Leadership Is Situational
by Miki SaxonIn September, 2007 I wrote Leadership—Nature Or Nature; Joseph S. Nye, Jr., former Dean of the Harvard Kennedy School, and author of The Powers to Lead used the same topic for his 2009 commencement article.
In a comment on my post Wally Bock says, “I do think there’s a “nature” part to people who turn out to be successful leaders, at least there are things that seem pretty much set for most people by their mid-twenties.”
But how much of leadership is the person and how much the circumstances?
As Nye reminds us, “In January 1940, Winston Churchill was regarded as a failed politician, but after the British defeat in France, he was seen as a charismatic leader who could rally the nation. Churchill’s traits did not change in 1940; the situation did.” (Bold formatting is mine.)
If you believe as I do that leadership is not a predetermined act or merely positional then it makes perfect sense that a person who leads in one situation won’t lead in others.
It also doesn’t matter.
If you perform at your personal best, doing everything possible to make a success of the immediate situation, then doing it as a ‘leader’ or a ‘follower’ has no meaning.
Nye says, “Modern leadership turns out to be less about who you are, or how you were born than about what you have learned and what you do as part of a group.”
So perhaps all the personal energy now expended in concern about how you lead or whether you lead could be better spent following the Boy Scout motto of “Be prepared.“
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Be sure to check out the great links at the June 7th, 2009 edition of the Leadership Development Carnival!
(I’ve finally gotten my act together to participate, which means I’ll know when they’re happening and that means I’ll have the link to share with you:)
Your comments—priceless
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Image credit: Mark Sardella on flickr
June 8th, 2009 at 8:42 am
[…] according the situation. But please stop over to see what Miki Saxon has to say about the role the ever-changing situation may really have in the genesis of […]
June 8th, 2009 at 3:59 pm
“If you perform at your personal best, doing everything possible to make a success of the immediate situation, then doing it as a ‘leader’ or a ‘follower’ has no meaning.”
This is a great point, Miki, and I certainly agree with you. I am wondering though, if there is another level to this. Definitely, what matters is performing at your best. Yet doing your best doesn’t happen in a vacuum. As you interact with others in various situations, and as you do your best, your actions influence others. In that act of influencing others, you become a leader…
I know this strays from the topic of nature vs. nuture for leadership, but I am interested to see what you might think about my musings.
June 8th, 2009 at 4:30 pm
Well, I suppose if you define leadership as influencing othWell, I suppose if you define leadership as influencing others what you say is accurate, BUT you can influence them just as much by doing your personal worst. I’ve worked next to people who were energy ‘black holes’ and believe me they influenced those around them.
It’s still ‘who cares’ to me. I don’t moved through life thinking ‘at this point I will/am leading’ or ‘OMG, I’m following X’.
A couple of years ago I wrote a post called Leaders DO in which I quoted an executive who said, “Books and workshops gave me a way to frame what I had learned as well as some language to go with it. But none of that had any meaning at all without being tied to an activity.”
I’ve been told many times that what I write influences people, but I don’t believe that makes me a leader, nor am I necessarily happy about it. I’d much rather be told that I juiced their brain, got them thinking and they vehemently disagreed with me; or that my words led them to think about something totally different (off topic:) and those thoughts (their own) led them to some kind of personal breakthrough, growth or problem solved.
June 11th, 2009 at 6:34 am
We did a three part series on Situation Based Leadership Vs. Trait-Based Leadership. We also found leadership to be Situation Based following the work of Prof. Victor Vroom. Perhaps your readers will find it interesting.
Part 1: http://hr-worldview.blogspot.com/2008/06/trait-based-leadership-vs-situation.html
Part 2: http://hr-worldview.blogspot.com/2008/06/in-paper-titled-new-psychology-of.html
Part 3: http://hr-worldview.blogspot.com/2008/06/problem-that-such-conception-of.html
Enjoy! And thanks for the great post!
June 11th, 2009 at 9:19 am
Hi Eamon, I read your series and it seems that our definitions of situational leadership differ.
If I understood you correctly, you see a specific person who needs to understand the situation in order to ‘lead’ those in it.
Where as I believe that the situation begets its own leader based on context and that the ‘leadership’ may change as the situation evolves.