September 2004

Rethinking Our Leadership Thinking: Choosing a More Authentic Path¹
By Gary Heil and Linda Alepin

“If you know something but don’t yet do it, you don’t yet know it.” Sufi

Simple truths are the hardest to come by—and are often the most powerful in practice.

For more than a half a century, Maslow, McGregor, Argyris, Benis, and others have consistently described more enlightened ways to lead people. Despite the consistency of their messages and the ubiquity of their views, most leaders today continue to “talk” a better game of leadership than they choose to “play.”

The main obstacle to playing a better game may be the fact that the best leadership ideas are based on assumptions that differ greatly from current beliefs. Few challenges are as difficult for a leader as examining their own basic beliefs about people. But that’s exactly what’s required. To become more effective leaders of inspired teams, we must unlearn many of our past practices. Past systems are inadequate to the task.

“You must be the change that you wish to see in the world.” Gandhi

Choosing a Path of Self Examination

Our mindset often stands as an invisible obstacle to innovation. We need to accelerate a process of self-examination and resist the temptation to seek simple answers.

Douglas McGregor made his life’s work helping leaders down a path of self-examination and discovery. He believed that leaders would find it easier to examine their thinking if they had a construct that provided a comparison. So McGregor suggested Theory X and Theory Y, two very different sets of assumptions about the nature of people, which are reflected in these questions:

• Are people naturally motivated to work? Or do they need incentives in order to give their best?
• Is it natural for people to seek rewards for the least amount of effort? Or are demotivated workers a symptom of stifling organizational and leadership practices?
• Can we realistically expect people to act without emotion on the job? Or are emotional reactions part of the human spirit that can be suppressed but can never be left behind?

McGregor was hopeful that a time would come when it would become necessary for leaders to challenge themselves about who they are. Fifty years later, that time is near.

“A musician must make music; and an artist must paint; and a poet must write; if he is to be ultimately at peace with himself. What a man can be, he must be.” Maslow

We Are What We Choose: Authenticity Is the Clear Choice

Leadership’s impact on the bottom line is dramatic. According to a study by the Institute for Strategic Change, the stock price of companies that are perceived as being well led grew 900 percent over a 10-year period, compared to just 74 percent for companies that were perceived as lacking good leadership.

• Why is it that we talk of empowerment, but we can’t call a company without hearing that the call will be monitored for quality?
• Why is it that we invest in offsites to help build teamwork, but we perpetuate human resource practices that are built on the assumption that better performance happens when people inside a company compete with each other?
• Why is it that we say we value employee loyalty and then we consistently fire the bottom 10 to 20 percent of the company annually—no matter how competent, hard working, and loyal they’ve been?

Simply put, our choices and our espoused beliefs are very different. In most cases, when push comes to shove and our careers are on the line, we opt for a more traditional, mechanical set of beliefs that appear more predictable.

“People are not afraid of things, but of how they view them.” Epictetus

Choosing to Believe Differently

People have great radars for detecting duplicity. They know when a leader’s words are honest and authentic. When a leader is authentic, we can see it in their eyes. We can feel it in their presence. We look quickly beyond their words or style and into their hearts. We know if they believe in us and whether they trust us to make a significant contribution. We care about their motives—and we should.

We’ve seen leaders of all shapes and styles who are successful with their teams. What they have in common are similar beliefs about people that allow them to see the possibilities. Interview these leaders, as we have, and many of them will tell you that they have a fundamentally different set of beliefs. These leaders are perceived as authentic because their actions are consistent with these espoused beliefs.

A Different Set of Beliefs

1. Trust is given, not earned. People don’t trust people who don’t trust them. If we want people to trust us, we must first trust them.
2. People are naturally driven to make things better and seek meaning in their work. People will do things for a cause that they’ll not do for money. Watch how people work when they are proud to tell others where they work and how they contribute.
3. People seek to be led, not managed. No one wants to be planned, organized, and controlled. People want to be part of a team. They want to participate. They want to be a partner in the process of value creation.
4. People want to belong and feel a sense of pride in their job, organization, and with their associates. People come to work hoping that the company will be a great place where they are able to make a maximum contribution.
5. People desire to feel important, needed, useful, confident, successful, proud, and respected rather than unimportant, interchangeable, useless, fearful, anonymous, or expendable. Enough said.

Conclusion

Today, the evidence is overwhelming that building more inspired teams requires that most leaders rethink their leadership thinking. To do so, they must resist the temptation to seek out simple behavior-based models and must then opt for a career filled with self-examination and self-discovery.

Our fervent hope is that the time that McGregor envisioned is fast approaching—where significant changes in leadership philosophy will become a requirement for survival. This won’t only enable us as leaders to build more effective, more human organizations; it’ll enable us to enrich the lives of every person who gives us permission to lead.

Linda Alepin is CEO of Center for New Futures, a leadership consulting firm. As a consultant, she focuses on helping clients achieve breakthrough results through shifts in their thinking. She spent more than 10 years as a vice president and officer in a Fortune 300 IT company and was CEO and founder of an early Internet start-up. She’s also a noted public speaker on leadership and founder of the Global Women’s Leadership Center at the Leavey School of Business, Santa Clara University.

The full text of the article can be found at http://www.centerfornewfutures.com/rethinking.shtml.