beyond their minimum job requirements and exert considerable effort to accomplish goals”. They also work well with others.

Conformist followership: High in active engagement but dependent uncritical thinkers These are the “yes people”, the very active doers who will unquestioningly follow leader directions.

Passive followership: Low in active engagement and dependent uncritical thinkers, also called sheep. They will follow the leader without question, but need constant direction. After completing a project, they will wait for the next order.

Alienated followership: Highly independent critical thinkers but are low in engagement. They have the tendency to think for themselves. However, they tend to be negative, critical skeptics rather than proactively looking to support the leader and even provide solutions that work. Opposition to management is something they are not just prone to. I would say, from my experience, that they wear this kind of opposition as a badge of pride.

Pragmatist followership: Moderate engagement and moderate critical thinking. They are not committed, and will wait and watch to note the progress before they take action. They tend to be status quo dependent, and will only act after the crisis has passed (Survivors).?

You can sense how your leadership style will adapt according to your follower. Now if you are looking for your next leader, I would be tempted to guess that you will be looking in the right quadrants. A 'Yes man' may be appealing to the current leader, but he/she lacks independent thinking. He/she may be the next consensus CEO, for a founder who wants to continue to lead from behind the lines. I am sure you would have seen such examples!

An exemplary follower, on the other hand, has all the traits of being a future leader, but the present one must have the maturity to deal with his/her critical thought process. Moreover, neither should be excessively stubborn, despite the tendency to be. They may need to spend a lot of time engaging with each other to align their views so that the organisation may gain from the experience of both.

Survivors, on the other hand are just waiting to 'not be noticed'! To expect them to independently take a call on anything is foolishness, and they should be made to work closely with either the exemplary follower or Yes man. The sheep have to be constantly monitored and given work with clear directions. When they are of your radar, you may well presume they are on a break.

The alienated follower, finally seems a difficult one to handle. Being high on critical thinking and yet being negative, they have the tendency to influence people the wrong way, particularly the 'sheep' and the 'survivors'. A possible approach could be to give them responsibilities that make use of their best talents, but keep their work more individual rather than team oriented. Or perhaps, putting them in charge of a team and delivering a project successfully may change them for good!

As we close, I would argue, however, that we may tend to display all the above characteristics in some degree through our careers. When you are caught up in a job that does not synch with your skillsets or passion, you may fall in the left quadrant. Or you will eventually move from the left to the right over the course of your career. When you are closing in on the leadership position, you will be a mix of a 'Yes Man' and an 'Exemplary Follower'. Food for thought?