Most of us grow up with a leadership model that starts at home. While we may not agree with everything our parents did or do, we still follow their instructions a lot of the time. That is, whenever we don’t choose our path, but focus on either following them or rebelling against them. It’s all part of the way we learn to deal with authority, and it establishes them as one possible model of leadership.
Other models we’ll be following are the relevant others we meet along our journey. Many of which being there to give us instructions, show us a direction, or answer all our questions as to what to do.
No wonder, a lot of leaders continue on that path and feel that they have to be in control, have to have the answer, and have to tell us what direction to follow. No wonder, it is what many expect from their leaders.
The less frequent experience is the leader who is listening, seeking to understand what we have to share, or creating a space for us to present our experience of what it is that is ongoing and may need attention. That is the leader who sets out to find the direction he has to lead toward. The leader who understands that the world is too complex at this stage to be able to create such knowledge on his own. And the leader who creates the space for such knowledge to emerge.
The latter is a leader who also distinguishes between leading and managing, knowing that both belong to the work he has to supervise and lead.
Whatever the chosen role model, leadership can be described as “an activity in pursuit of something new and better” as Ed Schein defines it. How it is executed will depend on the chosen role model. But, as Ed Schein hypothesized, the role models who believe they need to know may be outdated in the world we live in now. However, as he also shared, it neither makes leadership superfluous nor does it define democratic as better than autocratic. What’s more helpful is the understanding of existing interdependencies. And building on these the choice of what or whom one depends on and what or whom one becomes independent of.
