An interesting question is whether profiling works. These days, we seem to use profiling techniques to find everything from potential terrorists to murderers to people we feel will do a job best. The television show “Criminal Minds” is all about profiling. In his book WHAT THE DOG SAW, Gladwell questions profiling and its general utility. The question for my readers is whether we can profile the best and most effective leaders. The answer may be no. Your leadership skills are affected by the context in which those skills are utilized. If your approach to dealing with others is authoritarian and you enter an organization in which democracy prevails, your approach to governing that organization may be resisted. Trust will evaporate, and you will not be effective. People with strong skills will leave. You will tend to hire people who will go along with your authoritarian approach. The culture will change . The democratic organization will evaporate and the organization will no longer be the same. This does not mean that the organization will fail, but its creativity may wither and its successes be diminished. This organization needed a democratic leader. In this example, the context variable was ignored.
BUT WAIT. Something is not right here. I have profiled an authoritarian leader in a negative way. Not all authoritarian leaders or in fact democratic leaders are alike. It is true that some leaders are very command and control oriented. The context like for example a need to respond to an emergency will function best in a command and control organizational context. And yet, some authoritarian leaders are very paternalistic with much concern for the people who work for them. Although they feel most comfortable in a strong hierarchical organization, they will recognize the talents of their direct reports and promote them or give other forms of rewards. There are democratic leaders who will promote teamwork and collaboration, but retain all decision-making for themselves. They may or may not garner trust, but still lack the personal skills related to empathy.
In his many books on leadership, Blanchard and his colleagues argue that context is ever-changing. Leaders often need to vary their leadership style to fit the circumstances of different types of events. Organizations are not static. They change and expect their leaders to be flexible and also resilient. Leaders make decisions on their feet by pulling information from multiple sources, other leadership experiences, an understanding of the skills of others as well as an understanding of the culture in which they work, many different skill sets and tools, and be responsive to the communities that they serve. Leaders take these unique set of factors and synergistically put them together to create unique solutions to the many challenges facing their organizations and communities.
The fact that not all leaders are alike does not mean that there are not universal traits that seem to apply to all leaders. In my February 2010 posting, I listed a series of books that I would place on any public leader’s bookshelf. Many of these books address key leadership traits and skills that they find in most leaders. Many of the books selected for my 2009 and 2010 Book Club do the same thing. However, each leader uses their personal leadership strengths and skills in unique ways. The secret is in the interpretation and translation of these skills and traits which are affected by context into practice. Not all leaders do it the same way. Organizational and community culture are important filtering factors.
Rowitz On Leadership 