How to Have Everyone Say Yes! to Leadership
Last month’s article exploring why people would say No Thank You to leadership generated a wonderful array of responses and insights. It seems to have struck a cord (or a nerve, depending on who you talk to). And the question that inevitably came up was how to get people to say yes!
If you didn’t have a chance to read it, I suggested that people are saying No Thank You to leadership—consciously and unconsciously taking themselves out of the leadership game—because they do not wish to participate in the current paradigm, constructed on a set of conventional images and competencies: leader as goal setter, team builder, results getter, problem solver, project manager, etc. And that a whole new set of forward thinking and expansive images and core competencies will need to be introduced into the leadership paradigm to get people excited and to saying Yes! to leadership.
Assuming there is enough grounding here to continue moving this conversation forward, let’s go back to the Seth Godin quote that gave rise to all this:
“For the first time ever, everyone in the organization—not just the boss—is expected to lead.”
His is a bold ideal to be sure, but really, how the heck do you do that? In other words the big question I’d like to explore today is:
What would it take to have every person in your organization—from secretary to CEO—see him or herself as a leader? No exceptions.
What do you think? Assuming that this is desirable, what would need to happen to bring this about in your organization…?
My answer is this: self-defined images of leadership. In other words, give each person the opportunity to define for him or herself what leadership means and support him or her to reach that.
It’s not a difficult process; a few questions get us there…
First question: What are the skills, attributes, attitudes, behaviors, or habits of leadership that you admire and aspire to?
Second question: If you could, would you like to be that kind of leader?
(Did you say yes? I’ll bet you did!)
Clincher question: If I can fully support you in becoming that kind of leader, would you say yes to the journey of becoming that leader?
(Again, I’ll bet you said yes.)
The beauty of self-defining images is not only that you can ask every person in your organization these questions, but that it doesn’t matter what the images or qualities which come up are—each person in an organization will define leadership differently, depending on who they are, past experience, and what they aspire to. The point is, those questions led you to say yes to leadership, and saying yes to becoming that kind of leader (regardless of anyone else’s kind).
In my leadership coaching practice, this is what I do all the time. I help leaders self-define the kind of leader they now want to be, and I support them in finding ways to become and sustain that kind of leadership. The results are always a remarkable shift in energy, commitment, passion and dedication to the work and the organization.
Herein also lies the crux: if you do encourage someone to self define leadership in your organization, you must also fully commit to supporting his or her journey, regardless of whether it is in complete alignment with your images of leadership.
As a coach I am brought in to be that support zone often because the organization is unable to provide it internally; and usually it is reserved for those at the top who are trusted to self-define in general alignment with organizational ideals and vision. However an organization committed to self-defined leadership at all levels may end up with 1,001 visions of leadership excellence, each with a different set of core competencies. And that is daunting stuff.
If you suddenly have everyone leaping about saying Yes! to leadership, how do you manage that? How do you support all these people to define, attain, and sustain their ever-evolving self-definitions?
It is why organizations typically don’t take this path. Instead, 7, 10, or 13 core competencies for leadership are defined on behalf of all, and those who aspire to be leaders must commit to excellence in those areas. The rest of the folks…well obviously they aren’t the stuff of which leaders are made in this organization.
Allowing employees the opportunity to see themselves as leaders through the process of self-definition is a radical, radical notion. What if the images are not what we expect of leaders? What do we do with all that variability in definition? How do we evaluate?
These are all good questions, and with no easy answers (which I’ll explore in coming issues). But self-definition does provide one possible answer to the original question: What would it take to have every person in your organization see him or herself as a leader?
As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts or insights into this and other possible answers to the big question.
Leon
P.S.
There is another key component to the self-definition equation that does need exploring: for people (and organizations) to gain the most from the opportunity to self-define leadership—to increase the odds that people continue to say yes! to leadership over the long run—they need to be aware of and have access to the broadest spectrum of leadership images from which to self-define. Both conventional and emerging images.
This will be the focus next month…stay tuned!
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Terrific work! This is the type of information that should be shared around the web. Shame on the search engines for not positioning this post higher!
Interesting! Its all about the goals we have. Situations and Boss become irrelevant. Kind of reminds me of this video.
Thanks for sharing, I found this story, while searching for some free downloads and ran across this website, thoughtful comments and great points made.
This came across my desk today; it ties in brilliantly with this article. Leon
An interesting distinction there between boss and leader. Leadership is never irrelevant, but typical boss-like behavior (control, manipulation, power playing) has had its day.
[...] may recall in the last issue of Unusual Leading I wrote how enabling people to self define images of leadership is one answer to [...]
Remarkable post as usual.