3 minute read
Three Threads on Leadership
Is our leadership being outsourced?
Is there a tendency for professionals in the construction industry to simply pay for someone else to lead? In a conversation with my colleague, Melonie Bayl-Smith, she observed that people seem to be more willing to solve a challenge with money, rather than do something about it themselves. Parents, for example, paying for a coach for their child’s football team, rather than taking on the role themselves. We speculated that this attitude was manifest in the professions. Are consultants paying membership fees to their representative institutions to absolve themselves of leadership responsibility?
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The Electric Monk comes to mind,
“The Electric Monk was a labour-saving device, like a dishwasher or a video recorder… Electric Monks believed things for you, thus saving you what was becoming an increasingly onerous task, that of believing all the things the world expected you to believe.” - Douglas Adams, Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency
It’s easy to outsource these days.
It’s easy to justify the outsourcing in today’s supposedly time poor world.
It gives you permission to tell yourself a straightforward story.
“I don’t have time." “I don’t have the ability.” “I don’t have the status or position.”
It’s easier to complain about someone else’s leadership failures than it is to take on the responsibility yourself. So people pay up and stand down.
The problem with that approach is that leadership is necessary at all levels, not just from the top. There are different types and areas of leadership. Leadership in the quality of work delivered, within a practice, in representing the profession, in representing the interests of the public, and so on.
Professional institutions do their best with their limited resources, but frankly it’s not enough. It’s not enough and that is not the fault of these bodies. It’s the fault of professionals that fail to step into personal leadership.
Leadership is not a public act
When we’re asked to think of great leaders, our mind will typically turn to the great orators, the larger than life public figures, or those obscured behind a battalion of microphones during some significant public or corporate event.
When we’re asked to think of those leaders in our life that have really made a difference for us. That have positively changed us, that we willingly follow, that we truly trust and respect. There’s seldom an overlap between the great leaders in our mind and those that have made a personal difference to us.
Leadership is not a Public Act.
Leaders build personal connections.
Leaders work for people, not themselves. They put the others first. They’re selfless.
Leaders make you feel safe. They care for you.
Leaders take responsibility.
People like this, rarely do this work in public. Indeed, leadership may often go unseen, the selfless act. It is intent that matters, leaders seeking to give are more productive than those seeking benefit. If there is no intent to benefit, it is seldom necessary to be seen to be giving.
“Managers want authority. Leaders take responsibility.” - Seth Godin
It’s fair to say that few of our politicians, for example, are willing to take responsibility if at all possible, but they’ll take all the authority they can get.
Here’s a simple leadership test: Who is this person working for? Are they working for themselves or for the others? Only the latter is a leader.
This is not a public act.
If they’re not the leaders you wanted?
Perhaps it’s time to become the leader you need.
Is it time to ask yourself:
Are you doing enough? Should you be showing more leadership? Should you take some responsibility? If you would like to see change in the world, perhaps it’s time you take the initiative to lead the change you seek.
You don’t need to be elected to lead. You don’t need to be asked to lead. You just need a little courage. A cause or organisation that people care about. Conviction. Audacity Bravery. Vulnerability. A willingness to learn & build your leadership skills.
Start with one person.
That is still an achievement and you’ve now begun. Keep going.
Build trust. The others will follow.
Leadership is a choice. Leaders take responsibility, they choose to lead. They don’t outsource.
