A Different Way of Looking at the Leadership Environment
Do We Know What We Know after 2574 Years of Leadership Studies?
Article 4 in a Series
By Two Guys From Stillwater, Minnesota
John Buettner and Bob Molenda
After viewing news stories or looking at your Smart Phone, nobody would be surprised if your answer to the above question was “We know lots but have not learned much”. Have you ever wondered about what some of the first people who tackled this subject would be saying, if only they had your computer or your Smart Phone? Would the world be different? What would Aristotle, St. Thomas Aquinas or Nicolo Machicavelli have written if only they had access to the Internet? Being a Philosopher was a pretty big Gig for any of these guys and there was not as much competition or population, for that matter back in those days. There were no follower buttons, either.
So, What do we know?
Firstly, we all see that there are leadership problems in almost every sector of our society. It shows up in politics, government, business, bureaus and in small meetings. The mainstream media talks about it all the time. You can just listen to the sound bites, like “Loss of Integrity, Lies, Fake News, Character, Empathy, Untrustworthy, Charisma, Sets a Bad Example,” ….Just a thought, here; Maybe these same leadership problems are the reasons why we don’t welcome the thought of going to some of these gatherings? So we know that there are leadership problems all around us.
Secondly, we know a lot about Leadership, the characteristics of Leaders, Followers, Missions and Organizations. It is probably one of the most studied subjects and one of the oldest. The study of Leadership goes back about 2,574 years to the time of Socrates, Plato, St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, Confucius, Machiavelli, Harry Truman and even the United States Marine Corps. Besides all this, most of us have experienced the good and the not so good side of Leadership problems. It sounds like there is a lot of information and experience out there on Leaders, Followers, Missions and Organizations. One of the issues here is that there is so much out there and we somehow need to “Transmogrify” things so that we can understand better what it is that we think we know.
Thirdly, the Leadership Characteristics and Habits have not changed much from the early days to the present time. There are more of them today than there were back in the early days. There is reasonable agreement about the characteristics of leaders among most who have studied the topic. There have been surveys about these characteristics. What we did here is to try and capture Leadership Characteristics from the early sources, and put together a combined list that includes characteristics from the recent surveys. The combined list of Leadership Characteristics and Habits will be summarized near the end of this article.
Let’s get into some detail on the relationship between Mr./Ms. Secondly and Thirdly, above. Some surveys have come up with 101characteristics, 100 traits, 74 traits, others fewer. This might run the risk of repetition and overload. It might also be the temptation of “If a little of something is good, a lot more will make it better.” Is there an “Iron Man/Woman competition that we don’t know about that involves biking, running, swimming, then reciting more than 101 Traits?”
It makes me wonder which of them are most important, or at least what are the top ten. Do these various surveys show agreement? Exactly what did they study 2,574 years ago? How did Aristotle conduct a survey and not get his toga dirty? I am sure that old Aristotle started with a few that really mattered, and if we are on the right path, his insight will be up there in the top ten characteristics that are revealed in most of the surveys we just mentioned. The good, old “80/20” Rule likely will likely preside, as it always does.
By the way, when we come to “Fourthly” on our list of “What do we Know?”, we will add more to the 101 that we already have. This is all the more reason to come up with a way to simplify all of this!
John and I are both retired scientists, by trade. Between the two of us, we should be able to come up with some theory, some machine, some invention, device, wisdom, mathematical model that will either complicate things further or make things better. We both know that we have to stop the increase in Entropy!
You’re right along with us if you think that this listing begs the question of which of these criteria are most important? Alternatively, you might say that they are all important because different Missions may demand different characteristics from a Leader. Your skepticism might tell you that nobody could possibly have all these good qualities. We can all rest assured that everyone in our tribe has more than enough defects when it comes to measuring up to that list. There is a survey on this topic summarized by Peter Economy of Inc. Magazine in 2018.
John and I are headed in a slightly different direction with our own questions and survey. Somehow, with everyone’s help, we need to simplify all this and figure out something even more basic. Are you wondering what that might be?
Fourthly, even though there is agreement on leadership characteristics, something else has changed recently, that has affected how people work together on missions in their organizations. We need to know what these changes are and deal with them from a Leadership point of view. In short, in addition to knowing what we know, we also need to know what we don’t know about Leadership. I hear you saying that “If we don’t know what we don’t know about Leadership, why would we want to get to know it?” We will take a whack at this next time. Between now and next week or so, “What do you think has changed?” Hint…You are very close to one of them if you are reading this story while connected to the web.
What we know about Fourthly is exactly nothing, right now. Stay Tuned, though!
