What Is Leadership?

I took the cover photo while strolling through The Woodlands with my son during the holiday. For no particular reason, I visualize the photo as a reflection of a typical modern day organization. You see loose structure with some chaos; you see teams along with individual action; you see most eager to take actions other than a few in the back who do not seem to care; you see diversity but somewhat unsure about inclusion; you see one, likely still young and fearless, who are willing to venture out and test the water with many watching on the sideline. One thing less obvious is who are the leaders in the photo.

Being a leader nowadays is no longer reserved for those with titles. Instead, everyone in the business world today is expected to be a leader and called upon to stand up and take a leadership role, no matter the experience. This means that we need to train everyone around us to have a framework to develop the critical thinking skills in order for them to grow into leaders. The biggest challenge for many in real life is being stuck in the middle of how leadership should be done and how leaders should behave. There seems to be proliferation of leadership books and trainings. Yet, traditional methods used to train leaders have not always kept pace with the monumental changes taking place in the world including finding the right balance on how to keep the new generations of employees constantly motivated, inspired and performing at their best.?Many of the experiences historically foster management rather than leadership skills. In addition, traditional leadership studies tend to focus on the leaders themselves but there is an increasing recognition that leaders are shaped by specific situations and external conditions. Nevertheless, there seems to be an increasing recognition that there is no definitive style, characteristic, or personality trait of great leaders, especially in the context of today’s dynamic business environment.

Leadership obviously means different things to different people. As a result, it is always a struggle to personalize leadership and to translate leadership into decision making and action. To run the risk of adding to the clutter of leadership lessons, here are some reflections on leadership I would like to share from three different dimensions: self-awareness, leading others, and decision making.

Leadership is About Self-Awareness not Self Confidence

Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu once said, “He who knows others is wise. He who knows himself is enlightened.” It goes without saying that the foundation of leadership is your character including integrity, honesty, perseverance, and authenticity. However, leadership is also a combination of both character and competence. Many intuitively assume self confidence is important for being a leader, but self-awareness is actually a more essential competence to have. Self-awareness makes one self-confident but the reverse is typically not true. People with high self-awareness understand where they are headed and what makes them motivated. By knowing their strengths and weakness, values and aspirations, and how they affect actions and the actions of others, they are likely be able to make better decisions and ultimately lead others.

First of all, self awareness includes the identification of ones strengths and leverage the strengths. Very often, the strengths are developed and accumulated through experiences and setbacks. We often undervalue what we inherently do well because we tend to assume that things that are easy for us will be easy for others. As a result, knowing ones strength is not always easy but it is important to reflect on the context in which you thrive. Identify the elements where you flourish. Are you better at starting something new or improving something existing? Do you thrive in a prescriptive environment with clearly defined tasks or do you prefer ambiguity and having the latitude to figure it out on your own? Are you generally good at delegating to others or prefer more to be part of the action?

Secondly, leaders need to have conscious reflection of their own weakness which often manifested as unconscious biases. This is most challenging because solicitation of honest feedbacks on our biases and weakness, however transformational they could be, is not easy. When it comes to our own weakness, we tend to have blind spots. Willingness to look at ourselves through others’ eyes would help us glean invaluable insight into how our emotions, communication style affect other people. It is especially important in today’s global economy facing very diverse cultures and varied business environment. If you are surrounded by others who share your perspectives, your career paths, and your outside interests, then it’s important to understand how your bias manifests with your teams and your leadership styles. Inclusive leaders need to maintain an objective and healthy perspective by tapping a wide range of different viewpoints. Informal network is a powerful advantage for many who share the same perspectives, same interests, and same cultural background. Inclusive leaders needs to be vigilant about not only how the decisions are made but also who gets heard and who gets excluded from the informal discussion, especially in the increasingly virtual business world with people working in remote locations including many on the other side of the world. We are human, and we all have natural biases. Very often, having an open mind, stepping back and challenging the basic assumptions are warranted and necessary.?

Sometimes our strength can become weakness. For examples, experience can lead to a false sense of confidence about our performance, it can also make us overconfident about our level of self-knowledge. Knowing our strengths also offers us a better understanding of how to deal with our weaknesses and helps us gain the confidence we need to address them.

In addition,?self awareness also includes knowing how we are being perceived by others. Regardless whether or not the perception accurately reflects our true identity, the perception can and will affect ones effectiveness in the organization. People who know how others see them are more skilled at showing empathy and taking others’ perspectives into their decision making.

In the end, personal leadership development is often a self discovery process. Self-awareness is not about diagnosing and treating our fears of inadequacy, but how to leverage our strengths and develop our own personal expression of leadership. The more we learn about ourselves, the more confident we are to be leaders.

Leadership is about Leading not Authority

Leadership is about leading by inspiring and enabling others to do their best together to achieve a shared objective, and at the same time to allow others to learn, grow and maximize their potentials.?

