I am starting to recognize a pattern about leadership in my experiences, our classes, and our readings. I am a patient and understanding person. Or this is what I have been told. Some people in my life have gone so far as to tell me that I am the most patient person they have come to know. In my career, especially lately, I have become frustrated at how much my patience is demanded by others. Since I am the type of person to persevere in the face of frustration far longer than the ‘normal’ person, I feel that my bosses demanding me to push to my limits is ‘unfair’.
In the last class, John Paul left me with an important thought which I have paraphrased: “Being a leader is about recognizing how much you can do while exhausted and frustrated. After all, it is hard to build up trust and you can blow it away in an instant”. This point has caused me to ponder my situation. I am beginning to realize that the fact that I have these frustrations must mean that I am starting to experience what it truly means to be a leader. For better or for worse. Like it or not.
Adam Smith points out that a leader should be “patient in labour, resolute in danger, and firm in distress”. He also mentions that the great likely do not believe that their journey came as easy as it appears on the outside. It is my belief that at a certain point in every leader’s career, they came to a point where they needed to decide if they would persevere in the face of what is deemed unfair. If they decide to not persevere, it does not make them less of a person. Rather, it just means that the individual has learned that he or she does not wish to continue their climb up the leadership ladder.
Being a leader is not ‘fair’, and this is what separates great leaders from the rest. We have already mentioned in class that leadership demands more from people than they wish or believe it should. Like it or not, Charles Barkley is a leader because he is in the public eye. It might not be fair to him that parents look to him to be a role model, but that is what becomes expected. In our reading about the Earl of Sandwich, he recognizes that the connection between his family name has become more about the brand rather than their family story, whether they like it or not.
Therefore, it is interesting to see how much being a leader is really about other’s perceptions. It makes me wonder how much of a leader’s status is due to luck vs. their personal traits? I suspect that every good leader has both and an understanding that they need both.
In the Dafoe readings, he speaks about how slander can destroy a tradesman. In a leadership training that my work sent me to, my instructor explained that our words are the most destructive weapon we have and once something is said, it cannot be taken back. Like it or not. According to Dafoe, even being ignorant does not allow us to fix any damage we may cause.
In today’s world, this is most notably seen with social media. It is amazing how much fake news can be spread because of ignorance. Oftentimes, there is no malicious intent with what occurs on social media. However, social media allows a space for ‘the anonymous’ to share their unfiltered thoughts with very low accountability. For those that have high accountability, this can easily lead to their destruction in a matter of hours.
How is a leader expected to overcome these types of situations? I am hoping that we learn the answers over the rest of this course. For now, I think it requires that the leader avoids getting frustrated about what is considered unfair. It is important to stay patient and stay cool at all times. In the event that the leader does something negative which can lead to their destruction, they must recognize their mistake and try to be better the next time. Like it or not.
Comments –
Connor,
Great post. In particular, I liked your statement “I suspect that every leader has to have both (luck and personal traits) and an understanding that they need both”.
Being good and excelling at what you have been tasked with will not automatically gain one the leadership position one desires. There are several business examples to support this argument.
Jack Welch (ex-GE CEO) had several well qualified direct reports who were all hoping to take over from him. However, when Jeff Immelt was selected to succeed him, most of his other direct reports quit, and went onto lead other companies (eg., Bob Nardelli, who went onto lead Home Depot, and later Chrysler). As Tom Peters said, “Leaders don’t create followers, they create more leaders”. In this example, both Bob Nardelli & Jeff Immelt had great personal traits, but Jeff appeared to have more luck than Bob to ultimately land the CEO job.
Pramod..
Thanks for your reflection Pramod!
I liked your point about ‘being good’ at what you do doesn’t entitle leadership. It’s not exactly how you meant it, but it made me think about how being ethical doesn’t even mean you’ll become a leader too! Two people doing things nearly the same way are subject to the times and perceptions of everyone else.
——————————————————————————————-
Hi Connor,
It’s an honor to be in our group with you.
I agree how dispiriting all this talk from Defoe is about diligence and reputation, but especially the lengthy talk about how one can be so easily ruined by slander, even trade murder as James brings up, meaning fake reputation impugning.
I looked up the quote about the fine flower, in light of the entire essay, to see if he mentions flowers elsewhere. Only in Chapter 17 that I can find — the other is that if you don’t know flowers the flower vendor will have contempt for you and give you the lesser product. In our fine flower quote, the flowe is only fine in the first half of the sentence:
“A tradesman’s reputation is of the nicest nature imaginable;
like a blight upon a fine flower, if it is but touched, the beauty of it, or the flavour of it, or the seed of it, is lost, though the noxious breath which touched it might not reach to blast the leaf, or hurt the root; the credit of a tradesman, at least in his beginning, is too much at the
mercy of every enemy he has, till it has taken root, and is established on a solid foundation of good conduct and success. It is a sad truth, that every idle tongue can blast a young shopkeeper; and therefore, though I would not discourage any young beginner, yet it is highly beneficial to alarm them, and to let them know that they must expect a storm of scandal and reproach upon the least slip they make: if they but stumble, fame will throw them down; it is true, if they recover, she
will set them up as fast; but malice generally runs before, and bears down all with it; and there are ten tradesmen who fall under the weight of slander and an ill tongue, to one that is lifted up again by the common hurry of report.”
