Leaders: Born or Made?

Are leaders born or made?

I found a short and concise website that addresses this question in part and wanted to share it. It is:

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/cutting-edge-leadership/200903/leaders-born-or-made

I am not always a fan of Psychology Today because its articles fall between true peer-reviewed professional journal articles and the (poorly written and usually not research-based) popular literature found in most bookstores today. But this specific material is well done.

One quote I would share from the article is:

"The fact that leadership is mostly made is good news for those of us involved in leadership development - leaders can indeed be developed. Yet, there is some "raw material," some inborn characteristics, that predispose people to be and become leaders. What are some of the inborn qualities? Research suggests that extraversion is consistently associated with obtaining leadership positions and leader effectiveness. There is also some evidence that being bold, assertive, or risk-taking can be advantageous for leaders. Leaders also need to be smart to analyze situations and figure out courses of action. So, intelligence is associated with leadership, but perhaps not general IQ, but social intelligence - understanding of social situations and processes - is the component of intelligence that is important for leadership. Finally, some sort of empathy, or ability to know followers, is also advantageous for leaders (although much of this is learned). As noted leadership scholar, Bernard Bass, noted, "The leader must be able to know what followers want, when they want it, and what prevents them from getting what they want."

Notice the veiled reference to The Big Five (see earlier posts on the Big Five Personality Theory)?

Interviews are often poor predictors of effective leadership

I sat through a series of CEO interviews with a board search committee this week and was struck by how simplistically many people view leadership. Please note that I am a fervent believer that leadership is a very complex concept. I feel it has many facets and components. There is depth and texture and dimension to it - and I feel it is inappropriate to "box" it in a simplistic four-by-four model or to relate it mostly to chemistry or interpersonal skills.

In an interviewing situation, it seems that many people simply view leadership as something that comes with good interpersonal skills. I argue -- It may not seem obvious but interviews do not necessarily provide true insight into leadership.

Give this some thought.

Overuse of a Style

I received this question from the Feb 2 blog on the Big Five --

Good evening. I just read your latest blog article and it sparked a question regarding interviews. In this article and the "Back to the Big Five Theory of Personality" article (Feb 2, 2011) you state that projecting too much confidence will be perceived as a negative.

However, is it not a requirement that the interviewee project confidence in their ability be successful in this position? If so, how does one incorporate expressions of self-awareness into responses so as to not overwhelm an audience?

This is a great question and really is best answered simply by stating, “it all depends” and/or “it is a delicate balance.” While that may not seem like a satisfactory answer, the reality is that how one projects their style and personality requires balance - you must be aware of how you are being perceived.  And to be sure, to one person, your behavior may seem perfectly confident while to another that same behavior appears over confident and perhaps arrogant. The answer – you must develop a keen skill of reading others and interpreting their interpretations of you.

It is also important to note that the over emphasis of a particular personality style under pressure or conditions of novelty is more reflective of a deeper on-going analysis of personality. And in that case, it is true that the very confident person may often become over confident under conditions of stress or novelty.

Read more about this by an internet search on “managerial derailment” or “overuse of personality styles.”

Self Awareness

I recently finished a CEO search and had a fascinating conversation with the search committee chair. One of our candidates was so self-assured and over-the-top with confidence that he could do anything that the committee became very turned off by him. The search committee chair remarked that “self-awareness is just not what is used to be.”

I thought about the work that Dr. Andy Garman and I did for our leadership competency book. Self awareness was an important component to success. We wrote:

Developing self-awareness requires leaders to intellectually and emotionally process on two levels. First, leaders must develop the ability to collect accurate, high-quality feedback from the work environment. Secondly, leaders must contemplate what that feedback means to them and their performance as leaders. They must use an open mind. (Adapted from - Exceptional Leadership: 16 Critical Competencies for Healthcare Executives by Carson F. Dye and Andrew Garman, Health Administration Press 2006)

Self awareness – perhaps the starting point to great leadership development?



Leadership Theories - The Important Ones

So the question is -- What are the key leadership theories?

The answer to this question could fill a very thick book (and in fact, has – for a good long read, perhaps longer than a Hugo novel, see Stogdill's Handbook of Leadership: A Survey of Theory and Research, R.M. Stogdill and Bernard M. Bass (editor). This is truly a great read – seriously – but not at one sitting!

