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Leadership!
"Everybody" ... "They" ... talk ceaselessly about the need for more effective leaders. The bedrock is obviously first-class leadership training. So we applaud "with-it" B.Schools when they add a leadership elective, or provide an opportunity (note that I did not say "require") students to take an "interpersonal dynamics" course covering the annoying "people stuff."
True. True. True. Nothing but nothing is more important than leadership. And B.Schools ... AND CORPORATIONS ... do a lousy-crappy-pathetic job in teaching it ... even if they do "bother" to try.
BusinessWeek, in its 11.28 cover tribute to Peter Drucker, called him ... "THE MAN WHO INVENTED MANAGEMENT." Maybe he "invented" management—highly unlikely, since British trading companies among others have been doing it brilliantly for about half a millennium—but he sure as heck didn't "invent" leadership. (Nor say much about it, for that matter.)
However, be of cheer. There is good news. Yup, even before Peter Drucker (or Jack Welch) there were/are indeed places that "got it"/"get it." And have gotten it for, well, centuries. Don't go to Cambridge, MA. Or Palo Alto, CA. Instead try these three: Consider, for starters, the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. Founded in 1741. Produced leaders-managers-policy makers for half of earth's nations—including "CEOs" for both sides in many a major conflict. Then there's the USMA/West Point. Since we got started a little later than the Brits, its pedigree goes back merely to 1802. (Washington wanted it, but Congress resisted; Jefferson finally commissioned it.) This W.P.I.School (Warrior Production Institute) has also trained "CEOs" for much of the world. Since the navies of the world historically did their leadership training as shipboard OJT, the USNA/Annapolis dates back only 'til 1845; and though Britain ruled the waves for centuries, it only began dry-land leadership training, at Britannia Royal Naval College/Dartmouth, in 1905.
Leadership "boot camp"? Again, skip Cambridge, MA. Palo Alto, CA. Try the real thing, U.S. Marine Corps boot camp at Parris Island (that's not "Paradise Island"). In a marvelous forthcoming book I recently reviewed, Leading From the Front, authors and former Marine Corps officers Angie Morgan and Courtney Lynch declare, "The Marine Corps believes that all Marines must learn to lead. In order to survive the chaos and uncertainty of war, a Marine is taught how to be decisive, how to take care of others, and how to take responsibility for her actions." Hmmmm, I don't recall those topics being on the formal, or informal, agenda at Stanford's Graduate School of Business during my time. Instead of being "distracted" by the "soft" "people stuff," I was ever so busy taking advanced accounting from a renowned Dean who subsequently went on to "lead" the Audit Committee for Enron's Board of Directors.
Can leadership be "taught"? Oh yes. But as the USMA, USNA, Sandhurst, and Parris Island demonstrate, not as a sideline. Effective leadership in the private sector or the military is an occupation, a preoccupation, a trade, a craft, an obsession ... and must be studied and practiced accordingly. For God's sake, it takes six long years to train a halfway decent graduate engineer in formulaic technical skills. Why should we expect to "pick up" leadership skills "on the side" at a B.School or corporate "university"? Fat damned chance.
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Comments
Interesting position. I remember when I was an undergrad, how my LibArts professors would teach that the corporate leadership style of the previous generation was basically "military." The business boom and advent of the CORPORATION of post-WWII America gave us managers, directors, and executives who learned how to "lead" in the military. Of course, this tyle of leadership was deemed to be wrong and counter-productive. In many ways, this was true, and corporate leadership did change.
Now, military-style leadership is being held up as a model for corporations to emulate. Funny how the pendulum swings, isn't it?
Two points about your leadership post, Tom:
1.) I agree. I have always studied military history as well as the current military climate, and American / British military leadership of the early 21st century may be just the model for corporate management in this business environment.