So it’s the best imaginable just ready to be wrecked by circumstances beyond the tradesman’s control, basically. Kind of a downer message.
That’s why the diligence is important, I guess, to try to reduce the odds of ruin from other people’s idle gossip and slander.
Chapter 17 makes me wonder if Defoe had a lot of extended experience in trade (I guess he did) because as he noted, everybody is going to tear you down, because that is what competition is about. Unfortunately.
I really like your point about the difference between ease of “success” as it appears to others vs how it feels to the person who has to keep cheery and worry about the gossips — who has more and more to lose. You say “It is my belief that at a certain point in every leader’s career, they came to a point where they needed to decide if they would persevere in the face of what is deemed unfair. If they decide to not persevere, it does not make them less of a person.”
I’m interested in why we are tempted to call that “quitting” or “running out of steam” — I think trade always trends toward the bigger-is-better imperative and there’s not much respect for a modest growth strategy in the U.S. But does not hitching your wagon to the stars require moral and internal leadership. Also, if you are hit with fake news, or a hopelessly malicious Yelp review that says “Don’t believe anything that black girl at the desk says” (we got one), does it take leadership to ignore it? I chose to let it stand for itself and hope that people would take the general tone of our reports rather than that guy’s strained revenge for not being able to flirt his way ahead of other customers. Probably we should post obsequious apologies or and “Editor’s note.” But (to your point) we didn’t have the stomach for it.
Ellen
Thank you Ellen! I am grateful to be group partners with you too. You bring such a wonderful analytical take on the thoughts and readings!
I agree that it is kind of scary that Dafoe’s writings make being a tradesman sound bleak. I suspect that he did have a lot of experience with it. I feel like he captured everything so perfectly.
I definitely think it’s a culture thing for the giving up and the stigma it brings. My wife has attempted video blogging and part of her journey was to do these fitness challenges. Well one of the challenges was too difficult for her, and she said ‘I tried it for 2 hours. That is enough.’
For me, this made me cringe. I am the type of person that wants to persevere and overcome the obstacles. In this article, I point to the fact that I do feel like leadership requires this trait. However, I think in the case of my wife, being able to say when enough is enough is a very important trait as well.
Any leader that is stuck on trying to overcome a problem that is a lost cause is not going to get far!
Great post.
I would like to challenge you on the use of the word ‘luck’ when defining how someone becomes a leader. I always have a hard time when people use the word luck is reason why someone achieved something, as it seems to be an easy phrase to dismiss those achievements. I believe most leaders have become leaders for a reason – usually do to their own efforts, or as you describe, persistence. While I agree leadership is largely how other perceive you, I do believe we have a lot of control over creating that perception.
Isaac
Hi Isaac, I do think that luck does play a part in some sense of the word. I wouldn’t say it’s dumb luck that people generally get into leadership positions, although that may actually happen sometimes if a company is growing so rapidly and just needs to fill positions quickly. The luck of timing certainly can play a factor. Looking at Pramod’s comment above, Jeff Immelt and Bob Nardelli could be considered equally able to lead GE when the CEO stepped down. However, only one person can be selected. I think this is the type of luck that Connor is referring to. Especially within an organization, it does take a bit of luck and political savvy-ness to rise to the next level, all traits and levels of effort being equal.
However, like you said, we have control over our own perception and accomplishments and marketing those factors which is why we may choose to jump ship to another organization in order to gain a higher leadership role than our current org can provide.
Juliana
Isaac and Juliana,
I completely agree with both of you! By no means should luck take away from their achievements or blood, sweat, and tears that it took to get to where they are.
Maybe I specifically am thinking about creating / maintaining leadership. I think creating is about having the right drive and mindset. These are core to a leaders being. However, maintaining this leadership becomes a collective experience. In the Obama reading, they talked about how he had to give up ownership of his brand to others. I think anytime that you rely on others, you are at the mercy of time (like has been mentioned above) and a ton of other potentially destructive factors. We can control who we are, but we can’t control other people. Maybe a great leader does mitigate this risk by knowing the people to surround herself/ himself with. Regardless, it still feels like there is so many possibilities that could happen in which you have no control over.
I called this Luck. You can also call it the universe, fate, destiny, God. I think all of these words apply to this hidden force that is needed to thrive as a leader.
