8 December 2015
I am reading a book about leadership. I am looking for tips on tyranny. The first thing the book says is that no one can agree on the definition of leadership. I take comfort from this, because presumably it means that no one can be sure whether you are a good leader or a bad leader, or indeed any kind of leader. So I may not get found out after all. Then the book describes four different ways you might define leadership, just in case you ever came across it. The first is that you might be a leader because of the position you are in. So, for example, if you tell someone they’re President, and give them a swimming gala medal and a ceremonial gavel and a badge that says “President”, then they are the President, and that’s that, even if they are also a bumbling numpty. The second is that you might be a leader because of the kind of person you are. Some people are just destined to become ruthless dictators. Some people are charismatic. Some people are bossy. Even if you make these people do the photocopying for you, in no time at all they will be project-managing an office move and telling you where not to put your files. The third way of defining a leader is by how they do things. Someone who shouts a lot is apparently not a leader, just a commander, although there may be little practical difference for those on the sharp end of the shouting. Someone who makes people follow the proper procedures and processes, so that everything comes out the way it did last time, is also not a leader, but a manager. You need managers because otherwise how would anyone become ISO 9000 compliant? A leader, in contrast, doesn’t tell people what to do but asks them what they think ought to be done and then invites them to do it and pretends it was his or her own idea all along. No one needs leaders in order to become ISO 9000 compliant. But they do need leaders for when the ideas other people came up with turn out to be useless. This third definition of leadership strikes a few chords with me, because I spend a lot of my time asking other people what I am supposed to be doing and then turning out to be useless at doing it. Perhaps I am a leader after all. The fourth definition of leadership looks at the results that the so-called leader has achieved. Thus if your company made tons of profit while you were supposed to be in charge, or your Chartered Institute achieved world domination while you were President, then you probably deserve to be called a leader. If on the other hand you have presided over a period of namby-pambiness, during which the only measurable successes have been to do with pantomime speeches and turning cufflinks into lapel pins, you probably deserve to be called That Person Who Hangs Around Here A Lot We Don’t Know What To Do With Her. Thinking about these four definitions, which actually makes my head hurt, I decide in the end that in most cases leadership probably comes about by accident. One day you turn round and there are lots of people behind you, and you don’t know how it happened and probably nor do they, but suddenly you are a leader. And this is largely because no one else wants to go in front and they are happy to hide behind someone who can take the blame next time something goes wrong. You cannot remember why it’s you at the front; possibly you were not concentrating at the time, or perhaps you had one gin and tonic too many, or perhaps you had naively thought it looked more fun up there. But when you turn round and look wide-eyed at people, they just say: Go on, you’ll be fine, keep going! Later they say: What did you do that for? I am glad I have this book. Now I understand much better what’s going wrong in my life. Not that it matters one jot, of course, because CIPA does not want a leader and in particular Council does not want a leader, more particularly it does not want the Pee to be its leader and most particularly it does not want me to be its leader. So I think it is clear that although I have a book about leadership, it should stay in the “fiction” section of my bookshelf.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Archives
July 2019
Categories |