One of the great mysteries of the world is what leadership is and after doing a Google and Twitter search I am no more the wiser as to what agreement there may be.  For some it’s about coming through some great crisis that a public figure had survived like George Washington, Abe Lincoln or Winston Churchill.  Is it because they survived the crisis or because they did it with dignity and grace.  In the case of a public figure we might recognize Hitler as a great leader, I have to admit putting “Hitler” and “great leader” in the same sentence makes me a little uncomfortable even for effect.  But no seems to recognize a loser as a great leader unless we are talking about the movie “Braveheart.” 
Leaders
The leadership coaches all seem to have different definitions.  They seem to be drawn more to traits like integrity, self-management, communication, cheerleader, “can-do” attitudes (win one for the Gipper) kind of stuff.  W. Edwards Deming outlined traits like ”knowledge, personality and persuasive power”, but his traits were aimed at using these for the transformation of the organization.  So, this is where we begin.

Deming had his 14 Points and 7 Deadly Diseases that he used as his base to transform “from and to” to form a new organization based on different thinking.  John Seddon followed up on this concept with the “from” being command and control thinking and the “to” being systems thinking.  A better way seems to involve this transformation and leadership (by any definition) should be the ones leading it.

Common place today are highly paid executives that don’t understand the business.  They have never been a teller, a software developer, a call center representative, a claims processor or any of the activities of the business they run.  If these executives did show up two things would happen: one, the staff would fall over . . . and two, the staff would beg them not to actually “do” anything.  So how can these folks be effective managers if they don’t understand the work?  Some will say they know the numbers (financials) or they are great strategists or marketers.  I say BS . . . how in the world can they make decisions about the work they don’t understand.  They lack context and worse . . . they lack knowledge.  This by itself leads to such foolishness as benchmarking, targets, outsourcing, shared services and all the other bad stuff that goes with command and control thinking.

Being a leader needs to include understanding the organization as a system.  Leadership development should include starting at “check” (purpose, capability, flow, constraints).  This allows an executive or manager to get knowledge about their system.  The first step to improving the system and beginning the transformation from command and control to systems thinking. 

Government management should especially follow this method as they come flying in every two to four years with new mandates before they even understand the system.  Putting in financial and performance targets (bad in and of themselves), mandates, policies, without ever understanding the systems they are changing.  This isn’t just wrong . . . this is stupid.

Leadership may include all the things we’ve looked at together, but systems thinking should be at the top of the list.

Tripp Babbitt is a speaker, blogger and consultant to service industry (private and public).  His organization helps executives find a better way to make the work work.  Download free from www.newsystemsthinking.com “Understanding Your Organization as a System” and gain knowledge of systems thinking or contact us about our intervention services at info@newsystemsthinking.com.  Reach him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/TriBabbitt.