Leadership- You can't be trained

In the corporate world, the word 'leadership' makes a lot of hue and cry at public forums. There are plethora of courses, seminars and workshops on the same, for managers. But when it comes to day to day working in the organization, this remains a rare feature among people. Do we exhibit this behavior or even take cognizance of these before acting? Mostly, we don’t. Not because we don’t remember or we don’t want to; but because ‘Leadership’ doesn’t work that way. As a matter of fact, this is something one should not try to learn. Either you have it or you don’t. Period!

As a human, we possess certain subjective traits, which influence people around us. These traits can be exhibited with the way we talk to people, the way we listen to people and the way we understand people. And ‘the way’ determines how we influence people. Definitely, the behavior of people around us is a good indicator of the traits we possess.

But the first problem is- can we identify whether self is a leader or not? There is a difference between the one who is a leader vs. the one who thinks he is a leader. Later being more harmful as it blinds you from the actual surrounding behavior and lets you consume a prejudiced format of the same perceived by self-obsession. A classic case of ‘Dunning Kruger effect’; where in one is so unskilled that he is unable to assess that he is unskilled.

If it can’t be fed (as one of the electives in your MBA!), then how do we acquire it. I believe it is a process of years of lithification under the influence of leaders to plug porous cavities of one’s character. If in business, money begets money; in any organization, leadership begets leadership. And this constitutes the culture of organization as a whole. Yes, you can’t be taught but you can definitely assimilate. No crash course for that! And it is not just we human, but many other living beings; a pack of wolf, being one of the popular examples.

Having pointed out the core of leadership, it is also not practically possible or right to expect that everyone should possess this extraordinary trait. Rare quality comes to rare people. So what type of proxy a manager should use to ensure that his effect to the team is at least of a pseudo- leadership? And what type of rules & policy should an organization put in place to ensure a productive and motivated environment? The answer to this question has eluded HR managers of almost all the organizations.

But sometimes I ponder, do we actually need leadership skills or need to ‘learn’ leadership skills given the difference in every type of organization. How will it differ among different type of work spaces e.g. a contractor handling a group of blue collar workers, a sales head managing a bunch of salesman, a senior consultant heading its corporate executives and an army officer leading troop? At the end of the day, it is the task that has to be completed which is at team’s disposal and there is a command that will ensure that it is done. The quality of command will determine the quality, efficacy and timeliness of the job done as well as willingness, loyalty and attentiveness of the doer. Needless to say, the leadership skills determine the quality of command.

For people who have masked themselves as a leader, they need to understand that, there is a thin line between quality of command and control in the group.

To add to the importance of leadership, there is a tangible cost associated with the lack of it. If you have spent a good amount of time in corporate world; you would know many tricks used by your ‘boss’ (intentionally didn’t use the word ‘leader’) to get things done. Be it hand-twisting, divide and rule, responsibility shrugging, pampering seniors and expecting the same from juniors, creating prejudiced opinions, ego massaging, self-righteousness etc. Definitely these don’t promote camaraderie in the team. But it does hamper the productivity and usable man-hours. Depending upon the level of infringement at one’s work place, it may cost up to 40% of the employee cost.

Cost is high and the traits are rare. What’s the solution? This has been an age old conundrum. Recently, many organizations have started using psychometric test to evaluate their employee. Gauging emotional quotient is another practice in this regard. But those are too, susceptible to inaccuracies and feigning. Another option can be 360 degree review mechanism in an organization. Probably this may help to identify who is a leader and who is not; but it will definitely not train someone with leadership skills. So are we out of option to identify a leader at an early stage? May be; May be not. But, for sure, we need to delve deep into it, to ensure better and productive working environment. I will leave this as a food for thought for eminent HR professionals to work upon.

All said and done, I will end this with a quote of Mark Twain:

“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.”