To inspire and enable, leaders need to define and create a vision, communicate the purpose, create organization clarity, and foster an environment which enables the team to find the best ways to achieve the objectives.?The vision needs to be something which inspires the team with a common purpose. Many corporate initiatives focus on employee satisfaction or engagement, but there is a big difference between satisfied, engaged, and inspired.?Both employee satisfaction and employee engagement are steps in developing a workforce of loyal, productive, and happy employees. However, employees, especially the new generations of employees, need more. They need to be challenged by a mission and inspired by a purpose. The relentless focus on short term shareholder value, while critically important for all businesses, is not sufficient any more. The 2019 Business Roundtable statement including 181 CEO is a powerful recognition of the seismic shift of the conversation about the role of business being creating values for all stakeholders, not just shareholder as prescribed by Freeman’s shareholder primacy theory as I learned in school two decades ago. Many companies have a deep sense of purpose and mission which inspires employees throughout the organization. IKEA would “create a better everyday life for many people.” Nike would “bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world.” Google to “provide access to the world’s information in one click”. Leaders at all levels need to create visions for their teams or their organizations, such as a vision for creating a whole new business aligned with societal evolving needs, or develop a new product line through a new innovation.

While it is important to focus on the vision, skills, and business objectives, leaders also need to humanize leadership and allow others to learn, grow and maximize potential, leaders need to?focus on lifting others around you up. According to a HBR blog article, “Should Leaders Focus on Results, or on People?”, Matthew Lieberman writes, “our brains have made it difficult to be both socially and analytically focused at the same time.” He explains that there are two separate networks in the brain responsible for each function, and they work like a seesaw. When we are focused on results, we display less caring toward people and interpersonal issues. For long term success in a complex business world, just focus on short term results is not sustainable.?Leaders need to show empathy in order to understand another person’s experience, perspective and feelings. Empathy enables you to know the effect your decisions and actions will have on others. Without empathy, you can’t build a team or nurture a new generation of leaders.?During a crisis such as the current pandemic, employees put even greater importance on the interpersonal skills of their leaders. Leaders need to recognize the vastly different concerns each individual faces. Leaders can help employees to make meaning during traumatic events and provide the cares and empathy for them so that they continue to have the opportunities to flourish and develop into leaders. Leaders create more leaders not followers. Otherwise, it may work for a while, but it is doomed to fail in the long run. In the end, leadership is not an self-entitlement but an obligation to others.

Leadership is Contextual not Universal

The world is changing faster than ever before and all businesses have to deal with major trends including climate change, digital transformation, cyber security, and globalization of supply chain. With those monumental developments, businesses are expected to be resilient yet adaptive, robust yet agile. The convergence of those trends, plus the current pandemic, just further highlights the needs for organization to reassess assumptions and readiness to deal with emerging uncertainties. Regardless how well your strategic planning process is, there will always be the unexpected events which would throw your plan on the side. The pandemic in 2020 is a perfect illustration. In that context, leadership is less about the leaders themselves, but more about decision making and more as someone who can allow action to happen in a specific situation.

There are different theories about situational leadership with focus on different styles of leadership depending on the team dynamics or business context. The fundamental assumption is that the most effective style of leadership changes from situation to situation. Each theory attempts to provide its own analysis of how leadership can be successful in different situations. To be most effective and successful, a leader must be able to adapt his style and approach to diverse circumstances by assuming that leaders should possess all the necessary skills to perform in different styles.

With the dynamic and fast changing business environment and expectation that everyone being a leader, I believe the key is not to expect leaders to have all the arrows in their quivers but rather to have an open mind and be willing to learn. Regardless of where you are in the world, there is a risk in being ignorant but there is no risk in being humble. People with the right mindset are likely to have better chance to formally or informally access and synthesize new information, connecting with something they had experience with, to develop a new mental framework for making the right decisions. Through those experience, they will be able to gain new insights. Whenever you get an insight so powerful it become a defining principle which gives new perspective for guiding future decisions.

On the other hand, some of leadership traits associated with your past experience might become barriers in the changing dynamic world. Leaders may have to unlearn some of the framework they have based on their past experience in order to avoid costly decisions they have to make during time of change. Continuous improvement can help you thrive in a more predictable market condition but big decisions, when being wrong, could quickly derail your strategy in an unexpected dynamic environment. For example, strategy for US market driven by supply demand may not be applicable in China market either due to government policy or different customer behavior. Risk taking which sounds great in one business context could be detrimental in another scenario. The world of uncertainties requires leaders to recognize that their old mental model may no longer be relevant or effective, and need to continue learning and unlearning in order for them to be effective.

In summary, leadership is contextual and leadership development is personal. We are all unique and different. As a result, each one of us will have to figure out our own personal expression of leadership. We should also recognize that leadership is a journey not a destination. On this journey of leadership growth, we learn many lessons: how to know ourselves better, how to lead effectively, and how to make decisions based on a vision for the future. Everyone’s learning path will be different. With this three-dimensional framework, I fundamentally believe everyone has the potential to lead but the true challenge is for organizations to provide the opportunity and environment for them to develop their own personalized leadership, and for individuals to put in the hard work. After all, Vince Lombardi already told us long time ago: “leaders aren't born, they are made. And they are made just like anything else, through hard work”.

Related Articles

Leadership Moment -River Blindness (10/14/2017)

Empowering Employees for Success (1/28/2019)

Leaders: Myth and Reality (8/30/2019)

(If you find my article informative, please subscribe to my series by clicking the?subscribe?button on the top of the article to be notified of my new articles. Better yet, please join the conversation by leaving a comment or share the post with your network. Thanks and as always I appreciate your feedbacks.)