HOLLYWOOD ROAD — We don’t make enough of the fact that leadership styles and requirements have changed. Not we at Able and How, but we who talk about this stuff. You rarely see an article in HBR or the WSJ or NYT that addresses generational changes in leadership style.
GOOD GUYS FINISH FIRST
The suggestion is that other people have influence in who gets to lead. Research from university dorm rooms to busy offices suggest that people who are well respected and liked get promoted. People with lots of “consideration” (for regular readers.)
The ones who try to set people on each other, who wield power wildly and who try to manipulate things to their advantage… they don’t do so well. Bad leadership styles are weeded out quite quickly.
So that’s good.
LOSS OF THE AMERICAN DREAM
And it’s a fairly modern phenomenon. It wasn’t long ago that the American dream did hold true in business — the guy who wants it most, gets it.
“If you work really hard, and want it really, really bad… you will get it.”
But that’s not true anymore. You actually have to have support of others, have genuine skills, and put people ahead of you. You have to show you don’t want it… if you want to get it eventually.
And I think that’s a great improvement.
Life is a slow deliberate game where thought and compassion will always win out.
BUT GOOD GUYS CHANGE
What I also love — in part because it’s so obvious — is the fact that science shows power corrupts. As the Prof Daniel Keltner of University of California, Berkeley says it:
When you give people power they basically start acting like fools. They flirt inappropriately, tease in a hostile fashion, and become totally impulsive.
As a result, leaders need to be kept in check. Transparency is needed. They must report to someone. They must have the sense that they are still being held to account.
(I can think of at least two recent UK CEOs who might have done with a bit of this.)
And even this new realisation is not that new. From the Catholic Church, to various monarchs, to footballers, you can see hubris bringing down the very people who were guileless enough to get to the top.
What is new, and I think missing from discussion, is that we are genuinely getting better at this year over year. We’re making progress, we’re getting more transparent, we’re fixing governance, both for the organisations who need good leaders… and for the leaders who didn’t wake up thinking “I’m going to be a total pain the backside today.”
And I’m liking that.
/df
(Thanks and acknowledgement to Burson Marstellar’s Bob Pickard who pointed out the WSJ article.)
