Debunking Leadership Myths - Myth #3

by Scott Airitam
President, Scott Airitam's Leadership Systems, LLC

You'd probably be amazed at where I learn my best organizational Leadership lessons.  Most people learn strictly by reading books.  For some, because it is in print means it's valid.  I know there are a lot of books out there where the author has scientifically validated their theories. I try to read as many of the books as possible because that language is the only language that some of my clients really want to hear.

But, out of all of the conflicting information that has been validated, I choose to only integrate some of it into the Leadership dogma that I'll put my consulting and training company's name on.  How do I choose?

I select the Leadership lessons from data that's collected in books and backed up as I observe real life.  You see, I have the unique perspective of being able to integrate my personal experiences and the experiences of the many Leaders I talk to and observe in the many client organizations and volunteer organizations that I serve.  I get to see the Leadership myths in action and talk to people about them.  I also get to see how it plays out when those myths are debunked in real life.

Of all of the myths that I see repeated and repeated, there is one myth that is insidious. Truly, it sneaks into the mindset of a Leader, and with that, the mentality of the group being led.  Once it is in, it appears to represent a complete view of all the Leadership options available, but it's really only an illusion.  In fact, following where this myth takes a Leader only serves to slowly place increasingly restrictive limits on that Leader's ability to influence, and, it increases the group's dependence upon being led at every single step.

Leadership Myth #3 is: The Leader must step in and correct every mistep, small or large, that is made within his or her group.

Before I give an example of this, let me explain the problems with this approach.

1. When a Leader takes this course, they go into "firefighter" mode.  Being the one to come up with the solution and pull the group out of the fire can be addicting. At the very least it can be a great ego boost.  This is fine and good for the Leader's self-esteem and sense of self-importance, but like anything addicting, too much can be a bad thing.  Every time the Leader does this, it focuses the Leader in the short-term at the expense of the long-term.  The Leader is not growing future Leaders and, instead, creates, over time, a group that refuses to take ownership or accountability.  Instead, every time things go wrong or unfamiliar territory is to be covered,  the group looks to the Leader for instruction. What was once an ego boost erodes into an overwhelming and redundant pattern of behavior for everyone involved.
2. Using this technique creates another issue. Lack of creativity in the group. Or, better stated, a lack of risk taking. Over time, fewer and fewer in the group will go out on a limb to suggest a better way, they will simply take the direction they know is coming from the Leader.  It's tough, because the group loses the diversity of thought that it posesses and instead becomes dependent upon the limited ideas and vision of a single person. This causes stagnation.
3. The most important thing that this mindset causes is a draining of passion from the entire group, including the Leader. Passion is one of the elements that puts many miles between good team results and great team results. Passion is an intangible who's effect cannot be measured. It is easy to recognize how much harder a person will work and how much more discretionary effort a person will apply to the cause when passion is present. A passionless team might get along with one another, but there is no way that it can match the output of a team passionate about its work, its goals, and its purpose.

So, I'm going to share one of those real world experiences with you.

I was asked once to step in as a consultant in a company where this was the predominate Leadership approach.  This organization had little passion. The only identifiable passion to be found resided in top leadership. There was no creativity or risk taking in the group. Almost to an individual in the group, there was a feeling of powerlessness. Whenever something went wrong, the leader's stepped in and "fixed" it--usually in a blame assigning move.

The company, based in the St. Louis area, blamed the quality of employees it had to choose from for its woes and accepted that as just the way it was. The cultural mess it found itself in was accepted as "the way it is" and, the leadership couldn't see that there were better alternatives at its disposal. It could not see the doors within its reach, and, when these doors were described to them, they didn't believe that they were real. Add to this the real threat of obsolescence in a declining market and the pressures of this organization were real and difficult.

The leaders would step in to solve every problem, from the largest strategic issues to the smallest details, and the group felt powerless. Soon, I got a phone call from the organization asking for help. 

The problem was cultural.  Culture forms paradigms.  Paradigms form habits.  Each of these areas was corrupted due to a short-term leadership approach being applied over a long-term period.

Fortunately, the problem wasn't strictly ego. Leadership wasn't unwilling to change, they simply didn't know what other options were available to them. They didn't know another way to Lead. I knew how to help with that and so a journey began that lasted a little over a year.

We worked with them in a three-pronged approach. We had to fix the cultural aspect, the paradigms, and the habits at the same time. If we worked on any one exclusively, the other two would stunt the potential growth of the one we worked on.  So, we used a product that Leadership Systems developed, the Cultural Assessment Tool (CAT) to gather data on the culture and to share both the great strengths the organization had and the hard to swallow weakenesses that it possessed. Simultaneously, we produced a very targeted, company (and issue) specific 3-day course for top Leadership to reveal to them some of the opportunities they couldn't see, re-equip them with appropriate tools, and recondition them to create an environment that allowed for enhanced communication, risk taking, and creativity. We set out to change paradigms. Finally, we spent time with them--coaching.  We confronted the Leadership on behaviors that were both great and poor and we worked with and talked to the group--all in an effort to change habits. We guided, but we didn't do for anyone. This allowed them to have their own successes and not attribute them to us.

Today, this organization has grown tremendously and has found such a high degree of success in how it handles its people that it's become a high-performing work group. The company is TEC (Television Engineering Corporation) and it has grown its revenue tremendously with creative new offerings and solid and stable original products.  To a person, the people that work there are proud to work there and have a passion about what they do.  Leadership actually Leads instead of pushing people out of the way and trying to do all of the work for them.  The turnaround in this organization is astounding and it allows TEC to be more competitive, more agile, and, ultimately more successful.  Jack Vines, Jr., the Leader this organization, who always acts with wisdom and passion gave me permission to talk about the journey this company traveled.  It is still on the journey, he'd tell you, only the road is a lot easier to navigate now.