Every person we know has received resources and development from parents, relatives, and/or friends; was educated by many teachers; shaped by their community; enjoyed countless meals provided through the efforts of others; and has driven on roads and lived in houses or worked in offices designed and built by strangers. It's clear that society is the byproduct of many collaborative efforts and our lives are intertwined — and this also describes the interconnections between leaders and the many people in supporting roles.
Since the realities of Covid-19, the importance of frontline professionals, now called essential workers, is pronounced. The majority of companies survived Covid-19 because of the efforts of essential workers. This plausibly amplifies and clarifies the importance of followers — especially to leaders. It offers precision that leaders, organizations, and even consumers dynamically depend on the collective efforts of those considered to be in the subsidiary role.
Perhaps it's logical to advance the importance and energy followers bring and now rethink the importance placed on the role of leadership — it's clear that leadership is not a solo activity. Leaders' accomplishments are born of the efforts of others. Co-creating with others is leadership and elevating the role of followers is the recipe.
Leadership Enhances Management
Also important is that adding leadership abilities enhances management outcomes. And that leadership is not the same as management. Managerial skills involve perfecting the tasks of planning, organizing, staffing, controlling output, and evaluating outcomes, while leadership adds to the equation as it includes working with what happens, sharing mutual curiosities, sharing fears and doubts, learning reciprocal skills, and knowledge-building.
Leadership is about the growth of others through an authentic assessment of self. Put another way, the advanced language of leadership is surrounding oneself with people who are smarter in diversified areas than the leader and assuring their growth and accomplishment.
Leadership Models
Progressive organizations can also insert and develop the leadership models of the current, youthful generations. It appears receiving the participation trophy doled out by Baby Boomer parents paid off, as it developed a youthful and dynamic generational expressive of dyadic leader-follower interaction in the form of emergent leaders, distributed, alternating, grassroots, and even rogue leaders' styles.
These mutual exchange leader/follower models soften the edges of control and coercion and offer dynamic power sharing and autonomy to all participants. Additionally, these contemporary leadership models balance the roles and allow participants to express leadership and followership as may be needed by the situation — it softens the strict hierarchical definitions of roles.
Management vs. Leadership
Universities, however, are still populated with many older-generation leadership theories beginning with The Great Man Theory and co-mingled management-with-leadership research. Early research was important as a foundation for understanding the development of this concept. It is, however, important to now understand that these are discrete concepts as the managerial/staff relationship is a legal framework with legally codified requirements for hiring, firing, promoting, punishing, evaluating, and controlling staff.
This is inconsistent with leadership, which exists as a voluntary connection enacted between and among people. Management can mandate followers' compliance using hierarchical legitimate power, control, or punishment to demand compliance. Managers would be misguided to think the use of power, control or punishment is true leadership. When logically, mutual benefit, honesty, and trust engage active followership and define true leadership.
Social Learning Theory offers that people learn during interaction with, or from, observations of others — this is the foundation of the leader-follower relationship. Active participants seek to uncover who they are, what they can learn, what they can contribute, and how they can benefit when selecting to engage and interact with others. This instinct has been present in people since birth. Each of us wants to believe in what we can accomplish!
Final Thoughts
Healthy leadership embraces dynamic role shifting to allow emergent, distributed, alternating, grassroots, and even rogue leadership roles to emerge among the participants. It's defined by co-creative interactions, holds equal emphasis on the important contributions of all, and occurs without fear or stress as its driver. It's less rigid, strong on mutual observation and learning, and the ability to try something different to solve a problem without expecting the perfect answer on the first try.
True leadership thrives when the contributions of all participants are the most important asset for success. So, out with the old models of leadership and in with the new!
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
