>> MIM Speaks
LINKING LEADERSHIP TO A SPIRITUAL JOURNEY
MAR 15, 1998 -
THE STAR
AN alternative approach to leader ship is emerging, even if we
are no yet able to describe it in a systematic way.
We are now in a phase of experimentation about leadership -
and out of that experimentation have come some interesting and
provocative ideas.
Two of the building blocks of the new approach may come from
the ideas of "adaptation" and "servant leadership" which place
leadership within a different framework.
The concept of "adaptive leadership" was developed by Prof
Ronald Heifetz at the Harvard Graduate School of Public
Administration. He sees adaptation as critical in times of
change.
According to an article Heifetz wrote with Donald Laurie in
the Harvard Business Review, companies today face adaptive
challenges. Changes in societies, markets, customers,
competition, and technology around the globe are forcing
organisations to clarify their values, develop new strategies,
and learn new ways of operating.
Often the toughest task for leaders in effecting change is
mobilising people throughout the organisation to do adaptive
work.
Adaptive work is required when our beliefs are challenged,
when the values that made us successful become less relevant
and when legitimate yet competing perspectives emerge. We see
adaptive challenges at the workplace every day, when companies
restructure or reengineer, develop or implement strategy, or
merge businesses.
We see adaptive challenges when marketing has difficulty
working with operations when cross-functional teams don't work
well, or when senior executives complain: "We don't seem to be
able to execute effectively. "
Leadership as adaptation is an extremely challenging task,
both for leaders and for followers, because it breaks the
framework with which most people are comfortable. It requires
that leaders abandon their traditional approach of "solving
problems and telling everyone what to do" and instead work
with the organization to tap the collective intelligence of
all to work out what to do in response to constantly shifting
demands.
This adaptive approach has been captured by the phrase "the
learning organisation" (however, a lot of what people are
talking about when describing the learning organisation seems
to be old models dressed up as new ideas).
The adaptive task of leadership has its echoes in Leading with
Soul, when the authors step outside of the story and explore a
number of concepts. They refer to authorship and power, and
the importance of allowing people to deal with issues
themselves.
Both Heifetz and Bolman and Deal note that the adaptive
approach has other consequences. Staff have to abandon their
familiar practice of unloading responsibility onto their
leaders.
For those who are used to being sheltered, being exposed is an
uncomfortable process - and this places further demand on
leadership having to bring about a major cultural change
inside organizations ' challenging old assumptions, and
renegotiating the relationship between people.
Another element to responding to leadership demands in times
of uncertainty is the idea that leadership is about service as
well as adaptation. One of the richest seams of thinking on
this topic comes from the work of Robert Greenleaf whose essay
on "servant leadership" is seen by many as the seminal text in
the field.
In- explaining his approach Greenleaf suggests: It begins with
the natural feeling that one wants to serve first. Then
conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead.
That person is sharply different from one who is leader first,
perhaps because of the need to assuage an unusual power drive
or to acquire material possessions. For such it will be a
later choice to serve - after leadership is established. The
leader-first and the servant-first are two extreme types.
Between them there are shadings and blends that are part of
the infinite variety of human nature.
The difference manifests itself in the care taken by the
servant-first to make sure that other people's highest
priority needs are being served. The best test, and difficult
to administer, is: Do those served grow as persons? Do they,
while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more
autonomous? And, what is the effect on the least privileged
in society; will they benefit or, at least, not be further
deprived?
The idea of servant leadership is difficult for many people to
accept. We have a model of leadership in our heads that is
based on the idea of the heroic leader who "leads the way."
Surely that is what leadership means? Greenleaf is asking us
to turn that on its head, and recognise that leadership starts
with helping others achieve their ends. This approach does not
deny the importance of company visions and goals but
recognises that these things are achieved if we look after the
needs of others.
Again, this concept echoes with some of the themes in Leading
with Soul. Service is a function of caring for others, and
giving them a sense of their own importance: "love" and
"significance" are the concepts that Bolman and Deal include
(together with authorship and power).
Leadership in a time of uncertainty has to be about adaptation
and service, about authorship and power, love and
significance.
In the two books I started with, the metaphor of a journey was
an important one. Many great writers have seen life as a
journey towards enlightenment rather than scaling some kind of
corporate or social mountain.
Many Western writers have identified this approach as the path
we have been seeking in looking for a new way to go forward.
It is as if the preoccupation with wealth, power and success
has driven people for so long that they realise, with horror,
that there is nothing within, they are The Hollow Raincoat, to
draw on Charles Handy's evocative book title.
However, there is another side to the current fashion for
books about soul and spirit in the West, reflecting a
character that runs deep in the Western psyche. All these
books are stories about a journey where there is a search for
an answer.
Leading with Soul concludes with the CEO taking on his first
person seeking to discover spirit - but she, like him,
commences the journey after many years as a driving,
profit-oriented, even autocratic person. We are familiar with
this view of life's journey, of course: it is also the path
followed by Hindus, who become saddhus at the end of their
working lives, once they are free of their family obligations.
The metaphor of the journey (or a path) is a powerful one in
Eastern thinking. Many popular books on leadership and
management in the West draw on ideas taken from Taoism or
Buddhism and the idea of a spiritual journey leading to
discovery.
However, there are other streams of spiritual thinking that we
can consider, whose roots are to be found in different
understandings of how we achieve awareness.
Let me finish these thoughts by drawing on two other
approaches to thinking about leadership in a time of
uncertainty.
One comes from Islamic thought (and it is an approach shared
with a number of other religions, especially the Jewish
religion). This sees spiritual awareness in terms of
accountability. It is as if we have two aspects: one is
spiritual, and answerable to God; the other is physical and
answerable to a rational, empirical world.
Leaving to one side all the complexities and challenges
offered by the different belief systems of religions- like
Islam and Judaism, we are expected to be able to give an
account as to how we have measured up against the underlying
values of a good society.
These are not the values of wealth and comfort, but rather of
virtue and consideration. In this frame- work, the leader is
both the exemplar of "good" behaviour, and at the same time
able to demonstrate how the two worlds may be brought
together.
A leader deals both in the physical world and the spiritual
world. In times of uncertainty we look to leadership to remind
us of that transcend time and place.
This is a model of leadership that takes us a further step
away from leadership as it has generally been conceived.
Leaders should help us adapt to changing circumstances, and
leaders should seek to serve others before themselves.
When emphasising the importance of values-based leadership,
however, I do not want this to be reduced to the instrumental
business of managing organisational culture and behaviour:
this is values-based leadership at a higher level, addressing
principles that transcend the mechanics of the marketplace, or
the politics of organisations.
Finally, we can turn to Confucius for further inspiration.
Confucius was an educator, and placed emphasis on values,
virtue, decorum and respect. In his terms, it is not just a
matter of being accountable to some higher being but rather
that these principles should be the touchstone of all we do.
Leadership comes from humility and from a proper understanding
of our place in the world, and how easily we can upset the
balance around us.
If Western thinkers have recognised that the forms of
leadership that will make sense in a world of uncertainty have
to focus on adaptation and service, so great thinkers of the
East add other elements humility, respect and virtue, and a
sense of being able to account for what one does against the
highest values.
O Peter Sheldrake is professor of management and executive
director of the Graduate School of Business at RMIT University
in Melbourne, Australia. He co-authored four books: "Looking
at Innovation," "Medical Education in Australia," "Design for
Adversity," and "Accountability in Higher Education."
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