Leadership: Desire and Ability

A colleague of mine, in a pessimistic mood, remarked that the kind of people who seek leadership positions tend to be the kind of people who are least capable of being successful leaders.   They are seek dominance and power over others as an end in itself, and have no specific objective in mind except to dominate and control others.   And sadly they very often hound their way into management, where they do quite a bit of damage.

I could not disagree with him, as I routinely see exactly this kind of person in a position of authority - but if it's any consolation, many of them do not go very far, or remain managers for very long.   At the top levels of management, C-level executives and senior vice presidents, there are many very good and capable leaders.  Below that level, it tends to be a mixed group, with a constantly rotating gallery of power-hungry clowns beneath them.   Granted, it's not universally true: there are strong leaders in the lower echelons and clowns in the firmament, but these seem to be rare.

And being a tedious person, I've meditated on the matter, and put together a simple matrix of the desire to lead against the ability to lead, to define four basic "types" of leader in terms of these two parameters.  Hence, this article.


Core Qualities: The Desire and Ability to Lead

The two core qualities evaluated in the present assessment are the desire to lead and the ability to lead.   There may be other parameters that are worth considering, but these are most germane to the discussion that started my wheels turning.

The desire to lead is merely the degree to which a person wishes to be a leader.  The motivation of such a person could likely be investigated further by asking "Why do you want to lead?" in order to get a better sense of an individual's motivation, at least to the degree they will make an accurate statement - whether they wish to lead because they need people to accomplish a personal objective, for the salary and esteem of a leadership position, a response to a cultural imperative that motivates them to attain a given position in life, or merely for gratification of their psychological need to be in command of others.

The reason a person wants to lead is likely a determinant of whether they have the ability to lead competently - or are willing to apply themselves diligently to the task of learning to become an effective leader.  But my sense is that a person is driven by lust for power may be just as likely to hone his abilities and become a good leader as one who gets into leadership for the "right" reasons.   That is, a person may have good intentions and state strong desires but be too lazy to do what is necessary to achieve them.

The ability to lead is more easily measured in the behaviors of a person.  A leader can

• articulate his goals
• define a plan to accomplish them
• persuade others to contribute to the effort, and 
• maintain the morale of his followers over a long period of time.   

Anyone who does less may be a boss or a manager, but is not a leader.

These four qualities of leadership are not matters of opinion, but are demonstrated in action.  A man may claim to have leadership qualities, and he may even convince others that he has the makings of a good leader - but his ability to lead will become evident only when he is in a position of leadership, at which point it will be obvious and unmistakable whether he possess them.

These qualities defined, I will consider their convergence.


Inspirational Leaders: High Desire and High Ability

An inspirational leader possesses both the desire and the ability to lead, and is the very model of what a leader ought to be.

A high desire to lead is necessary, as a person who does not see the need for others can be competent in a task all on his own and will not see the need to command the cooperation of others to achieve it.   Such a person can be a great individual performer, but lacks sufficient desire to lead to become a great leader.

This begs the question: are great leaders always leading others?   My sense is that they are not.  They will at times identify tasks that do not need others to cooperate and can perform them without followers.   But at the same time, I sense it is more than just happenstance: people choose the goals they wish to pursue.  Therefore, a person who routinely chooses tasks that require no assistance may have the potential to lead, but not the desire to do so - and his lack of desire causes him to choose to pursue tasks that do not require others to support.

In that sense, if a person is to be in a position of leadership on a regular or ongoing basis, he must have a desire to lead, and express this desire in choosing to pursue goals that require him to be a leader of others in order to accomplish them.


Terminal Followers: Low Desire and Low Ability

The diametric opposite of an inspirational leader is a terminal follower: such a person has no desire to lead, nor the ability to lead, and will likely never find himself in a leadership position.

Given that western culture is prone to hero-worship and takes a very negative perspective on anyone who does not wish to become a hero or a leader, there may be the tendency to dismiss a "terminal follower" as a useless and shiftless person - but my sense is that perspective ignores the value of followers.

Without followers, there would be no need for leaders.  Conversely, if a single leader means to inspire a thousand others, there must be a thousand others who have no desire or ability to lead, but will happily resign themselves to supporting roles.   Leaders require followers, and society requires a great deal more followers than leaders.

The question may arise: how can a terminal follower become a good leader?  The obvious answer is that he can't, and should not be encouraged to assume a role for which he has no desire or talent.  Allow such a person to do what he does best and is most comfortable doing rather than push him into a role where he ill be miserable and doomed to failure.

However, that is not to say that a terminal follower cannot become a good leader, or even an inspirational one - but this motivation must come from within.   Generally speaking, a terminal follower must discover a cause about which he feels so strongly that he is willing to undertake the task of learning to be a leader and assume a position that will be uncomfortable for him.

