WHY DO PEOPLE MISTAKE ACTIVISM FOR LEADERSHIP?

HAVING CROWD BEHIND DOES IT NECCESARILY MAKES YOU A LEADER?

First let’s define both according to Merriam-Webster dictionary

Activism is a doctrine or practice that emphasizes direct vigorous action especially in support of or opposition to one side of a controversial issue. Activism creates activists, be it political, economic, financial, religious etc...

Leadership is the action of leading a group of people or an organization, or the ability to do this. Leadership develops leaders, be it political, economic, financial, religious etc.…

So sure you’re asking yourself who is an activist then?

An executive of leading a private organization once attended one of our leadership workshop and during the session raised his concern about having a team member (junior executive) who was always trying to cause chaos by trying to take other team members off the vision and mission of the firm. How to work with such people? Our head coach smiled because we experience this everywhere in our daily lives no matter where we are and we refer to such individuals in local language (Pidgin English) as OS (over sappi) but we refer to them as rookies. Some our knowledgeable and are great contributors but some are just simple always trying to take the organization off its mission, that’s why we prefer the later rookies as oppose to OS. For example during my graduate school year. When we we’re given teamwork, and a rooky was not present and showed up later and wanted the team members to notice he was around would just disagree with all that was done and try to win others to his point which to him/her was the right way, will not seek to know what was done and why team members decided to proceed in such manner.

This is what we call organizational activism, trying to drag or derail the organization from its main course which is winning. Most organization choose to ignore them as if it was consensus action but a leader you need to offer a listening ear to all problems and seek solutions. Most at times individuals misinterpret activist and rookies for leaders. When we carried out a survey on rookies in organizations from 20 of our clients as our sample data. We found out that character trait portrayed by this rooky character resulted either from Leadership failures or rocky character and sometimes both parties.

Leaders fault include

• Lack of recognition, appreciation and motivation for hard work done by rocky in the organization or lack of recognition from rooky’s previous job or childhood.
• Leaders in organization assume have mastery everything and only their voice must be heard and shift others in the same rank as them from the decision making process.
• Some leaders under look others in organization because of their experience and educational background and believe they’re supreme and thus everyone must be a Yes sir. This also applies for rooky which are also highly graded according to educational system, business world, political, religious etc.…

Rockies fault

•  Some of this rocky individuals lack self-esteem and feel inferior and for that try to hide this by being trouble shooters.  
• Rocky has experience being unappreciated and mistreated thus push anger from past experience to present organization.
• Rocky may have a handicap and believes society treats him like a misfit or feel too sorry for him and he/she demands self-respect thus fight back.
• Rocky has other problems in life either presently or from childhood and pushes it out by expressing it to present organization.  

How do we help such individuals join the team under the stewardship of the leader and become winning team?

First it starts with the leader. Becoming a leader is about influencing others and when a leader can’t do that. He needs more self-reflection on his actions, deed and seek for a counseling (you can’t be you mirror but another person sees you better.

This article is not about leadership finding itself or regaining influence, this will be discussed in coming days. Rather this articles is about aligning rookies to organization success and society as a whole. So let’s stay on track.

Like a rebel child needs special care, so does a rooky. Thus leaders must be sincere, genuine about helping the rooky not just for mere “I tried”.

• Leader should give special attention by first being a sincere listener and hear out the rooky, exercise empathy. Hear out the rooky, exercise empathy (mentioned the twice because this is the most crucial and essential) by taking time to always understand this individuals, talking with them will help them pour out their crutches and sort out differences.
• Communicate the organizational culture and vision, make sure the buy into it and try to align them with others whom he/she feels comfortable to work with.
• Make sure he/she knows the history or the organization, where it’s going to and how the fit into it as a team player or key player.
• Appreciate their efforts if there are any which need appreciation and also point out their shortcomings because leadership is not just about cherry and chocolates sharing.
• Provide for them counselling service be it a professional counsellor or call upon a close friend and relatives of rocky to talk with the him/her. (Most at times efficient communication depends on the source, proximity affinity and sometimes is always informal which prevails over formal).
• If the individual is highly religious individual seek for religious example according to their holy book which can enable him or her change character, it could be quoting a scripture or simple a religious story. The leader should not try to preacher or claim to know their religion too much because it will rather cause resentment but use it as a tool to elaborate his genuine concern of the rooky to a team player.

After this efforts have been put in place make sure to put in place a measure of rooky improvements by setting performance metrics, seek for feedback and if any loop holes exist make sure to fill the gap. Make sure rooky has someone be it you or someone he can address him/herself too for worries, and if after all this has been done sure some progress will have been made. If no progress or sign of improvement is being made by the rooky, simple path ways but also help the rooky point out his failure, don’t be a bad boss who simple set traps for individual failures, because sooner or later the truth will be out and you will be out too or your organization will simple sink.

Some activist rise to position of leadership and some leaders become activist to justify a course. So being an activist doesn’t necessarily mean you’re a leader. Activist are good at staging shows because of their eloquence and other feasible traits but leading people requires different skill sets far from staging a show, it’s about leading people which means influencing them and it’s also about managing them, it’s a whole journey on its own. Some leaders possess both skills of activism and some don’t and choose to outsource or delegate it. But it’s clear there not the same.  

Activists promote change with neither the authority nor sufficient wisdom to decide matters for a crowd. Leaders are facilitators which coordinate the efforts of people to help them achieve goals without actually controlling them. This can be seen in the Mandela’s transformational pre apartheid movement as an activist and post-apartheid action as a leader bringing both parties as a facilitator which made him to be the world most loved president by all different parties, same goes for Mohammed Gandhi the founding father of the nation India, pre India independence as an activist and post India independence as a leader uniting the divided religious country with several ethnic groups.

Now the question you will surely be asking yourself is that both Mandiba and Gandhi were they not both activist before they became leaders. True they were, but he world remembers them as leaders not activist. Both leaders stated above have a blueprint legacy, was Tata Mandiba to die in prison at Robin Island he would have been mourned but was loved, admire and cherish because leaving Robin Island he united acting like a leader rather than divide as an activist before. As mentioned by Maxwell 21 irrefutable laws of leadership, law 21 on legacy states “A leader lasting value is measured by the succession”, what will remember you for. Success comes when we empower followers to do big things by them. Significance comes when they develop leaders to do great things with them. Thus our leadership will be judged by how we invested in others and how our investment in them help them propel when we’re gone, reason why we mourn TATA, GANHDI and many more. In todays world of nationalism and isolation activism seems to be the new word trending in town but all same activism is a trend thus easy for people to buy into it, and like all trends get outdated. On the contrary leadership is forever and never dies. Tata was the hot guy in town for some time as an activist but it died, but he lives on forever as a leader in our hearts because he became a facilitator shaping, changing minds and uniting races(black and white).

Thus as leaders our role in society is to be facilitators which is influencing positive change.