Leadership – Page 2 – Leading Differently

Leadership and the Dunning–Kruger Effect

“Useful men, who do useful things, don’t mind being treated as useless. But the useless always judge themselves as being important and hide all their incompetence behind authority.” – Paulo Coelho

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In 1999, a couple of psychologists from Cornell University, named Kruger and Dunning, published some research findings* which essentially said that there is a tendency for unskilled individuals to overestimate their own ability, and a tendency for experts to underestimate their own ability. This incorrect self-assessment of competence became known as the Dunning–Kruger Effect. When organizing to effect change, this tendency creates unique challenges.

Over-Estimators

If someone has assumed a leadership role, the failure to recognize their own lack of skill, as well as the extent of that inadequacy, is a potential recipe for disaster. This is doubly problematic as the researchers also found that over-estimators also fail to accurately gauge skill in others.

I have written previously about emotional intelligence, and how people can develop their capacity for it. Similarly, I believe that people can train themselves to more realistically assess their abilities in a variety of skills. The fact that under-performance is accompanied by tangible evidence in the end, means that there is incentive for people to seek honest, realistic self-assessment.

Under-Estimators

The real tragedy lies with the under-estimators. Undervaluing your own abilities isn’t just sad and unfortunate on a personal level. It has an impact on group morale, commitment, productivity, and ultimately, success.

One strategy to overcome this challenge would be to use appreciative inquiry, or one-to-one conversations, to map the assets of individuals. People sometimes forget about skills and talents that they have, and require others help to uncover those assets.

If you have examples of how an individual’s over-, or under-estimating their own abilities has played out in you work, please share them in the comments below.

*Kruger, Justin; Dunning, David (1999). “Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One’s Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments”. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

Tacit Knowledge and Change Agentry

“We know more than we can tell.”
– Michael Polanyi, The Tacit Dimension

Tacit knowledge is the kind of knowledge that is difficult to convey to another person either verbally, or in writing. It can also be critically important in the process of affecting social change.

Common examples of tacit knowledge include things such as emotional intelligence, or how to speak a language that you’ve learned through immersion over a lifetime, or humor (we all laugh at things that we can’t explain why we find them funny). There are some people who argue (I am not one of them) that leadership itself is a skill that primarily leverages tacit knowledge, gained only from experience.

This intelligence that people often refer to as intuition, is more than a mere hunch. It is the result of subconsciously connecting many bits and pieces of knowledge that we’ve collected over a lifetime. Think about a chess player who makes a rapid succession of moves. Despite the pace of the game, the moves are as calculated as they are situational.

Tacit knowledge is not always correct. It is just as likely as explicit knowledge, to get caught in the trap characterized by that Mark Twain quote, “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.” The deep roots of superstition, racism, and all sorts of other human failings lie in the faulty assumptions of tacit knowledge.

Take the so-called “golden rule,” for example: “do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” It doesn’t take training to practice. Its inward orientation suggests that it is based on self-constructed, tacit knowledge. Its biblical origins might even suggest to some that it is some sort of universal truth. The problem is that this “truth” has an inherent bias. The more generous, and effective strategy for human interaction seems to lie in what is known as the Platinum Rule: “Do unto others, as others would have done unto themselves.” In other words, treat people the way they want to be treated, not the way you want to be treated.

Despite its imperfections, tacit knowledge can be crucial to organizing and motivating people to advocate for change. It is expressed in the wisdom of elders. It is the source of the confidence that people place in a community’s opinion leaders, people who have gained the trust of many people, and whose opinion on an issue serves as a sort of seal of approval for like-minded residents.

The transfer of tacit knowledge is so situational, that there is no easy method to measure, or make use of it. This reality is why distributed networks of grassroots activists are more effective than centralized, networks that look like corporate organizational charts.

Capacity inventories and appreciative inquiry interviews, like those that we use in asset-based community development, can go a long way toward uncovering forgotten or hidden assets. It is often, however, easier to discover skills and talents, than it is to discover what people know. Tacit knowledge often reveals itself over the course of the development of personal relationships. Recognizing when uncommon knowledge is being shared is an important skill.

The power of “why don’t we?”

I wrote a previous post, “When You’re Ready to Move from Talk to Action.” It focused on troubleshooting the implementation of strategies, campaigns, or projects. There is, of course, a point in time prior to the carrying out of plans, when a conscious decision is made to move from theory to the actual work of creating change.

My primary interest is how to better understand leadership around social change. I do recognize, however, that a considerable amount of the writing on topics in both leadership, and change comes out of the worlds of organizational development and organizational leadership. Some of it is universally useful.

