There is an aeon-old debate as to whether leaders are born or made. I cannot settle that debate and consider such an attempt impractical. However, if personal experience counts for anything, mine lends more credence to the latter side of the discussion. Many years ago, in high school, I was made Senior Prefect. In a boarding school like the one I attended, such a position came with immense power and responsibility. The responsibility seemed so daunting that I submitted an official resignation letter in less than two weeks. To cut a long story short, my school administration rejected my resignation and urged me to stay on; that has made all the difference in my life.
In the spirit of leaders that were made and perhaps not born, I wanted to reflect on lessons I have learned in leadership. My forages into leadership have taught me three lessons; that leadership is managing uncertainty, that great leaders know how to step aside, and that, as with every trade, the longer one serves as a leader, the better one becomes at it. In what follows, I will expound on each of these lessons.
I do not seek so much to present a universally true treatise on leadership as I seek to share with you the reality of leadership as I have experienced it. As such, you may find - hopefully to no surprise - that what I so vehemently believe appears inconsistent with your experiences and analysis.
1. Leadership is the management of uncertainty.
It seems only fitting for us to begin with the lesson that is the closest approximation to a definition of leadership; leadership as managing uncertainty.
Over the years, I have experienced leadership mainly as the management of uncertainty. What does that mean? You may ask. Consider an organisation in which every member, irrespective of rank, has a perfect picture of the uncertainty and risk that cloud every action. You ask if such an organisation can achieve much, and I answer with a resounding No! Suppose the graphic designer knew all the financial and managerial mumbo jumbo hovering over a marketing campaign they are tasked with executing. In that case, their judgement is once and for all corrupted, and they can hardly perform with the singlemindedness that births outstanding results. Controlling who knows about the uncertainty plaguing organisational goals and how much they know is the essence of leadership that seeks to inspire exceptional performance at every corporate level.
A competent leader deals with uncertainty in all forms and then marshalls subordinates to single-minded action. That does not mean that leaders should shield subordinates from the contexts in which decisions are made; far from it. It does mean that the good leader knows when revealing too much births decision paralysis in their subordinates and, as such, only reveals information to the extent that it helps bring out the best in others.
For this, among many reasons, leadership is a lonely exercise. Some agonising considerations a leader has to make cannot be shared with subordinates, at least in their entirety. Some great leaders have found people they trust and use that to manage loneliness. One great leader into whose shoes I later found myself shared with me that her mom was her go-to person in this regard. Others journal, and others get along somehow. Even though there is a strong perception of leaders as the perfect people-people, leaders are particularly lonely in another dimension; they can make small talk with employees and inquire after their kids - nowadays they are expected to - but they cannot talk with just anyone about the things that keep them up at night.
2. Great leaders step aside.
Our culture is in love with analogies as vehicles of communication. While analogies ease communication, the impracticability of defining when further comparison fails to be truthful leads many to extend comparison beyond reason and leaves them with mental models that are as far from the truth as the East is from the West.
Consider, for example, the high school classic, “Chemistry is like cooking”. There are undoubtedly many ways in which Chemistry is like cooking. Should we, then, in doing Chemistry, also taste as we do when we cook? Let me know when you try.
Likewise, the culturally dominant analogies of leadership are only to be considered with limitations if we hope them to be factual. Taken to the extremes, they engender imagery of a leader that is an ever-present, ever-commanding character. Such mental imagery is the fountain of micro-management and, in many situations, leads to a sub-optimal and shortsighted approach to leadership. Yes, a leader is a teacher, a guide, a lighthouse, a coach, a mentor, a juggler and all other things that the experts have said. The point I am making is that if you took any of those metaphors and stretched them hard enough, you will find that most of them and their implications become inconsistent as parts of a system. The idea is that instead of picking a single metaphor and driving it so fast that it obscures our vision of the entire landscape, we hold as many metaphors as possible and better appreciate when further comparison fails.
One such metaphor springing from my experience that I hope you add to your collection is a leader as a person who steps away.
Great leaders move their organisations by inspiring ownership and then stepping aside. One of the most outstanding leaders I know once shared with me that he went on a sabbatical for the sole purpose of seeing how his organisation functions without him. If your organisation cannot work without you, then you still have leadership lessons to take.
Easy as it sounds, this is the most challenging aspect of leadership I have experienced. Most of us, more so leaders, are head over heels for the spotlight. We want our names to be mentioned when credit for so-so and so achievement is being doled out. The very idea of stepping aside from the spotlight is a declaration of war against our egos, goes against our basest but undeniable nature and is undoubtedly challenging.
