Leadership — What Does it Mean?

The true leader has to be an effective communicator and fixer upper. 

by Dr Ruwantissa Abeyratne- Aug 26, 2018

“If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.”
–John Quincy Adams

( August 26, 2018, Montreal, Sri Lanka Guardian) In a digitally enabled globalized world the term “leadership” has taken a turn from the original concept of a strong person wielding authority and issuing commands, to a person who motivates and inspires.  Rasmus Hougaard and Jacqueline Carter, in their book The Mind of the Leader cite four critical factors sought by today’s workforce: meaning; human connectedness; true happiness; and a desire to contribute positively to the world.  Javier Pladevall, CEO of Audi Volkswagen put it best when he said: “Leadership today is about unlearning management and learning being human”.  Today’s leader has to be connected to herself and to those around her and have a sense of purpose.  She should lead the people towards that sense of purpose.    Peter Drucker – the father of management studies – famously said: “You cannot manage other people unless you manage yourself first”. James Comey, former Director of the FBI, in his book A Higher Loyalty states that the ethical leader does not, and indeed should not demand loyalty from his workers.  Rather, he should seek commitment and a meeting of the minds between himself and his workers, and make the workers’ lives meaningful and fulfilling. The modern-day leader has to direct as well as guide and above all be empathetic and selfless.

It is reported that as much as $ 46 billion is invested on leadership development programmes annually, but the system is breaking down because the old mindset of feeling powerful has not given way to a people-oriented management style.    Rosalinde Torres, a management guru cites three features in the form of questions desirable in a leader: what are you looking to anticipate the next change? what is the diversity measure in your networks? are you courageous enough to abandon past practices?  The overall personality of a leader should reflect the following characteristics that are subsumed in the three main features of Torres: integrity; respect; innovation; teamwork; excellence; customer focus; trust; diversity; accountability; openness; quality; honesty; passion; safety; community; service; collaboration; responsibility; people awareness; and commitment.

A great leader would look at her company as a caring family and, when times are rough, do what a caring family would do.  Hougaard and Carter cite the case of Barry-Wehmiller – which had a revenue of $ 2.4 billion in 2015 with eleven thousand employees, which asked the fundamental question at the 2008 financial crisis: “would everyone in the Organization make a sacrifice so that no one would suffer?”   Part of the answer lay in asking everyone to take a months’ unpaid leave.

It has been said that the difference between management and leadership is the task of management is to bring order and consistency whereas leadership is the attempt to move people to a better place, establish a vision, align people by communicating, and motivating people. Management is goal setting, structuring jobs, delegating responsibility, and monitoring and controlling problems.

Essentially, leadership has two levels: team level; and strategic level.  What has been addressed above is the team level.  A leader has to act at the strategic level as well, which brings us back to the three factors enunciated by Rosalinde Torres.  Underlying the three factors are factors that drive strategic action: knowing the strategic plan; understanding how to link strategic concepts to actions; being good at defining goals, targets and measures; use operational plans to drive strategy; handling the peoples’ side well; and avoiding typical pitfalls of strategy execution.

Arguably the most important strategic direction that a leader should take lies in what is called anticipatory or predictive intelligence.  This has to do with evaluating probabilities and scenario building along with systems thinking. Jordan Ellenberg, a professor of mathematics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, in his book How Not to Be Wrong explains how one can go wrong if one does not follow mathematical logic in the reasoning and decision-making process.  The book is about the proper use of probability and statistics and how to reject counterintuitive precincts of mathematical thinking.  This approach would apply almost to any discipline or practice, from running a business to politics.

There are three definitive concepts that would assist a leader in strategic thinking. One is the Probability Theory.   Encyclopaedia Britannica identifies the Probability Theory as: “a branch of mathematics concerned with the analysis of random phenomena. The outcome of a random event cannot be determined before it occurs, but it may be any one of several possible outcomes. The actual outcome is considered to be determined by chance”.

The second theory is the Game Theory, which is a philosophy drawn on the discipline of applied mathematics, that could be applied to politics and economics.  Investopedia defines the Game Theory as:” the process of modeling the strategic interaction between two or more players in a situation containing set rules and outcomes”. The Game Theory is about maximising returns based on the strategic decisions to be made by contestants at economics, trade or politics. In politics, the theory would help analyze interactions of political agents and strategies between them, this enabling politicians to study strategic interactions between agents. The outcome is a formal modelling approach to social situations in which decision makers interact with other decision makers.

The third theory is called Disruptive Innovation, a business concept straight out of the Harvard Business School which could well be applicable to political strategy.  Disruptive innovation” is an innovation which helps create a new market and value network that disrupts the existing market.  The theory of disruptive innovation was first coined by Harvard professor Clayton M. Christensen in his research on the disk-drive industry and later popularized by his book The Innovator’s Dilemma, published in 1997.  Examples of disruptive innovation abound in the commercial world.  For instance, Wikipedia disrupted the market established for more than 200 years by Encyclopedia Britannica.  the iPhone disrupted the market of the desktop computer and even the laptop computer.

Finally, the true leader has to be an effective communicator and fixer upper.  He has to take decisions quickly.  The Harvard Business Review cites as the main reason for  leaders, CEOs and Presidents of corporations to be  fired as their inability to take decisions quickly.   This brings one to the conclusion of Peter Drucker: “a manager is a person who does things right and a leader is a person who does the right thing”.

The author is President/CEO of Global Aviation Consultancies Inc., and Senior Associate, Aviation Strategies International.  He is a former senior official at the International Civil Aviation Organization.