Leadership as we all know comes in different shapes and sizes to suit different environments and situations. Situational leadership is key to good leadership and a good leader uses their judgement to apply the right style, to the right team, in the right situation at the right time. Now that is all very easy if you are the leader of a small independent team or organisation. But as a middle ranking leader in a large organisation you have to fit in to the organisational culture, unless you have a proven pedigree that is appreciated from on high.
Life is a game, boy. Life is a game that one plays according to the rules. – J. D. Salinger
Leadership and leaders have to fit an organisation and hence unfortunately it is very difficult to exercise true change leadership from within. The tempo and the requirement generally come from without either as a new senior leader joins or a set of circumstances force change. It is here that leaders experience real challenge and it is here that true leaders who are original thinkers stand out. Unfortunately conformism is not required when leading change particularly if that change is significant.
In large organisations leaders are in competition with their peers for promotion, monetary rewards and status. Most of those recognised and rewarded for their leadership are identified by superiors who have already conformed to achieve their position and use their own values to select potential followers hence they are looking for ‘mini me’s’. So how does a large organisation change to preserve its position vis a vis its competitors without outside influence?- ask Woolworths, ask Zavi ask some of the Government supported Banks after the Credit Crisis.
For me true empowerment and a drive for continuous improvement are key. Leaders have to learn to be brave, they have to learn to trust their staff and to empower their staff to maintain continuous improvement. After all in the information age it is not so much the big that eat the small as it is the quick that eat the slow. Large autocratic organisations become ponderous as control is exercised from the top with decisions being referred up and decisions promulgated down; where conformism is rewarded as traditions are maintained and change challenged and beaten off as hastily as possible.
Successful organisations allow and empower people to develop and implement their ideas. They allow individuals to grow within the organisation. They encourage diversity and challenge stagnation. They share power and prevent the weed that first entwines then suffocates progress known as bureaucracy from taking root within the organisation. Bureaucracy lives in large autocratic organisations because it has to but when it feeds on itself it destroys the organisation it lives in.
Large organisations need to learn to truly empower if they are going to have longevity as unforeseen targets are very difficult to set.