Q: Why should anyone be led by you? A: I’m a more marketable as a spokesperson

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Q: Why should anyone be led by you? A: I’m a more marketable as a spokesperson.

I am reading the book Why should anyone be led by you? By Rob Goffee and Gareth Jones, as part of my work in a team looking at Leadership. I have previously blogged Why would anyone want to be a leader? (see link below) I put forward the proposition that being a facilitator, road builder or architect is a less egotistical and possibly more useful role for delivering corporate and individual goals.

http://projectspeoplechange.blogspot.com/2014/12/why-should-anyone-aspire-to-be-leader.html

The book notes leaders and their positive and quirky traits with the suggestion that showing weakness and fallibility demonstrate people’s humanity and thus make them more likeable, acceptable, even lovable and therefore better leaders. This may be true, it is axiomatic that we follow people we identify with or like.

However there is no evidence of the correlation between being quirky and being a leader. Indeed the authors chronicle people who have failed to succeed in leadership (pages 110 to 130) leaving the reader feeling that the authors theories and interventions clearly did not work for the people they were mentoring.

If you aspire to be a leader the most important attribute are not quirky traits or even humanity it is passion for a purpose. That makes you a leader. The thing that makes you a successful leader is having followers, so the purpose for which you have passion must be shared. The best means of achieving that is twofold push your message out and pull your followers in. This is done by communication, casting your net and pulling in. It is achieved complex blend of oratory, personality, branding, image, behaviour all the things that your followers would aspire to mimic.

The above proposition also suggests you can be a leader simply for having passion for a purpose. Having leadership potential doesn’t require followers. Having followers is a consequence of your passions and theirs align either by happy coincidence or clever manipulation. This is the basis of contingent or situational leadership, typically where the circumstances contrive to elevate someone into a leadership role solely for the purpose of satisfying the followers need. The need to be heard, the need to be loved, the need to be defended.

I would suggest that Churchill was such a leader, a man without many followers until the time when circumstance aligned his views with those of the country. I could stick my neck out and suggest Nigel Farage is just such a leader. This type of leadership is effectively an elected spokesperson for a group and their tenure lasts only as long as they are a credible and useful spokesperson. Thereafter they are dropped, voted out, removed, fired.

This is a challenge to the conventional view of leadership as a top-down architect of change, who has both command and control over the masses. That is not to say that such leadership is a hostage to the environment.

A useful analogy would be a ship sailing on the tide. A good leader will be able to steer the ship in many directions taking account of the wind and the current, but make no mistake it is the wind and the current which are the prevailing forces, the leader has no power to push directly against wind and tide.

In this context quirky traits or even humanity are not what makes a leader, they are novelties which may catch the eye and influence the populous selection of a leader. It’s nothing more than a wrapper or badge which helps the lazy distinguish their guy from any other with similar views. There are a million Nigel Farage out there, but the quirky guy with a pint in his hand is as good as any, and easy to remember.

In answer to the question Why should anyone be led by you?, don’t reply because I’m quirky and interesting. Reply, this is what I believe in, with all my heart and if you do to then we should work together. If in that arrangement one of us is more “marketable” then they should be the Leader and the others followers.

You don’t have to look far to see that type of pact, The Blair/Brown was just such an arrangement.





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THE AUTHOR

Tim Rogers is an experienced Project and Change Leader. He is founder of www.ciChange.org and curator for www.TEDxStHelier.Com . He is Programme Manager for the commercialization of Jersey Harbours and Jersey Airport, and prevously Operations Change and Sales Support for RBSI/NatWest, and Project Manager for the Incorporation of Jersey Post. He is also Commonwealth Triathlete and World Championships Rower with a passion for teaching and learning and is a Tutor/Mentor on the Chartered Management Institute courses. He is a Chartered Member of the British Computer Society, has an MBA (Management Consultancy) and is both a PRINCE2 and Change Management Practitioner.

Email: TimHJRogers@AdaptConsultingGroup.com
Mob: 07797762051 | Twitter @timhjrogers | Skype timhjrogers