I recently came across an image (below) in a blog post by Simon Terry, a consultant in the field of organizational development and leadership, which reminded me that regardless of the scale of change, organizational, or societal, some underlying questions remain the same. Regardless of the change you seek, the question that is going to get things done is: “why don’t we?”

The question of how to make that transformation straddles the planning, and the implementation stages. How implies a plan exists. “Why don’t we . . .” implies that there is action to take.

People who want to maintain the status quo:

Why don’t we . . . study this a little further?
Why don’t we . . . cover up the fact that this problem exists?
Why don’t we . . . just have a cooling off period of an indeterminate time to let complaints and questions blow over?

People who want to create change:

Why don’t we start working today to implement our plan for more effective, fair, and sustainable solutions?

Don’t wait for some mythical time when all risk will be mitigated. When you have a plan, work to make it happen.

Social Change and Patience

“Patience is the art of concealing your impatience.”
– Guy Kawasaki

“What do we want?” (Insert your desired change here.) When do we want it? NOW. The universal call and response of protest is not an ode to patience.

The saying, “patience is a virtue” comes from a poem written in the 1300s, by William Langland, titled, Piers Plowman. Life was pretty horrible for a lot of people in the 1300s. I’m sure that the small, privileged, affluent class in countries throughout the world were keen on perpetuating myths that reinforced their own position when they said, “patience is a virtue,” or its twin sibling, “good things come to those who wait.”

I admit that there are times during a heated struggle, when taking a little time out for strategic reflection is necessary. There are also times when cooling down is the expedient thing to do. These should, however, be seen as equivalent to resting in the corner for a minute, between rounds of a boxing match. Patience must go hand-in-hand with perseverance.

Perseverance is the key to affecting change. Think about who is being served by patience. Who is patronizing you by suggesting that you should tolerate injustice and suffering? Perseverance implies commitment and determination.

“Why aren’t you doing anything?”

“Oh, I’m just being patient.”

Declarations in favor of patience might simply be serving as excuses for fear, or laziness. Where is the virtue in that? Fear may be rational and justified, but it doesn’t have to be an excuse for a lack of commitment, hiding behind a veil of patience. Change is not possible without risk, and risk-free virtue is of little value.

The courage to act before things get unbearable

“Hate is not the opposite of love; apathy is.”
– Rollo May

I have been thinking about motivation. Specifically, I have been thinking about what motivates people to ultimately act with others to create social change. It is a big question, and admittedly, this post contains more questions than answers.

It shouldn’t have to take tragic events to provide a breaking point, or a tipping point. It seems as though even when we have a long-held vision for something different, we will very often be satisfied to simply whine and moan about the state of things, and do nothing about it. Why?

I am not interested in using this space to review the volumes of literature out there on human motivation. This isn’t an academic exercise.

The worst excuse

Speaking of academic exercises, if you’re looking for yet another excuse to put off acting, just look to those who claim a need to wait for exhaustive research in order to ‘have all the facts.’ Sometimes having all the facts is impossible. Sometimes, the facts change daily. I have written before about needs assessment as a barrier to change.

Courage

The key to this question of motivation to real commitment seems to center around courage. At the personal level, activists from oppressed groups can be faced with a wide variety of very real physical threats, or risks to their livelihoods. Would-be activists from a privileged group can face retaliation for threatening the power structure upon which their privilege is built. The consequences of courage are relative on an individual basis, but are nonetheless real.

The personal resolve, followed by the collective determination to push beyond fear is common to all movements. The coordinated efforts of the courageous is where leadership and organizing are important. You can’t mitigate all the risk. Change is fundamentally a risky endeavor. Effective leaders can, however, anticipate the support systems that may need to be set in motion to soften the blow of real hardships sustained by change agents.

It seems as though courage frequently manifests itself when an issue becomes personal. How can you get someone whose life has not been personally touched by an issue to find the courage to be a public champion for change? Does someone you know have to get shot in order for you to actively seek to end violence? Does your own water have to become undrinkable before you insist that access to clean drinking water be considered a human right?

Political will

Of course, once you’ve organized at the grassroots level, political will is a whole different beast. The shared values of a majority of people usually doesn’t stand a chance against the competing interests of the folks who finance political campaigns. The politician’s notion of courage becomes distorted. It isn’t simply about doing what’s right when presented with opposing options. Sadly, saying “no” to billionaires is the most courageous thing many politicians can imagine.

Lobbyists and other people of influence and affluence are not the only barrier to political will. People vote against their self-interest all the time. How will we appeal to citizens to align their values with their political voice?

