Yesterday I wrote about three leadership discourses: Briefly, they are:
Discourse 1. Leadership requires a certain position
Discourse 2. Leadership requires certain attributes, traits, and character
Discourse 3. Leadership requires followers
In looking at these closely, I find exceptions or issues with each of them (again, see yesterday's post for a sketch). Either individually or taken together, they don't capture what's essential about leadership and therefore, don't offer a firm grounding for building leadership development programs (which is my aim in the background of this inquiry).
An integral reconstruction of leadership, points to a fourth discourse, which is simultaneously a reconstruction (reinterpretation) of the first three discourses that distills them to something more essential about leadership (and eliminating that which points us in a misleading direction) while adding something new at the same time.
Reconstruction of Discourse 1. Leadership is a stance of authenticity
In reconstructing Discourse 1, I eliminate is the interpretation that this stance can only be taken by people in certain leadership positions. Anyone can be authentic and a stance of authenticity amid a world where inauthenticity is rampant is a powerful move.
Reconstruction of Discourse 2. Leadership is a responsive way of being
What I eliminate is the interpretation that there is some set of personality attributes, traits or character. Any fixed set we pick will work sometimes and fail other times. And this is the downfall of most competency-based leadership development programs. They attempt to codify leadership competency.
But isn't responsiveness a competency you ask? No. Why? Because the test for responsiveness is never-ending. You can never declare yourself competent in being responsive because the next crisis you aren't expecting might paralyze you. In order to be responsive on-goingly, you must continue to learn, adapt, develop, and evolve through breakdowns - periods of time when you aren't responsive. Responsiveness is a way of being not a competency and this way of being requires that you continue to die to your ways of leading - the antithesis of fixing to them.
Reconstruction of Discourse 3: Leadership is a service to others
What is eliminated is the notion that leadership is about having followers which can easily be a narcissistic trap. Yes, there is a special relationship between leaders and others. But who is following whom? When we look at real life situations, we can easily say that sometimes the followers are leading and the leaders are following. This completely unsettles our taken-for-granted notions of leading and following and doesn't offer leaders anything helpful.
So this reconstruction is an attempt to offer leaders a helpful perspective distilled from Discourse 3. Leadership is a service - an offer - to others.
Discourse 4 includes these reconstructions and adds: Leadership is marshalling new inner and outer, individual and collective resources to face tough realities that demand development and evolution
In this fourth discourse, the leader doesn't assume that they know where to go or how to address the current challenges. In fact, the leader is well aware that the complexity and messiness of the challenges that must be faced are greater than any one person, including themselves, can hold and respond to.
So their act of leadership (their offer) is to create the conditions that call for others to 1) be authentic, 2) develop a responsive way of being, 3) be of service to others, and 4) support leadership development as they are doing. This, I claim, is what's essential to leadership.
This destorys the myth of the leader-savior who will take us to the promised land. The leader isn't the savior - we are all saviors.
In future posts, I'll explore the topics of authenticity, responsiveness, service to others, and individual and collective development/evolution with more depth.
I hope you have found this provocative. I'd love to hear your comments.
Take care,
-Steve
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