While I am not aware of the proportion of leaders who were once followers, history and literature provide quite a few examples of a person hidden among the ranks who discovered the need and desire to lead.   Such a character transformation makes for quite a compelling story, and is often a prominent turning point in the biographies of many legendary leaders.


Occasional Leaders: Low Desire but High Ability

The occasional leader is an individual who has the abilities to be the best sort of leader, but who has little desire to apply himself to the task.

These individuals are easily mistaken for "terminal followers" simply because they do not demonstrate in action the leadership qualities they happen to possess under everyday circumstances.   But every so often, when they are inspired to step into a position of leadership, they excel at the task.   But as soon as the goal is achieved, they blend back into the scenery.

My sense is that a great many individuals are occasional leaders, as western culture extols the virtues of leadership and western education seeks to prepare every student to become a leader, even though the great majority of them will never have an opportunity to serve in a position of leadership.

Encouraging the occasional leader to step out of the pack and put his skills to use is no easy matter.   In that way, he is like the terminal follower who rises to the task of leadership only on the rare occasion that he sees the need.

However, it stands to reason that the occasional leader is more open to encouragement - in general, people find pleasure in doing the things that they are good at doing, and it is likely easier to persuade the occasional leader to put existing skills to work than it is to persuade a terminal follower to develop skills he does not have so that he may then utilize them.

It can also be observed that the progression is not always from occasional leader to inspirational leader, but can often go the other way around.  When an inspirational leader is disgruntled or frustrated, he may abdicate his position of leadership to blend into the ranks - still having the ability, but not the desire, to lead others.


Tragic Leaders: High Desire but Low Ability

The worst form of leader, and seemingly the most common, is a person who desires to be in a leadership position but has no ability to exercise leadership.

This includes the swollen ranks of those who are in leadership positions, but are mediocre or incompetent leaders.   At best, such people maintain the status quo but accomplish no improvement; at worst, they do a great deal of damage to their organization, whether through the waste of resources in pursuit of ill-conceived directives or merely running off competent followers who wish to devote themselves to a more competent leader.

It's my sense that the lower ranks of management are infested with tragic leaders for two reasons: there are those who desire to be better leaders and require time and experience to hone their skills to become effective in the task, and then there are those whose desires are more in the nature of personal gratification who will never become competent leaders.

The first class of tragic leader is mere inefficiency, as the damage they do during the learning process will be surpassed by the dividends achieved once they attain competence in their role when they become good leaders, and possibly outstanding ones.   Training, mentoring, and other forms of education and guidance can be used to mitigate the damage they might do and expedite their development into effective leaders.

The second class of tragic leader may well be incurable.   Particularly because their desire to control others is psychologically motivated, it is often entrenched in ego defenses that prevent them from accepting guidance or training - and will most likely resist any suggestion that they need to develop skills as a threat to their authority.  Because they desire to be autocratic, they will not listen to anyone, but persist in their unproductive behavior.

That is not to suggest that the second-class tragic leader is entirely wasted, but it will take a dramatic event to get such a person to recognize his own incompetence and apply himself to improving his performance.   However, a dramatic event is often so catastrophic that organizations will seek to get rid of such people rather than attempting to salvage them.

Thus considered, the best approach to a tragic leader is to facilitate that epiphany - to help him discover, before he has damaged the organization and run off all the good followers, that he is incapable of leadership such as he is, and either to reconsider his desire to lead or channel it into improving himself to become a better leader.

It is also my sense that the lower ranks of management are infested with tragic leaders because most of them do not cause catastrophes, but merely inefficiencies.  The damage they do to the firm is minor and sustainable, and they alienate employees at a slow enough rank that they can be replaced.  They fail to wreak enough havoc to seem to require a reaction, but at the same time fail to achieve enough success to seem to be worth promoting, and so languish in the lower eschelons indefinitely.


Conclusions

The first and most obvious set of conclusions to draw from this meditation is that organizations should assess the leaders they have, both in terms of desire and ability, and take action accordingly:

• Inspirational leaders should be cherished, and put to work in places where good leadership stands to have the most positive impact on organizational performance
• Occasional leaders should be sought out an encouraged to apply themselves to the task of leadership where no inspirational leader can be assigned, with the understanding that it is motivation rather than skill that needs addressing
• Tragic leaders should be identified and encouraged to develop their skills, and if they cannot recognize their incompetence or apply themselves to improvement, they should be removed from leadership
• Terminal followers should be value for what they do, which does not include leadership roles in which they would be both uncomfortable and unable to succeed

The second and most germane to the conversation that set my mind in motion is that the proportion of tragic leaders who selected for leadership, who rise within the organization or, or who linger in the lower levels of management is a testament to the competence (or lack thereof) of the higher-level leaders who have selected, appointed, and maintained such people in positions of authority - and that it is highly likely to be an indicator of the effectiveness of the organization as a whole.

A firm can either succeed in spite of poor leadership, or fail because of it.  There need be no matrix to explain that particular correlation.