The death knell for dinosaurs of leadership
Can business personalities be characterised as specific types? How useful are such classifications in determining an individual’s leadership qualities?
Can business personalities be characterised as specific types? How useful are such classifications in determining an individual's leadership qualities?
Pigeon-holing different types of business professionals is often like shooting fish in a barrel but surprisingly, it usually holds up to scrutiny. Neil Baker discusses the types of personality who often make it – or don’t – in business leadership.
A New Economy needs a new kind of business leader. Control freaks and messianic visionaries are out – make way for the Eco–leaders. Look at 100 years of research on management – and mismanagement – and you’ll find four main approaches to leadership.
Three are past their sell–by dates; there’s just one suited to the businesses of the future. Here’s the lowdown:
1 The control freak
Management by clipboard was the model in the early 20th century. The Control Freak believes that a business can be run along scientific lines. Factories and markets are rational and predictable places: gather enough data about what employees do and how long it takes, for example, and you can make a business super–efficient. Some businesses still work this way – call centres are the obvious examples. But then people hate to work in call centres for a reason.
2 The caring sharer
Don’t time how long your staff spend on their breaks, try to empathise with them. Develop your emotional intelligence to coach management, staff and your fellow co–leaders. This is the way of The Caring Sharer. People might feel better, but does the business make any more money?
3 The visionary
This is – or was – the dominant leadership style of American capitalism. Beloved of politicians, too. It’s hero worship, pure and simple. The Visionary is the man with the persuasive personality and a Big Idea, if not always the plan to make it happen. Think Bernie Ebbers at WorldCom.
4 The eco-leader
The collapse of WorldCom, Enron and others, is helping to usher in something new. All that nefarious wrongdoing prompted a paradigm shift. Companies now need to share leadership around – let teams of people lead, not the guy with the biggest ego; let people make their own decisions. Don’t milk the bottom line for shareholders; build networks and relationships with stakeholders. This is Eco–leadership. Is this the future? The trick, it seems, is to make sure the leader – or leaders – of a business has the same values as its customers.
Not much new about that, but the things customers believe in have changed a lot over the last 100 years.