I do not mean for leaders to be ever-absent. The task of leadership is to find the best people for a task [Or make the available people the best], and then through a series of very deliberate actions, inspire the culture in which you can step out of their way and yet have no doubt of the quality of work they will produce. Of course, specific tasks are critical, and those who take the final responsibility are only human when they want to exert complete control of their undertaking. If your ambition is to run an organisation that can run successfully on your 12-hour work day, by all means, guard control with your heart. If, on the other hand, you harbour the faintest dreams of running an organisation that grows to all it can become, you have to step aside!
How do you step aside? I say progressively.
The primary culprits preventing leaders from stepping aside are ego and perfectionism. In my experience, dealing with my perfectionism in this context has dealt with my ego.
It helps to always start with the pragmatic realisation that only some things will be done perfectly - emphasis on some. Next, have a realistic ranking that enables you to identify the tasks for which perfection is critical and those for which it is not. You could then move on to assign ownership of these tasks to your associates according to their proven performance standards. As they further prove their worth, move them up the hierarchy of tasks. My approach may seem flawed to you; perhaps you are right, and I am wrong, or vice versa. It has, however, proven practical for me, and I have learned to step aside as I base my trust on a better understanding of what my associates can and cannot do. I have learned to trust people by acknowledging their work, and I have quickly realised that others can do things just as well.
In judging how well others performed tasks, it is essential to consider the output and the method. Many times like me, you will find that approaches employed by others, sometimes at significant variance from your preconceptions, worked perfectly fine or even better. There is no better way to get humbled and set free from your idiosyncracies than by honestly appreciating the work of others.
Whatever your method and however you plan to get about it, prepare to step aside!
3. It only gets better.
My first shot at leadership was horrible. Since then, I have held countless positions of leadership. After all this, I can say without reservation that it only gets better.
Let me add another metaphor to your collection of leadership metaphors. A leader who reflects on their experiences and is open to learning only gets better. Note the qualifier. It is not the case that time is a magical reformer that will take just about anyone and churn out a doppelganger of Abraham Lincoln. You must be intentional about becoming better; if you are, don’t get bogged down by a bad stint at the helm of some initiative. When intentionality is the driving wind, bad stints are stepping stones for good stints.
Many components are needed to assemble the great leader; communication, peacemaking, foresight, strategic thinking, the ability to step aside, delegation, protecting your followers, taking responsibility, and we can continue. You don’t get good at those by simply knowing you need them. You must get out there, try, do something, and learn from your mistakes. Just lead! It will take longer than you imagine to be the quintessential leader. So the earlier you start and the more intentional you are about each experience, the better it will be for you.
From my first experience as a leader, I learned boldness. From my second, public speaking. From my third, planning. From my fourth proper communication. The list is endless. In my recent experience, I am learning to step aside. It only gets better!
What become of “that” Senior Prefect?
The rejection of my resignation letter from my position as Senior Prefect left me at an impasse. I was timid, yet I was expected to address public gatherings and write and deliver speeches. I was one to view the world passively, yet I was expected to be proactive and direct other student leaders and the student body at large along the paths of my charting. As you should expect, I started by neglecting my duties and demonstrating such disregard for my position that some students called me the delinquent Senior Prefect.
There ensured several months of a transformation that took me from a delinquent Senior Prefect to the beloved Senior Prefect. First, the realisation that I could discriminate between poorly written and well-written speeches led me to write speeches for other student leaders. It took some speechwriting and the frustration of having the spirit of these speeches effaced by the poor delivery of others to inspire me to deliver these speeches myself. And once I dared to act, as speaking is an act, in public, I became a leader in the sense of the word from that moment on. I vividly recall moving other students to tears when I gave a farewell speech for a half-neglected but progressively better tenure as Senior Prefect. It was, and still is to me, the practical confirmation that we can start off not being born leaders and yet make ourselves vessels of transformation.
Addendum
For everything I have shared, there is a careful set of constraints under which the negation can be considered a truism. That is to be expected and does not in any way make my positions less tenable. The height of wisdom is to realise that opposing ideas do not necessarily need to invalidate each other: That what is faithful, prudent and wise can hardly be justified by making universal arguments and that circumstances significantly change our perception of truth. To be wise is to be able to hold ideas that are hostile to each other and then to so accurately appreciate our circumstances that we conclude as to what is prudent. This was me speaking from my leadership experience; it may not reflect yours, but it goes without saying that having this perspective could someday be the map of your leadership landscape.