The Leadership Mystique

A User's Manual for the Human Enterprise

Manfred Kets de Vries

FT Prentice Hall, 2001

Review

Business schools and shareholders focus so relentlessly on hard numbers and cold facts that it’s no surprise that data reigns supreme in the corporate world. But executives who downplay the importance of emotion and intuition do so at their own peril, management expert Manfred Kets de Vries convincingly argues. He offers a wealth of useful tips for leaders who are ready to reintroduce the human side, the soft side, to their organizations and their own lives. The author occasionally drops in stories and quotes from his clients, but his argument would have been bolstered by even more examples. getAbstract.com recommends this easy-to-digest volume to leaders who want to improve their interpersonal skills.

In this summary, you will learn

·        Why "soft" issues are so crucial to leaders

·        Why emotional intelligence is important

·        How to pursue work-life balance

Take-Aways

·        In the business world, hard data reigns supreme.

·        Incredibly important "soft" issues such as emotion and intuition are overlooked.

·        The corporate world has placed too much emphasis on the logical intelligence measured by IQ.

·        Emotionally unaware leaders fail more often. That’s the "failure factor" and emotional intelligence is the cure.

·        While companies give lip service to creativity, many employees find little place for true creativity in their cubicles - they relegate innovation to their off hours.

·        As the comic strip Dilbert illustrates, employees view their jobs as soul-deadening toil.

·        To avoid the Dilbert phenomenon, employees must achieve "flow" - that state of heightened concentration in which the work perfectly matches the person’s abilities.

·        Leaders who can’t change have "mussel syndrome:" they are stuck in one place.

·        Many hard-working people choose the "deferred-life strategy," in which they sacrifice personal pursuits for professional goals.

·        Instead, chose the "whole-life strategy;" pursue your professional and personal goals.

Summary

Emotional Intelligence and Leadership
Business leaders are trained to focus on hard data and cold logic. Left-brain types tend to think of emotion, intuition and other human factors as "soft" matters that can’t be measured and, therefore, don’t exist. A practical reason underlies this approach: personal, emotional issues are difficult to see, let alone manage and control. Yet these soft issues can prove quite hard indeed. Ignoring soft matters can kill deals and destroy careers, so understanding subjective issues is crucial to your success.

“Emotional intelligence plays a vital role in the leadership equation. It comes down to this: people who are emotionally intelligent are more likely to be effective as leaders.”

The concept of "emotional intelligence" arose once it became clear that a high IQ alone doesn’t guarantee leadership success. Leaders who understand their own motivations and who know what motivates their employees are more likely to succeed. The intelligence quotient measures logical and mathematical skills, abilities that do not guarantee management aptitude. Smart people don’t necessarily make good decisions and they often fall into the "intelligence trap" of justifying poor decisions. Also, high-IQ managers tend to be so skilled at criticizing others that they do that instead of focusing on more constructive activities.

“Positivism and objectivity prevail in the world of organizations. The credo is that what you can’t see doesn’t exist.”

So what is emotional intelligence? It involves three primary elements:

1.      Recognizing your own emotions - Executives tend to subvert their emotions. During their years climbing the corporate ladder, they discipline themselves to hide their feelings and portray themselves as they feel they’re expected to behave. They project the image of being team players and positive thinkers, even if they don’t feel that way. This leads to the creation of a "false self," a dangerous long-term situation.

2.     Managing your emotions - Some executives understand their emotions all too well and yet act on them in unproductive ways. If you react to feeling angry or frustrated by throwing phones, slamming doors or raging at subordinates, work on controlling your emotions. Such outbursts reverberate through your organization.

3.     Dealing with others’ emotions - First, learn empathy. This means you must look at the world through another person’s eyes. Once you can understand how others feel, you can begin to manage their emotions. One of the best ways to empathize is to master the art of "active listening." This requires you to listen more than you speak, and to participate fully in the conversation. The active listener watches the other person in the conversation for expressions and gestures. To deepen the conversation, the active listener asks questions such as, "What do you mean by that?"

“Many executives are astounded to discover how loyal, creative, vigorous and imaginative their employees are - except during the eight hours a day they’re on the job.”

