Blurred-Line Leadership — can you let go?
by John Steele, Chairman of The English Institute of Sport and Founder of the Unforgiving Minute.
A generation ago leaders were shaped and developed to become expert in
categorising, compartmentalising and ordering business affairs to make more
efficient organisations. Even before this Britain created an extensive empire
that prided itself in its disciplined, process focussed culture, where there was a place for everything and everything had its place. But is this now a legacy that makes today’s leaders unwittingly use outdated methodology that is
increasingly inappropriate in the face of social change?
When we take on a new leadership role the first thing on our 100-day plan is to review the new team or organisation. Too often behavioural and cultural
analysis is marginalised by structural review. The need to create structure,
commonality, clear roles and responsibilities and a colourful new organogram
seems to dominate all. This serves to restrict as much as clarify, but we satisfy
our need for control by putting roles and people in boxes. When asking
individuals, “What do you do?” “What could you do?” “What’s stopping you?”
Too often the answer will come back “I could do more, my talent is under
used!” They work hard within the confines of their role, but their JD and the
role itself sometimes constrains them. It challenges us as leaders, to identify if
we have the ability to lead through developing flexibility and innovation in our teams, rather than establishing parameters and boundaries.
Do we have the courage to focus less on satisfying governance and “controlling” operations and more on giving space for our people to innovate and adapt?
All around us previously clearly defined lines are blurring. Cars that were in a
clear category of large four-wheel drive are now offering to be smaller and
sporty, and there are even big Minis! In Sport, we have traditionally
approached categorising of events in a binary fashion, in part by simply using
male or female gender. This is rapidly becoming obsolete as modern society
recognises a more fluid approach to gender, and this means creating a level
playing field for athletes is becoming increasingly difficult. This week we expect the IAAF to announce their highly controversial rule changes for athletes with hyperandrogenism.
We are now leading a generation whose lives and outlook are not linear and
who have been brought up on ever changing social media. Too often we
criticise “the millennials” but maybe this is just our way of avoiding the need to change and adapt our leadership style to what is now required. We should be looking to avoid recruiting talent with an overemphasis on operational experience, long prescriptive job descriptions, and organograms with boxed in roles. Instead we should recruit and develop resilient innovators and give them the space and support to operate! Blurring these lines does not mean
removing them altogether, but judging how many we need, how indelibly we
draw them and how prepared we are to shift them.
We are seeing our compartmentalised, categorised national culture shift, but
are we adapting our leadership style to suit? Can we face up to the discomfort
of loosening our grip and demonstrate the innovation we require of others in
our own leadership approach? Many of us eulogise about creating innovative
cultures and teams, whilst our own leadership style remains conventional,
controlling and governance/process focussed. Innovation starts at the top and
too many leaders are not prepared to take risks to release their team’s
potential.
The age of the blurred line leader is on us.
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