C. S. Lewis said, “Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point.” We need to help each other find courage every day. If we amass enough of it, then perhaps we can commit to act before the testing point has forced us into finding a solution via unnecessary tragedy.

A Few Very Important Things To Remember About Leadership And Change

If you take away nothing else from this blog; I hope that you will at least remember these ideas.

If you are passionate about changing something in the world, or in your community, or in your neighborhood, and you know even one other person who shares your vision, you can lead efforts to make that change a reality.

Forget about titles (or lack thereof). Leadership is not a designation. In fact, it is not even positional most of the time. The world is not simply divided into leaders and followers. Everyone leads and follows on a daily basis.

Every day throughout the history of the world, people have locked arms with like-minded folks with some sort of plan to improve the quality of life where they live. They have learned from their mistakes, as well as from their successes. They have been temporarily derailed by disagreements, but did not let those differences distract them from their common desire to right the wrongs that they had witnessed.

If you can imagine things being different, then you can choose to act to make that transformation a reality. Choosing to act is always the first step toward leadership, and the first step toward change.

Small Accomplishments Are Important

“I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish small tasks as if they were great and noble.”
– Helen Keller

You want to change the world. Your goal is transformative change around important, complex social problems like economic inequality, or human rights. Your line in the sand can seem as big as the Grand Canyon. During those times when things seem to be moving slowly, if at all, it is important to appreciate and celebrate your little victories.

Think back to where you started. Identify small, but important events. Don’t do it for the sake of nostalgia. Use the opportunity to reflect not only on what worked, but why it worked. Can you create that kind of energy and excitement again? It’s like finding out in chapter 27 of a mystery that a throwaway line in chapter 2 turned out to be a critical clue; and then correctly solving the mystery before the author’s reveal.

Seemingly innocuous or unimportant accomplishments add up in ways that we cannot always know. Celebrating small wins keeps us motivated. It reminds us that we are making progress toward a goal. Also, as I have mentioned many times before, it is during those small battles that collaborators build those immeasurable things like trust and passion.

You are in this pursuit for the long haul. Doing and recognizing the everyday efforts of people is important. Member of Congress and civil rights leader John Lewis put it this way:

“I am prepared to take the long, hard road, knowing it may not happen today or tomorrow, but ultimately, eventually, it will happen. That’s what faith is all about. That’s the definition of commitment – patience and persistence. People who are like fireworks, popping off right and left with lots of sound and sizzle, can capture a crowd, capture a lot of attention for a time, but I always have to ask, where will they be in the end? Some battles are long and hard, and you have to have staying power. Firecrackers go off in a flash, then leave nothing but ashes. I prefer a pilot light – the flame is nothing flashy, but once it is lit, it doesn’t go out. It burns steadily, and it burns forever.” (source)

As a leader, you aren’t always required to provide the fireworks. Your greatest contribution just may be making sure that all the pilot lights remain lit.

(This is a companion piece to an earlier post, Learning and Leadership: the Importance of Reflection)

You Don’t Need a Leadership Course in Order to Lead

“Real leadership comes from the quiet nudging of an inner voice. It comes from realizing that the time has come to move beyond waiting to doing”
– Madeleine Albright

To get things done in this world you don’t need a credential, or a badge that says “leader.” If the world’s greatest writer wrote a book illustrated by the world’s greatest artist titled, How to Ride a Bicycle, it would be a poor substitute for sitting on a bike, finding your center of balance, and pushing on the pedals. We learn by doing. Leadership is no different.

Every time that you: A) imagine something being different, or being better than it is; B) decide to do something about it, either alone or with others; and C) act to make that change happen – YOU ARE DEMONSTRATING LEADERSHIP.

Leadership doesn’t require great scale. It doesn’t have to be obvious to everyone. Leadership is collaborative or distributed more often than it is positional. It doesn’t need to be heroic; it just needs to effectively move you toward a goal. You lead anytime you do things like:

have the courage to challenge someone’s racist or sexist joke;
accept responsibility for (and learn from) your failures;
do what is right, rather than what is easy (to paraphrase Dumbledore);
see the gifts and talents of others, and acknowledge them; or
listen with the goal of understanding – even when someone’s views or values conflict with your own.

Anyone who has a vision for something different and the desire to make that change happen can be a leader.

Quit Putting People in Boxes

“I have learned throughout my life as a composer chiefly through my mistakes and pursuits of false assumptions, not by my exposure to founts of wisdom and knowledge.”
– Igor Stravinsky

Even though many of the pieces on this site feature tables that compare and contrast ideas or traits while putting them in boxes, I do not, in principle, believe in the practice of categorizing people by putting them in boxes. I know that assigning qualities or attributes to individuals based on things like the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is popular with some organizations, but I don’t believe that it is important at all when organizing for change.

