"Discovering Your Authentic Leadership": Dr. Seuss for adults

The subject of leadership was front and center at last week's 12th Annual Law Firm Leaders Forum. The focus on leadership is not fading in the legal arena or in business literature. The February edition of Harvard Business Review includes an article I may or may not recommend to you entitled "Discovering Your Authentic Leadership" by Bill George, Peter Sims, Andrew N. McLean, and Diana Mayer. (The article was adapted from the book True North: Discover Your Authentic Leadership.) In under nine pages, the authors give their opinions of what it takes to be an authentic leader. They begin:

During the past 50 years, leadership scholars have conducted more than 1,000 studies in an attempt to determine the definitive styles, characteristics, or personality traits of great leaders. None of these studies have produced a clear profile of the ideal leader. Thank goodness. If scholars had produced a cookie-cutter leadership style, individuals would be forever trying to imitate it. They would make themselves into personae, not people, and others would see through them immediately.

The authors' research team interviewed 125 leaders to see how these leaders developed their leadership qualities. The interviews surprised the researchers. The authors write:

After interviewing these individuals, we believe we understand why more than 1,000 studies have not produced a profile of an ideal leader. Analyzing 3,000 pages of transcripts, our team was startled to see that these people did not identify any universal characteristics, traits, skills, or styles that led to their success. Rather, their leadership emerged from their life stories. Consciously and subconsciously, they were constantly testing themselves through real-world experiences and reframing their life stories to understand who they were at their core.

In addition to understanding the story of your life, the authors believe that authentic leadership requires several other factors. They include

• A commitment to developing yourself just as a musician or athlete is committed;
• Balance between your extrinsic motivations (desire for external validation, such as status, financial rewards) with your intrinsic motivations (desire for fulfillment, such as personal growth, making the world a better place);
• A personal and professional support team, which starts with having at least one person in your life by whom you are accepted exactly as you are "warts and all"; and
• An integrated life in which, if you think of your life as a house with your study as your professional life, your living room as your social life, your family room as your family, etc., you can knock down the walls and be the same person in each room.

I do not agree with everything said in the article. Sometimes the description of the path to authentic leadership sounds like it was lifted from a flat and corny self-help primer. Some of it was too saccharine and syrupy for me even though I have a high Pollyanna quotient. Some of it sounds credible until you step back and think about it -- for example, the above house metaphor. But reading will refresh like a shower or a lively sermon or Dr. Seuss's Oh, the Places You'll Go. Hmm. Yes, that's it exactly; this article is Dr. Seuss for grownups. Remember that Dr. Seuss book? A couple of excerpts:

Congratulations!
Today is your day.
You're off to Great Places!
You're off and away!

You have brains in your head.
You have feet in your shoes
You can steer yourself
any direction you choose.
You're on your own.  And you know what you know.
And YOU  are the guy who'll decide where to go.

. . .

You'll be on your way up!
You'll be seeing great sights!
You'll join the high fliers
who soar to high heights.

You won't lag behind, because you'll have the speed.
You'll pass the whole gang and you'll soon take the lead.
Wherever you fly, you'll be the best of the best.
Wherever you go, you will top all the rest.

Except when you don't
Because, sometimes, you won't.

In the article I did read one thing that I probably will remember for more than a day. From the quartet:

When 75 members of Stanford Graduate School of Business's Advisory Council were asked to recommend the most important capability for leaders to develop, their answer was nearly unanimous: self-awareness.

I agree with the nearly 75 people. Do you? I also think self-awareness is so elusive of definition and difficult to achieve that we get all these books and articles circling and buzzing around it and pointing to it from many different vantage points. Ultimately, self-awareness can't be described anymore than the map describes the territory. We do sense self-awareness when we see it in a person -- and that person we will follow, if for no other reason than to learn his or her secret.

Note (added March 11, 2007, 9:28 AM Mountain): Hear Bob Dylan singing Dr. Seuss. Noticed on March 24, 2007, that the site is no longer available.

Comments

[Erik Mazzone]

Great post, Stephanie. I haven't read the HBR article, but I have a couple of observations based on your post.

First, it seems to be the conventional wisdom that the best way to research leadership is to ask "leaders" how they learned "leadership." Aside from the problematic issue of which "leaders" were chosen to interview, this research methodology presumes that these leaders will be the best reporters of what makes their leadership work. In the vein of 360 evaluations, it is my opinion that asking the folks following leaders what works and why is a far superior way to go about an inquiry of this sort. Just like Tiger Woods uses coaches because, while being a great golfer, he can't critique his own swing.

Second, while I believe authenticity is a good quality in people, including leaders, I don't like the conclusion this research draws: namely, that increasing one's "authenticity" is the ticket to better leadership. This focuses a leader internally, on finding out more of what makes him/her special. Rather, I think people in leadership positions could benefit from focusing more on the people they serve.

[Stephanie West Allen]

Thanks, Erik. I agree with your concern about the methodology. I am not a big fan of self reporting; there are so many possible ways it can be biased or inaccurate, either consciously or unconsciously by interviewer or interviewee. I also agree that focusing on the people served is important. And I agree with the Stanford group that self-awareness is critical; without it, the leader would not be aware that he or she was not focusing on the people being served.