In my day-to-day work with leaders globally, my conviction that leadership is broken becomes stronger with each new business model that I see. There is no laboratory better than the C-suite for observing the dizzying array of leadership models, and all their inadequacies.
New leadership models emerge almost daily, and there’s a reason for this. One of them is that there are 85,000 post-secondary teachers of business in the US. One of the requirements of a business school professor—I know, I was one—is to conduct research, create leadership models based on their findings and have them published in peer-reviewed academic journals. Do the math—that’s a lot of leadership models. Similarly, consultants and business authors need to do the same thing. The result is a lot of “noise” and not much that is innovative, relevant or new, because the sheer volume of output tends to be repetitive and redundant, and does not add much new that hasn’t already been said by our forbears—such as the great management thinker, Peter Drucker.
Another reason is our tendency to separate work from life as a distinct activity, which of course, it isn’t. Leadership is a holistic endeavor, meaning, many aspects of a person’s character, lifestyle, history, genes, preferences, personality style, IQ and EQ, spirituality, family, social skills, and much more, pour into the outcome we call leadership. And all of these are necessary for us to empathize with, and inspire our employees.
And finally, most of us have been to the programs and have the T-shirt, so there is not much new and many of us have our favorite theories, to which we have chosen to be married for the rest of our lives.
And to cap this all off, few of us need to be led. Instead, we want to be inspired.
A common weakness of leadership theories or models is that they often tend to focus on squeezing as much juice out of people as possible in order to meet corporate objectives.. But there is more to people—and leadership—than just the metrics. We are human beings, not units of production. In my work, especially in my role as a coach to leaders, I use an approach I call, “The Whole Human®”. Before you say, “Well, that’s just another model”, it is and it isn’t. It merely reminds us that when we lead, or when we are teaching or coaching others to be stronger leaders, we must consider the whole human being. When we do, we become inspiring to others, we lift their spirits and, therefore, their performance—not just at work, but in life as a whole.
An inspiring person lives an inspiring life—in total, not just at work.
If your family finds you to be inspiring, then you have all of the necessary attributes to inspire your colleagues at work. Are you inspired in all aspects of your life? If you are (or at least, you are working on it), then you are an inspiring leader.
Thank you Lance for saying what most academics and consultants will not say about leadership models! My criticism as a CEO, consistent with yours, is that most leadership programs are about what you do to or with others to “squeeze more juice” as you say. It is no surprise given in our current economic model that this has happened, and why should those folks criticize what is a big revenue generator for them. Perhaps the criticism is too harsh as many would do something else if that something else was better at teaching leadership and creating leaders. Meanwhile, hardly anyone talks about leadership of self. And that is what I find refreshing about your blogs.
As always, Claude, you speak wisdom! If we are not able to lead ourselves, how can we lead others? It starts there, doesn’t it?
Lance, I love your core leadership lens “THE WHOLE HUMAN”! I have done hundreds of leadership trainings throughout almost every sector of our society and the whole human has been my integrating central message.
As if “the word became flesh”, Gandhi said: “I AM my message.” So may we in our own unique idiosyncratic, hopefully inspiring, ways live and teach the same way.
Ron, I always love your insights. You are so right – so often I see leaders teaching their teams concepts and philosophies that they do not practice or live themselves. I also see “facilitators” teaching concepts that the leadership of the organization have never even heard of, and those leaders seldom attend the training and development programs themselves. We don’t need to be rocket scientists to understand where that will lead – right?
Lance, thank you for the insights about leadership and the numerous models that use motivation to improve productivity and performance. Based upon my consulting experience, organizations need a crisis before moving to a holistic model that promotes love and joy.
As a professor at a university and developing an inspirational leadership course based upon your work-academia doesn’t know how or where to fit this model into the curriculum of program. Stay inspired and keep the dream alive. Thank you for the work that you do.
Keep trying Tom – enlightenment will occur eventually!
Lance, I like your “Human” philosophy. I just returned from a leadership summit at our small woman owned company. We started our 4 day event by looking at who we where as individuals before looking at where we wanted to go as a company. We also discussed passing on our vision for the “Dawn of a new Era” to our employees to engage them in the process. I think we all left inspired by what the future holds. Now to inspire our employees.
Missing you on the slopes!
So good to see how you inspired your group. See you soon Bruce.
Great article to a topic very dear to my heart…inspired leadership beyond simply adhering to outdated models. My devotion is to humanize workplaces and in that it’s remembering what makes up organizations is not only data, models, frameworks, strategies, engagement scores etc but instead PEOPLE are what make what an organization is. This is the secret sauce to what will drive organizational success and business outcomes more than anything else – as Gandhi said – BE the change. Whatever you desire more from in your organization, on your teams etc…start with BEING that first and see what reveals itself. That’s my personal favorite model to adhere to.
Words from a wise woman!
Thank you, Lance. Beautiful. The crux of the matter is that our materialistic values still have us focus on higher profits as a sole source of happiness. The problem is a spiritual one and lies WITHIN the individual. If this is the case, and I claim this for the most still drives today’s leaders intention – in these times of crisis at every front – then we remain stuck. True leadership is self-mastery, learning to get a hold on myself and any ego driven desire that only sees ME ME ME.
It is the pride of ego that suppresses and denies that every one person in an organisation or community has the same human challenges – and lives under the same experience of predicament of what is commonly called the “human condition”. Realising ONE-ness we might finally learn to be better empaths – AND with it – become better leaders ………..in every area of our lives, both for ourselves and towards our fellow-humans.
Its all about serving, isn’t it, Steve!