Books about management usually leave me cold: the ratio of blather to content has always seemed too high to bother. Thinking About Leadership by Nannerl Keohane is better than many I've dipped into. It's sensible, and short, and captures two aspects of leadership that seem pretty fundamental.
The first is its definition of leadership. She puts it this way: leadership is about “providing solutions to common problems or offering ideas about how to accomplish collective purposes, or mobilizing the energies of others to follow these courses of action.” I'd describe this as creating the focal point for an organization in a multiple equilibrium game. Others might reach for the word “vision”, although so many visions have proven mirages that one is suspicious of the word.
The second is her emphasis on the importance of judgment. This isn't the same as intellect of course, nor of decisiveness. (As Nancy Reagan is reported to have said about Ronald, “He doesn't make snap decisions, but he doesn't over-think either.”) Experience, empathy with others, analytical understanding and innate wisdom all go into the mix to make good judgment.
Keohane is also an advocate of the Team of Rivals approach (Doris Kearns Goodwin's book is lots of politicians' favourite work on leadership), whereby opponents are brought in-house, although with reservations about the day-to-day difficulty of managing conflicts and personality clashes.
The book is best on the role of leadership in a democracy, and in particular the ethics of exercising power and the interaction of pricate and public morality. With politicians in so many democracies held in great disrespect by their voters – not least because of some catastrophic failures of leadership all too apparent – this is an important subject. Is Lord Acton still the final, pessimistic word on this issue? “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.”
Having said this, I still feel that there are too many words written on the whole subject. Leadership is like dieting: it's easy to write down the principles, much harder to put into practice. Here, for what they're worth, are my five principles of leadership:
1. Stay focussed on the purpose of your organisation. What's it for? This will generate visions, aims, values etc, and ensure everyone knows the common focus.
2. Say what needs saying even if it's going to make you unpopular. This is harder than it sounds. I think most people have a tendency to pull their punches for the sake of social harmony, which combined with the natural tendency of others to hear only what they want, makes it hard to convey clear messages. Wildly popular leaders usually prove disastrous long term.
3. Understand what it is that you don't understand. Get advice from those who do understand or have relevant expertise.
4. Permit the people around you to disagree with you. No, go further, and invite disagreement to test your decisions.
5. Be courteous and respectful to everyone, even the most junior person. You earn back the respect you pay to others, with interest.
Those are mine – I'd love to hear other suggestions.
