A641.1.3.RB - What is Great Leadership?

Brian

- Calm / predictable
- Thoughtful
- Good conversationalist
- Seemed interested in forming friendships with his workers
- Never seemed concerned with politics/power
- Collaborative
- Decisions seemed based off of reasoning and what was best for the company
- Workers seemed respected by and respectful of Brian, and even when times were tough, we seemed to rally together and work as a team
Alana

- Hyper / unpredictable
- Reactive
- Workers were “told” things more often than “asked”
- It seemed hard for her to mix personal relationships with professional roles
- Decisions seemed to be politically charged and/or based off of pressure from stakeholders
- Delegator
- Workers would roll their eyes after confrontations with her, and we learned to take new doctrines with a “grain a salt”

Brian was a great leader. He was the managing editor at a newspaper I worked at about five years ago and, as far as I could tell, he was universally liked. Alana was much more difficult, the kind of leader that people would brace for when they heard her coming down the hall. What made these two leaders different? Nearly everything about their approaches. What was surprising, though, was to see just how many facets of Brian’s management style that I noted in the exercise were mirrored, almost exactly, in Dr. Richard Boyatzis’ “What Is Great Leadership?” video.

Boyatzis says in the video that “leadership isn’t just a person … it’s a relationship” (Boyatzis, n.d.), and that’s the key differentiator I see when I look back to compare Brian and Alana. Whereas Brian valued conversation, made friends with his employees and worked together with them on projects, Alana always seemed too busy and stressed to get to know personally, and she had a reputation around the building for storming into offices, delegating work, then stomping away. There wasn’t much of a relationship there, and people felt it.

Eventually, Alana was let go from the company, which honestly came as a bit of a shock to myself and the rest of her staff. We all knew her shortcomings, but we never quite thought of her as one of the nearly 80% of leaders Boyatzis claims don’t add value to their companies (Boyatzis, n.d.) — and that’s because she led large projects and did get stuff done. It’s just that that stuff always seemed to come packaged with resentment from at least one member of her team.

The fact is, Alana was competent, driven and ambitious. She wasn’t stupid or lazy — she just wasn’t self-aware enough to acknowledge her weaknesses and work against them. “Developing self-awareness and self-management enables us to capitalize on our strengths and manage our emotions so we can feel — and create — passionate commitment to our goals” (Boyatzis & McKee, p. 30). Instead, Alana seemed fueled, even controlled, by her emotions.

Looking at the side-by-side of Brian and Alana, one major truth sticks out to me: Brian felt like “one of us,” and Alana felt like “our boss.” Boyatzis says in the video that resonant leaders are “in tune with you, they’re in sync” (Boyatzis, n.d.), but Alana always appeared to be much more concerned with the work than she did with her workers.

References
Boyatzis, R., & McKee, A. (2005). Resonant Leadership (5th ed.). Harvard Business Press. ISBN: 978-1-59139-563-8
Boyatzis, R. (n.d.) What is great leadership? Retrieved from https://erau.instructure.com/courses/91859/assignments/1584704?module_item_id=4986763

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