A New Model of Leadership
As the importance of emotional intelligence gains recognition, organizations are changing. The old model followed the "three C’s:" command, control and compliance. The new paradigm focuses on the "three I’s:" ideas, information and interaction. Old model organizations were paternal and rewarded loyalty with life employment. That is no longer the case. Now, companies have a more "adult," less paternalistic relationship with their employees. People no longer expect life employment and are far likelier to switch jobs for better opportunities.

“Everyday life in some insurance companies and banks, for example, simply isn’t conducive to wonder, curiosity or joy. The lifeless quality of a moribund organization encourages executives to suppress their emotions - a process that takes a lot of energy.”

In this world, the old command-and-control style of issuing orders and expecting employees to follow them is disappearing. However, change is difficult and some people develop "mussel syndrome," that is, they latch onto a familiar rock and cannot move forward. Sometimes it is particularly hard to leave success behind, but don’t let a period of success lead you to failure.

“Many people who take the career track seriously opt for...the deferred-life strategy: they plan to work like the dickens today so that they can enjoy the nice house and fine car and cushy retirement later.”

Today’s effective CEOs communicate a vision. They act as "chief storytelling officers," and use stories to motivate people. In this model, CEOs are like actors who show an example and set a tone in their organizations.

“Achieving balance between work and personal life clearly belongs at the top of the list of things that are easier said than done.”

The end of the old employer-employee contract gave rise to the "Dilbert phenomenon." The popular comic strip focuses on cubicle dwellers who find their talent and motivation sapped by bureaucratic lunacy. Even as new-model employers increasingly value ideas and creativity, many front-line employees find that the corporate world can be stultifying, as portrayed in Dilbert. They save their creativity for their hours off the clock. In fact, executives often are stunned to learn how creative their employees are in their personal lives. You might ask, "So what?" No one said working in a corporation is an avenue to beauty, delight and happiness. The problem is that an emotionless work environment forces executives to disguise and ignore their feelings. Suppressing emotions is unnatural and consumes energy you could use more productively. Disguising your emotions ultimately can lead to antisocial behavior.

“Strategy and organizational structure can be influenced strongly by the personality of the leader.”

However, the paternalistic model is also out of date. Today, workers govern their careers themselves and many strive to become more employable, instead of expecting to stay in one job for a long time. Your challenge as a leader is to forge relationships anyway, despite employees who are suspicious or who keep an eye on the exit.

“Organizational transformation can’t occur without some ’pain’ in the system. Who wants change when things are going well?”

While the Dilbert phenomenon focuses on middle managers, those lower on the corporate ladder have some consolation: they have plenty of peers to talk to and the presence of equals creates a de facto support network. When you’re the boss, things can be tougher. This "loneliness of command" concept means that the CEO is almost forced to be aloof. For the CEO, the organization no longer contains equals, only subordinates.

“Organizations are like automobiles. They don’t run themselves, except downhill.”

Finding Work-Life Balance for Yourself and Your People

Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi has written extensively about the concept of "flow," the lost-in-the-moment feeling you get when you are using all of your powers of creativity and analysis to accomplish a task. This combination of concentration and exhilaration requires enough of a challenge that you are fully engaged, but not so much challenge that you are overcome by anxiety.

“Change isn’t a simple process, neither is it a comfortable one.”

Finding this balance - enough stimulation and challenge, but not too much - requires balance in your personal life, as well as your job. This equilibrium is difficult to achieve. Indeed, many successful people pursue the "deferred-life strategy:" work hard now and enjoy the fruits of your labor later. This never works as you might hope. Workaholics wind up as strangers to their spouses and children, full of regret. Turn toward a wiser strategy, the "whole-life approach," in which you pursue personal and professional fulfillment at the same time. Shifting gears from hard-driving striver to nurturing partner, parent or friend is not easy. Giving orders might be your natural state at the office, but it won’t work in your household. Instead, when you are at home, engage fully with your family.

“IQ isn’t everything. A person who breezes through college with straight A’s can still flunk life.”