But here goes –

Trait Theory – leaders have certain natural, inborn characteristics that make them effective. This was frequently called the Great Man Theory - only great men could be leaders. Key to most of these viewpoints was the idea that if you did not have the inborn characteristics, you could not learn them. This is the leadership theory that those who are not well-versed in leadership will use in describing leadership.

Style Theory -    This theory  considers your behavior and how you act and what you do. The most popular of these theories are those that divide leadership into task behaviors and relationship behaviors. Studies at Ohio State suggested that style behaviors were either focused on “initiating structure” or “giving consideration.” Initiating structure relates to how we organize and structure work. Consideration relates to our relationships and the trust friendship with our workers. The famous Blake and Mouton grid presented concern for production and concern for people.

Situational or Contingency Theory – (It is probably not appropriate to lump these two together but I do). : Situational leadership simply states that different situations require different styles of leadership – and that should be a big “duh” to all of us. 

In essence, we match the best leader to the appropriate situation, or match a leadership style to a situation. Most articulations of these theories divide activity between being focused on the need for giving directives (task orientation) or giving support (people orientation.  The conclusion of them all is -- One specific leadership style is not the best or most effective leader in every situation.

This situational or contingency approach is the one I favor the most.  It is also well described in the great article, Leadership That Gets Results by Dan Goleman in the Harvard Business Review, March/April 2000 --

The research (described in the article)  found six distinct leadership styles, each springing from different components of emotional intelligence. The styles, taken individually, appear to have a direct and unique impact on the working atmosphere of a company, division, or team, and in turn, on its financial performance. And perhaps most important, the research indicates that leaders with the best results do not rely on only one leadership style; they use most of them in a given week—seamlessly and in different measure—depending on the business situation.

Servant Leadership – Aw, Robert Greenleaf -- people produce their best when their leaders take care of them by meeting their needs in the workplace.

Transformational Leadership – probably too complex to be considered; this grew from James MacGregor Burns and Bass and suggests that transformational leadership motivates followers to do more than expected by raising followers’ levels of consciousness regarding goals, getting followers to transcend their own self-interest, and moving followers to address higher level needs. I am not really sure how it works quite frankly.

Yes, there are many more theories but these are key ones. Consider these as you weave your way around your leadership world the next few months.



Back to the Big Five Theory of Personality

There is likely a natural tendency to associate high amounts of each of the Big Five as being factors that contribute to highly effective leadership.  Consider for example – 

Surgency – being sociable, confident, enthusiastic, extraverted, energetic, dominant, outspoken, forceful, ambitious, gregarious, social presence, assertive ------

Of course, highly effective leaders have a significant amount of these personality characteristics. We expect our successful leaders to be sociable and show confidence. We want them to be enthusiastic and energetic.  Get the drift?

But – Can We Have Too Much of a Good Thing? --

However, the rub comes when leaders possess too much of these.  A leader who is too confident will not receive much feedback from his/her subordinates and therefore may not gain their valuable input in decision making. The subordinates simply are not comfortable giving them new information or challenging them.

A leader who is too dominant will stifle those around him or her. A leader who is too ambitious – well, we all know where that leads.

So, the conclusion is to recognize the need for an appropriate amount of the personality characteristic. And that is where the exciting world of leader assessment and/or leader selection begins.

One study showed the following competencies that were valid predictors of job performance and/or potential under each of the Big Five factors –

1. Surgency
   • Comfort around Top Management
   • Command Skills
   • Timely Decision Making
   • Motivating Others
   • Managing Vision and Purpose
2. Agreeableness
   • None
3. Conscientiousness
   • Action Oriented
   • Functional Technical Skills
   • Perseverance
   • Planning
   • Process Management
   • Results
   • Standing Alone
   • Time Management
4. Emotional Stability
   • None
5. Intellectance
   • Decision Quality
   • Creativity
   • Learning on the Fly
   • Perspective
   • Self Development
   • Strategic Agility
   • Problem Solving

Bentz at Sears and McCall, Lombardo and Morrison at CCL looked more at the fatal flaws that did in otherwise high performing executives. Most often these were overwhelming personality flaws, most of which fell in the negative side of Agreeableness or Emotional Stability factors.

This is a highly complex area but is one that sits at the crossroads of understanding leadership. Try a Google search of these topics and see what you learn.