I’m not the only one out there who questions the value of such practices. In an article in Psychology Today, titled “Goodbye to MBTI, the Fad That Won’t Die,” Dr. Adam Grant, author of the bestselling book, Give and Take: A Revolutionary Approach to Success, writes:

“. . . in the MBTI, thinking and feeling are opposite poles of a continuum. In reality, they’re independent: we have three decades of evidence that if you like ideas and data, you can also like people and emotions. (In fact, more often than not, they go hand in hand: research shows that people with stronger thinking and reasoning skills are also better at recognizing, understanding, and managing emotions.)”

For a fairly concise academic article that looks at the scientific validity of MBTI, see “Measuring the MBTI… And Coming Up Short” by David J. Pittenger. One of the conclusions Pittenger comes to is:

“The MBTI reminds us of the obvious truth that all people are not alike, but then claims that every person can be fit neatly into one of 16 boxes. I believe that MBTI attempts to force the complexities of human personality into an artificial and limiting classification scheme. The focus on the “typing” of people reduces the attention paid to the unique qualities and potential of each individual.”

What does all of this have to do with leadership? Leaders who believe that they can create an effective team by making sure that they have people of every profile “type” are setting themselves up for missed opportunities resulting from the failure to uncover the hidden assets in the people with whom they are collaborating. Thinking that people fit some imaginary profile might lead to limiting expectations.

Preconceived notions of what people can do, and how they can grow and develop will keep things from happening, not make them happen. It is the systematic marginalization of people. This is the opposite of what a leader should do. Leaders see people at the sidelines, and invite them in as full participants in an endeavor.

Asset Mapping: a Better Option

Test-determined categorization should not be confused with asset mapping. Asset mapping is not categorizing and labeling people by “type.” Asset mapping looks at people who may have been told that they have limited value based on their type, and finds the value in their unique contradictions, their failure to fit molds, their creativity, and the exceptional perspectives that they bring to the table.

Since mobilizing people around asset mapping is based on discovery, social capital, and relationship development, it flourishes in a culture of blurred lines. It takes people out of boxes and explores the energy and creativity that emerges from not having to be the type of person you were artificially designated to be.

For more on asset-based approaches and asset mapping see the posts, Asset-Focused Leadership, and Asset-Focused Leadership Part II: the Importance of Associations.

The Leaders and Followers Myth

“The function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers.”
– Ralph Nader

The leadership industry overstates the importance of leaders. They have to; that’s where the money is. The stubborn persistence of positional leadership exists to a great degree, to perpetuate a dualistic notion that some people are better, or more worthy than others. Those with the “leader” moniker assume entitlement. In this model, leaders exist on some higher plane, and followers are considered subordinates. This is all part of a facade that equilibrium and stability are present, and that is supposed to be comforting, I guess.

The world is not simply made up of leaders and followers. Attributes generally attributed to leaders, such as critical thinking, creativity, empathy, and diplomacy, are not solely leadership traits. They are the things that make us human — all of us, “leaders” and “followers.” In most human endeavors, work, commitment, and inspiration by followers dwarfs the contributions of leaders.

When you see evidence that positive change has occurred anywhere in the world, it is usually the result of people who might usually be identified as followers, locking arms with other passionate people, and collaboratively making that change happen. You can’t put “followers” in a box.

In a 2007 article in the Harvard Business Review, Barbara Kellerman suggested a new typology for looking at followers. She categorizes followers based to a certain degree, on how they act in ways that demonstrate “leadership” abilities. Kellerman’s followers are divided into five groups: isolates, bystanders, participants, activists, and diehards. When you get beyond the isolates and the bystanders, you find people who are engaged to varying degrees, in activities that look a lot like what I think of as leadership. These people still strongly support their leaders, but at the same time they aren’t sitting around waiting for marching orders to come down from the next level on an org chart.

Jeffrey Nielsen’s 2004 book, The Myth of Leadership, says that the traditional notion of leaders and followers creates a rank-based culture, with the following assumptions:

According to Nielsen, the implications of the peer principle require that the following values be recognized, respected, and implemented:

Openness with information-as opposed to the secrecy allowed and considered legitimate with leaders and leadership.
Transparency in the decision-making process, which requires greater participation of all affected parties-as opposed to the top-down and behind closed door decision-making allowed and considered legitimate with leaders and leadership.
Cooperation and sharing of management roles and responsibilities, which requires the exercise of power-in-common-as opposed to the command and control nature of the exercise of power-over allowed and considered legitimate with leaders and leadership.