Many CEOs wait for a major life event to examine their personal lives. The trigger could be a health scare such as a heart attack, or a personal calamity such as a divorce, or maybe simply the kids leaving home. Whatever the impetus, the executive suddenly realizes that his or her intense focus on work has meant sacrificing personal relationships and interests, and begins to reexamine what’s important. Often, the hard-driving executive is filled with regret about lost opportunities. The side effects of this unbalanced life can include alcoholism and depression.

“We all need to be architects of our own fate, the authors of our own script. If we turn that scripting over to others, we’re not really living, we’re just playing a part.”

How to Get a (Whole) Life
Here are some tips for following the whole-life strategy rather than the deferred-life strategy:

? Set life goals - Determine what’s important to you; make time for your priorities.
? Spend time alone - This lets you think about your priorities.
? Measure your life in quality, not quantity - It’s not how much but how good.
? Drop the superhero act - Don’t set unattainable goals.
? Say no - And don’t regret it.
? Devote plenty of one-on-one time to your family - Really get to know them.
? Make time for recreation - And include music, art and nature in your life.

These goals are a good starting point, but to keep your subordinates off the road to workaholism and burnout, you must also translate your new found work-life balance to your employees. You cannot force them to pursue balanced lives, but you can create an environment where they feel motivated and inspired. Cultivate these five attributes:

1.      A sense of meaning - The most effective leaders are visionaries, and they clearly communicate this vision to their people. Employees who are working toward a clear goal will have a deeper sense of meaning in their work lives.

2.     A sense of self-control - Empower your people. Give them a sense of self-government. You want them to think of themselves as decision-makers, not pawns in a game someone else controls.

3.     A sense of power - Your people must feel that they can make a difference in your organization, that their voices will be heard.

4.     A sense of competence - By encouraging employees to learn and develop, you allow them to reach their potential.

5.     A sense of shared values - Foster the values of team play, honesty and respect.

Changing Broken Organizations
Many organizations don’t value meaning and balance. They don’t create awareness of those priorities in their employees. Problems in organizations start at the top; the CEO sets the tone and conveys his or her dysfunction down the ranks. Many leaders generate their own "failure factors." The levels and types of dysfunction vary, but common problems include:

? The drama king - This CEO feels grandiose and entitled to power. He or she craves attention and excitement, and tends to concentrate too much power in the top spot.
? The paranoid - This CEO is suspicious and distrustful. The organization tends to centralize power and to over-analyze decisions.
? The avoider - This leader tends to be detached and antisocial, traits that create an organization that lacks warmth, ignores outside forces and is often too introverted.
? The depressive - This leader lacks self-esteem and tends to be passive. The resulting organization is bureaucratic, inflexible and uncommunicative.
? The compulsive - This dominant CEO is dogmatic and rigid. The compulsive is a control freak whose subordinates often feel insecure.

CEOs also can manifest other problems. For instance, there’s the hypocrite who says one thing and means another. This is the boss who asks for "constructive criticism" and then punishes those who answer candidly. Changing such dysfunctional patterns requires courage, commitment and emotional intelligence. After all, no one likes change. It’s difficult and uncomfortable. Typically, change comes when things are not going well and the organization or the individual sees the need for a new approach. To tackle the challenge of personal or organizational change, remember the five Cs that invariably mark the process of transformation:

1.      Concern - Because change is so difficult, people tend to deny that it is necessary. Ultimately, some problem or crisis forces their acknowledgment that change is in order. This sense of frustration is the start of the process.

2.     Confrontation - Recognizing the need for change is one thing, but it takes confrontation with a major event, such as a divorce, to spur action. This external threat makes the status quo seem more painful than change.

3.     Clarification - At this stage, re-evaluate priorities. Shedding an alcohol addiction offers a meaningful parallel: alcoholics must publicly state their willingness to quit drinking. Saying the goal aloud helps boost the momentum behind the change.

4.     Crystallization - Now you must assemble the details of implementing the targeted changes. This is truly a new beginning, as you gain insight and self-awareness.

5.     Change - You have committed to a true transformation. New priorities become a part of your makeup.