2.) Too much generalization on your part. I work for a company that goes to great lengths to teach leadership before one is put into that position and afterward. We are given opportunities for formal leadership training and also mentored by others who have "been around the block." It seems to work. Please don't lump all companies together. Unfortunately, the company I work for is not American-owned.
Posted by Mike at December 5, 2005 10:15 AM
Interesting (telling?) that your post on military leadership mentions USMA and USNA, but not USAFA. Was this a deliberate omission based on the slightly different focus of the Academies, or an oversight?
I'm actually very interested in an answer on this (not trying to spark traditional interservice conflict--I'm interested from a "teaching leadership" perspective), as I'm always fascinated by the various takes people have on leadership in the military; if your contention is that USAFA either does not teach leadership or teaches it in a manner which is counterproductive, it would be very interesting and helpful to see your reasoning.
Posted by VPutz at December 5, 2005 10:40 AM
Tom,
Interesting post, particularly in light of your recent mentions of the US Coast Guard and their response to Hurricane Katrina. Reminds me that one of the things Coasties are taught/mentored/exposed to and expected to demonstrate is "trained initiative". Seems like a key part of their "management" style, or part of the USCG's "corporate culture". A useful notion for many companies today?
Semper paratus!
-SPD
Posted by Steve Duprey at December 5, 2005 11:01 AM
VPutz, no disrespect intended. I was limiting myself, per this argument, to institutions that had more or less been around for centuries.
Mike, the great irony of course is that inspired military leadership is the converse of popular notions of military leadership. E.g.: ALL Marines must learn to lead. It's a pretty good idea to salute your boss in the service, but "empowerment, a "soft" leadership attribute, is a life and death issue!
Posted by tom peters at December 5, 2005 11:25 AM
Oh "Royal Military Academy Sandhurst" circa 1741, is so British !! Yes, they do produce some great leaders, and SWC failed the exam for that school of thought !! :)-
yeah again "fat darn chance" - ditto to that. Leaders are leaders, they can only be taught how to horn your skills. Once can't make a follower into a leader. You have it or you dont. Period.
Posted by /pd at December 5, 2005 2:35 PM
I consider myself a leader as a president and C.E.O. of a small company doing $130 Million in sales annually.
Two university friends and I started the company back in 1978 with $100,000 and a dream. We have survived, which is no small feat considering the economic and industry challenges we faced over the years. Today, we are prospering and I know why. The leadership insights I have learned from mentors, allies and the books I've read. One of the best of these books was In Search of Excellence. Thank you Tom.
The three most important lessons about leadership I have learned in the last 27 years are:
Are you a leader? Is anyone following?
To be a leader your people must have confidence in you, but that is not your objective. Your objective as a leader, is to inspire your people to have confidence in themselves.
Leadership is not about getting people to do something they don't want to do. Leadership is about charting a course to a better future and inspiring people to join you in creating it.
Posted by Larry Anderson at December 5, 2005 6:05 PM
I have always believed the best judge of a leader is a follower.
I am intrigued how effective leaders often never see even see themselves as leaders. I got involved in some really inspiring correspondence with Sir Alex Ferguson - Manager of Manchester United Football Club when writing my book and Sir Alex shared with me some views on leadership that were fascinating. One of the most inspiring things he told me was about how he did things 20 years ago that he had forgotten and seemed pretty insignificant to him at the time any yet the people most affected can remember the incident vividly and how he had inspired them. Sir Alex is a very interesting man and one of my greatest Iconic heroes. Sir Alex would be a wonderful person for you to interview Tom. If you have not already read it, please read Sir Alex's book "Managing - My Life."
Sir Alex - No University; No Business School; No MBA; Raised and worked in the Shipyards of Glasgow and yet ….. The most effective leader and manager ever in British Soccer and running for the last 20 years the worlds most profitable and successful Football Club. Tell that to the Academics :-)
By the way I do love academics really … and as an MA Management (Healthcare) I really do not have a ‘downer’ on MBA’s either – there is a place for all of us at the table.