Oh Yes, once again, here is where we stand. We know we have Leadership Problems, we have studied it for a long time and we know about a growing list of leadership criteria and surveys that agree on most things. On top of all of that, we find out that we don’t know what we don’t know about some changes that have taken place and now we have get to know what we don’t know about that. Did we get that right?
Most bookies will tell you that Three out of Four is pretty good odds for any bet. Maybe we should stop gambling and leave the poker table? Others think we should go “all in” and hit the “Four out of Four Jackpot!”
Here’s the plan!
Right Now, let’s work on what we know and simplify it as best we can. After a rest, let’s snoop around and see if we can get to know more about what we don’t know. Agreed?
So, we know a lot about Leadership Criteria! There are lots of surveys and even more Criteria. That’s the problem! There seems to be room for repetition, duplication, different statements, difficult interpretations, even misinterpretations. It also covers everything from hereditary traits, cultural traits, growth traits, experential validation, training, reinforcement, experience, success and failure, interpersonal and intrapersonal characteristics, ethics and values. You wanted Criteria, you got them, in spades!
You might say that, “There are too many traits, They’re all important , It’s too complicated!” What if we were able to run all these 101 or more criteria through some “Magical, Scientific Machine?” What if we were able to take all the chaos out there and start to bring some order to it? Welcome to Entropy country!
Remember the Triangle? You know, the one that showed how the Leader was one of the legs and Followers and The Mission were the other two legs?
Hey, if the triangle thing works, it means that a Leader works with Follower(s) and Missions. We also theorized that if there were no Mission or no Followers, there would be no need for any Leader. We all are seeking Truth and those Leadership Criteria must have something to do with either Followers or The Mission itself. That being the case, then it should be possible to take any of those Leadership Criteria from any of the surveys and drop them in to one of just two buckets labeled Follower(s) or Mission! There might be some overlap, but for the most part, we should be able to take 101 Leadership Criteria and drop them into a couple of buckets. So what did we do? We went out and got a blue bucket and a tan bucket!
Remember Fourthly? It’s more than likely that when we get back to Fourthly, there should be some things that need to be added. “Guess What?” we ask, “We should also be able to drop whatever comes from Fourthly into one or both of the two buckets.” We have just started out and already we get a big bonus!
In summary, we should be able to take Leadership Criteria and put them into either or both of two buckets. The buckets are related to a Leader working with Followers or with The Mission. In effect, we are going from a “High Entropy” (Chaotic) state to a “Low Entropy” (Ordered) state in scientific terms.
Remember that we are both scientists. John is a Chemical Engineer and Bob is a Physical Organic Chemist. (We both knew this would come in handy one day!) Are we all still together on this? Just remember that Low Entropy is Good, High Entropy is bad! Ma Nature wants everything scattered and we want it ordered and understood. Ultimately, we all know Ma is going to win, but she expects a little irreverence from us children every now and then.
By the way, this is a strong case for keeping a diverse team together. It is OK to let scientists snoop around inside the sociology and psychology lab once in awhile. Keep in mind that Ma is always working against us. In due time, everything will become “High Entropy”. It takes a lot of energy to move anything from a “High Entropy” state to a “Low Entropy” state. Entropy is a measure of randomness, as we all know. Anyone who has successfully put together a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle of an Impressionist painting has experienced going from high to low Entropy. There are equations for this, of course, but John thinks he can “Wing it” without them. It should not be a surprise to anyone why Leadership and Followership are so chaotic and why they tend in that direction over long periods of time, even if left alone.
What do We Now Know?
Here are what the criteria look like after we dropped them into the two buckets: (We have taken the liberty to put four compartments in each of the two buckets, for easier handling.)
The blue chart shows the Mission-Oriented Bucket of Leadership Characteristics.
The light tan chart shows the Personal Bucket of Leadership Characteristics.
You should be able to “feel” the lowered Entropy already!
One of the key takeaways from this article is to always go to a “Low Entropy,” less chaotic state. It helps most of us understand complex things that may be going on.
There may be some overlap between the buckets, but there are only two buckets to worry about. Later, we’re going to add Fourthly to these buckets and even later do some other funny things with them. If the Triangle works, we should still have just two buckets.
Lastly, don’t mess with Ma!
She does not like housekeeping, but she hold all the cards!
Previous Articles: A Different Way of Looking at Leadership
Links:
Article 1: Picking Fresh, Ripe Leaders
Article 2: Looking for the Leadership Button
Article 3: Anybody Here Want to be a Follower?
Next Time: Article 5:
Knowing What We Don’t Know About Leadership