Commitment to peer deliberation as the legitimate exercise of authority-as opposed to the rank-based exercise of coercive, manipulative, or even persuasive authority allowed and considered legitimate with leaders and leadership.

“Most of what we call management consists of making it difficult for people to get their work done.”
– Peter Drucker

The myth of leaders versus followers is closely related to the concepts we examined in, Leaders Versus Managers. The idea of maintaining strict control by keeping those around you on a “short leash” works well for cult leaders and dictators, but not for grassroots social change organizing.

The idea of not equating leadership and control is also a primary difference between leading for change, and leading an organization, be it a business, an NGO, or anything else set up to be an institution. You don’t want people to follow you; you want them to follow a common vision for a better future.

Traditional Versus Creative Leadership

“The role of a creative leader is not to have all the ideas; it’s to create a culture where everyone can have ideas and feel that they’re valued. So it’s much more about creating climates. I think it’s a big shift for a lot of people.”
– Sir Ken Robinson

table: John Maeda and Becky Bermont/Redesigning Leadership

A creative leader is able to bring out the creativity of other people. It is the opposite of “do as I say, not as I do” leadership. More than other types of leadership, this is really about cultivating an organizational culture that supports and values creative thinking and problem-solving.

A survey of over 1,500 CEOs, conducted by IBM found that creativity is the most important leadership quality. Flexible, open-minded leaders rely on creative problem-solving at some level every day.

According to Sanjay Dalal, CEO & founder of the website Ogoing, the top three characteristics and traits of creative leaders are:

“1. Great at generating many ideas – innovative, game changing and even commonplace.
2. Always looking to experiment with good ideas. Sometimes, trying out a few times.
3. Unwavering belief in their creativity and innovation, coupled with originality in thinking.”
See more at http://creativityandinnovation.blogspot.com/2007/01/top-ten-creative-leadership-traits.html

Creative leadership isn’t just about generating novel ideas or approaches; it actually changes systems. Travis N. Turner notes that, “creative leaders tend to pursue revolutionary strategies (that reinvent the system) rather than the incremental strategies (that improve the existing system).” For this reason I believe that it is more than a fad, or a “flavor of the month.”

Strategic thinking is inherently creative thinking. Leaders are continuously imagining how events will unfold. They are developing contingencies based on the reality that things are not always predictable.

An article by consultant Charles Day, in Fast Company magazine listed the “four weapons of exceptional creative leaders.” You can see how his list includes a number of ideas we have explored already. Day’s list includes:

Context – Context is built from the future back, based on the best current information. Understanding context requires both knowledge and imagination.
Clearly Defined Values – Shared values are the heart of an organization’s culture. Creative leaders realize that this arises from conversation and discovery, and not from orders or memos.
Trust – Eric Hoffer said, “Someone who thinks the world is always cheating him is right. He is missing that wonderful feeling of trust in someone or something.” Be creative. Imagine how you are going to establish and maintain trust among your stakeholders.
Momentum – According to Day, “Innovation is the consequence of exploration. And you can’t explore while standing still.” Nowhere is creativity more important than in creating and maintaining momentum.

There is much more to say about this (design, process, developing creativity skills, . . .), so more on this topic later.

Evaluating Success

“Everything that can be counted does not necessarily count; everything that counts cannot necessarily be counted”
– Albert Einstein

I am a big believer in what Einstein says in the above quote. Leading people means that your endeavors are rooted in personal relationships. People don’t go around attaching numbers to the things that matter in relationships — things like love, and trust.

There are, however, many aspects to our shared work that can, and need to be measured. I’ll plan to explore some specific measurement strategies later, but first I want to unload a few of the things that I have picked up over the years related to evaluation of projects of various types. I’ve put them in a slide deck for easy browsing.

Contribution and Attribution

Sometimes when we search for attribution, that straight line of logic that confirms our logic model, we fail to both see and acknowledge a whole continuum of contributions by quiet, unassuming allies. Success is usually achieved by many, many small, often seemingly unrelated actions by people who share our vision. It is important to not get caught up in the hunt for causality, in search for the coveted “best practices.”

Even if we could identify each and every action, conversation, etc. that lead to an accomplishment, it still wouldn’t necessarily effectively inform future actions. This is because you can’t replicate every context, relationship, and cultural nuance that produced the initial win.

It is, however, important to acknowledge even the smallest contribution at the time it is being made. People need to know that their contributions, no matter how small, made a difference.

Evaluation Resources

American Evaluation Association Public Library
Better Evaluation
Community Toolbox
CommunityWealth.org
Institute of Museum and Library Services