It is just that we must not over complicate; over ‘train’; and thereby institutionalize and try to rationalize leadership that is intuitive.
Posted by Trevor Gay at December 6, 2005 4:38 AM
Dear Tom,
As you are aware, Dr. Richard Farson argues "there are no leaders, there is only leadership" in that "leadership is less the property of a person than the property of a group."
It seems to me leaders at all levels are actually a "lense" that allows groups to see beyond themselves sometimes with outstanding results.
The quality of the lense effects how well the group performs whether the group is a small business organization or an entire populace.
Leaders (as a lense) draw power from the group and have the potential to magnify everyone's personal best ( . . . JFK?, Ronald Reagen?, Oprah.)
Some leaders (functioning as a lense) lack clarity (. . . congress) and some leaders may lack filters that limit the effect of our individual inherent fears and prejudices (. . . Dick Cheney?.) Anyway.
Happy holidays.
Posted by Robert Ballard at December 6, 2005 9:18 AM
Tom, here is my two cents:
First- Leadership is caught not taught. Sorry, 99.999% of the people out there will lead the way they were shown how to lead, not in a class room, not from a book, but on the shop floor, the battle field, the corporate political mudhole, etc. If you have had a great leader to watch-learn from you are in a rare group of people. If you are the rest of us, you have seen leader that have been mislead and aren't even living up to that standard.
Second - Leaders must lead from all dimensions: in front, from behind, from on top, from the bottom up, and the middle out. It is a very rare leader that can do that!! Most find it easier to push people or pull people. I have met none, and seen only a few in history that can be in the middle and still lead the group, the organization, the mission.
I make it a practice to never grip with out offering a solution (hence my eDress):
1. Leadership is something you see done daily, be an observer!! Open your mind and eyes and see how people lead others (watch a bunch of preschoolers on the play yard!!) Sort through the bad leadership, the so-so stuff, and pick out the gems. Don't have one model of leader leading your leadership style!!!
2. Remember that you are leading people not projects, or companies, or causes, or grand missions. People are complex, love/hate, mixed up beings! What worked yesterday, may work today, but don't bet on it. Leadship is more about helping people move themselves to the "goal" than anything else. Creating environments is a big part of the corporate need. I recruite for a living at the moment, I see company environments that I want tell my candidates to run away from, not join up with!! And that environment is set by the leaders, all of them from the corner office to the shop floor.
3. IF leadership is caught from others and is all about other people, it is also about being able to lead yourself. Turn you mind and effort daily to what you are when the lights are off you, and no one is looking. The "you" that even the dearest of friends knows about. That person that looks at you in the mirror. What is worth following the person if people knew the real you??
Thus is my two cents and change.
Greg
Posted by Greg Della-Croce at December 6, 2005 2:11 PM
Greg D-C: I'd never deny that there are doubtless certain dispositions that make one more or less likely to be a good leader. The service academies are among the rare institutions which select based on demonstrated leadership skills--and, yes, they can be apparent by age 18. The same service academies subsequently make an enormous difference in inculcating lessons in applied leadership via their rigorous training. Then, indeed, leader observation is the next critical step--though some are students of their leaders, some not. In my case, my first two bosses (who I call "night" and "day") were enormously influential. These bosses, incidentally, were both Navy combat commanders.
Posted by tom peters at December 6, 2005 2:38 PM
Having taught leadership at the university level, let me that leadership can be taught, but it can't taught without practical experience. Leaders need both an intellectual basis for understanding people and organizational structures. But most of those abstract theoretical systems are irrelevant to the dynamics of most organizations, large or small, for profit or not-for-profit. There is no substitute for practical experience with a seasoned mentor. And even then, the one experience that is hard to duplicate in any training/mentoring experience, is the reality that the course of the organization is on your shoulders. Good posting.
Posted by Ed Brenegar at December 7, 2005 11:12 AM
OK.. now I'm really confused. What is leadership according to you guys?
1) The Israeli Army type "Follow me and leap into the thick of battle"
2) The one on one Sensitive type: let me help you discover yourself and help you understand how and why you should follow a certain (my) path
3) The team building/majority wins kind of leadership of playgrounds and Dutch managers..
I have an example of teaching leadership in India - it's the BBS: the Baniya Business School - an informal management education passed on from father to son where both have limited education
When the child is in high school he sits in the office/shop of his father and observes his father do the deal/run his business. Some kids even learn to count and do basic arithmetic by working the till!
When the kid goes to college/is a little older, he fills in for his father, managing staff etc. There's usually a trusted lieutenant of the father who watches on the kid to make sure he doesn't do anything wrong.
When the kid is older he fills in more and more, and eventually the Son becomes the Father.
I had forgotten about this until I went to a small shop run by an Indian/Afghan family here in the Netherlands, and saw a kid of about 8 years old "sell" me stuff under the watchful/indulgent eye of his father. The kid was good too at the stuff...
Posted by Arun Sadhashivan at December 7, 2005 1:43 PM
Tom: The service academies are, I agree, great training grounds for some types of leadership. It has given/does give us great men and women whose skills are sharpened with reality. I do wonder, however, if they weigh to heavy on the "from the front" leadership. I may be very wrong, but leadership "from the middle" is not really a services way of thinking about leadership. Please correct me, anyone, if you have experiences otherwise.
To lead from the middle takes a 360 degree view of the idea of leadership. I think it flexes more and must know when to pull, push, listen, tell, act, or not act. It can't be like the companies that I hear about and talk to that are still stuck in the "people here never make the same mistake twice, we fire them the first time" mentality (my appolgies to Dr. Asimov for stealing a great management line from his "I Robot" short stories).
The best leader I observed was the one that gave me a bunch of cool small jobs, then gave me a huge one. She let me struggle(and fail!), then trusted me with another big job. I have always loved the idea of "fail faster" that I have read in your books. Try-learn-fail-learn-try. I love it, I wish I saw it more often in leaders.
But the services can't use this model. There is to much at stake for it on the battle field, with CNN watching your every move. There is to much at stake when that failure means you can't learn from it - your dead! Simulations have a big part to play in the colleges today, but they can't teach real life, only life does that. It will hone the "right moves" for an airman or soldier, but the battlefield is still the only real teacher, and it is unforgiving.
The services are great trainers. But I wish there were better trainers for the 360 leadership that I think we need more of!
Posted by Greg Della-Croce at December 7, 2005 1:59 PM
I work at NOLS, the National Outdoor Leadership School. I don't want to be a shill, but I'm so damn proud of what we do that I feel compelled to jump in and point out that one of the ways that the Naval Academy (and NASA and the Interagency Fire Command)teaches leadership and expedition behavior is by recommending a NOLS course that we have custom built for the Academy. Two years ago we offered two USNA courses, last year six, next year we are scheduling ten.Here is an article from the Trident, the USNA student newspaper concerning NOLS. http://www.dcmilitary.com/navy/trident/10_01/features/32764-1.html
Signing off. Before I get thrown off.
Posted by Bruce Palmer at December 7, 2005 2:05 PM
I completely agree with Trevor when he says the best judge of a leader is a follower. There's a brilliant (yet simple) take on leadership which I got from a manifesto at changethis.com - a leader is someone who's been elected; someone who 'leads' without being elected is a dictator by definition.
Our countries are based on this non-negotiable principle and our much derided politicians live and die by it; but our 'leaders' at the office like talking high-mindedly about leadership while ignoring this fundamental principle of leadership. The manifesto looks at leadership from a systems perspective, and it's a very insightful manifesto (see 'why your boss is programmed to be a dictator' at www.changethis.com). Anyone who claims to be a leader should read it.
Posted by AJ Perri at December 9, 2005 11:45 PM