Why Should Anyone Be Led by You? With a New Preface by the Authors: What It Takes to Be an Authentic Leader

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We’ve yet to hear advice that tells the whole truth about leadership. Yes, everyone agrees that leaders need vision, energy, authority, and strategic direction. That goes without saying. But we’ve discovered that inspirational leaders also share four unexpected qualities: Communication – we learn more when we talk less. Active listening is a key component to great communication. When listening to your peers, do you count the seconds until it’s your turn to talk or do you listen intently without laying your own agenda on the speaker? The founder of psychoanalysis, Freud theorized that beneath the surface of the rational mind was the unconscious. He supposed that the unconscious was responsible for a fair proportion of human behavior. Weber, the leading critic of Marx and a brilliant sociologist, also explored the limits of reason. Indeed, for him, the most destructive force operating in institutions was something he called technical rationality—that is, rationality without morality.

Not necessarily. One of the most persistent misperceptions is that people in leadership positions are leaders. But people who make it to the top may have done so because of political acumen, not necessarily because of true leadership quality. What's more, real leaders are found all over the organization, from the executive suite to the shop floor. By definition, leaders are simply people who have followers, and rank doesn't have much to do with that. Effective military organizations like the U.S. Navy have long realized the importance of developing leaders throughout the organization. Sensing can create problems. In making fine judgments about how far they can go, leaders risk losing their followers. Not true. Many executives don’t have the self-knowledge or the authenticity necessary for leadership. And self-knowledge and authenticity are only part of the equation. Individuals must also want to be leaders, and many talented employees are not interested in shouldering that responsibility. Others prefer to devote more time to their private lives than to their work. After all, there is more to life than work, and more to work than being the boss. Leaders deliver business results.Rob Goffee and Gareth Jones argue that leaders don’t become great by aspiring to a list of universal character traits. Rather, effective leaders are authentic: they deploy individual strengths to engage followers’ hearts, minds, and souls. They are skillful at consistently being themselves, even as they alter their behaviors to respond effectively in changing contexts. A third response that emerged in our research was that women play into stereotyping to personal advantage. Some women, for example, knowingly play the role of “nurturer” at work, but they do it with such wit and skill that they are able to benefit from it. The cost of such a strategy? It is a little slow reading at times, due to the numerous case studies. However, it is worth persevering, as the case studies do illustrate the author’s points very well.

This book is written by two men, Rob Goffee and Gareth Jones, who themselves have spent a considerable amount of their lives in the study of leadership and management. Their main point is that leaders who are effective are those who are themselves—i.e., those are authentic—and thus lead out of the wellspring of who they are.

Leaders deliver business results.

It furthers harmful stereotypes and continues to limit opportunities for other women to communicate their genuine personal differences. Dare to Be Different In both our research and consulting work, we have seen executives who profoundly misunderstand what makes an inspirational leader. Here are four of the most common myths: Everyone can be a leader. In this lively and practical book, Goffee and Jones draw from extensive research to reveal how to hone and deploy one’s unique leadership assets while managing the inherent tensions at the heart of successful leadership: showing emotion and withholding it, getting close to followers while keeping distance, and maintaining individuality while “conforming enough.” Underscoring the social nature of leadership, the book also explores how leaders can remain attuned to the needs and expectations of followers. At last someone has written a book on leadership! So many so called “leadership” books are actually dealing with management. However, Goffee and Jones with their description of “authentic leadership” have clearly defined the essential fundamental interrelationship between the person aspiring to lead and those who might decide to follow. By the twentieth century, there was much skepticism about the power of reason and man’s ability to progress continuously. Thus, for both pragmatic and philosophic reasons, an intense interest in the concept of leadership began to develop. And indeed, in the 1920s, the first serious research started. The first leadership theory—trait theory—attempted to identify the common characteristics of effective leaders. To that end, leaders were weighed and measured and subjected to a battery of psychological tests. But no one could identify what effective leaders had in common. Trait theory fell into disfavor soon after expensive studies concluded that effective leaders were either above-average height or below.

Not surprisingly, the most impressive business leaders we have worked with are all very refined sensors. Ray van Schaik, the chairman of Heineken in the early 1990s, is a good example. Conservative and urbane, van Schaik’s genius lay in his ability to read signals he received from colleagues and from Freddie Heineken, the third-generation family member who was “always there without being there.” While some senior managers spent a lot of time second-guessing the major shareholder, van Schaik developed an ability to “just know” what Heineken wanted. This ability was based on many years of working with him on the Heineken board, but it was more than that—van Schaik could read Heineken even though they had very different personalities and didn’t work together directly. Effective leadership is a skillful authentic role performance with the capacity to transform organizations and enrich lives. It's always difficult. But it's well worth a try. Followers want excitement, inspiration and authenticity (to be led by a real person whom they can trust). Real people cry, believe, they lose their temper (sometimes all three). In earlier research, we discovered that many women—particularly women in their fifties—try to avoid this dynamic by disappearing. They try to make themselves invisible. They wear clothes that disguise their bodies; they try to blend in with men by talking tough. That’s certainly one way to avoid negative stereotyping, but the problem is that it reduces a woman’s chances of being seen as a potential leader. She’s not promoting her real self and differences. Such style represents consistency (in words and action), coherence (in performance of their role) and comfort (with self).Often, a leader will show his differences by having a distinctly different dress style or physical appearance, but typically he will move on to distinguish himself through qualities like imagination, loyalty, expertise, or even a handshake. Anything can be a difference, but it is important to communicate it. Most people, however, are hesitant to communicate what’s unique about themselves, and it can take years for them to be fully aware of what sets them apart. This is a serious disadvantage in a world where networking is so critical and where teams need to be formed overnight. They rely heavily on intuition to gauge the appropriate timing and course of their actions. Their ability to collect and interpret soft data helps them know just when and how to act. The book is crammed full of actual case studies of people who have both succeeded and failed as leaders, with the author’s explanation as to why. I found the concepts easy to understand and follow.

Too many companies are managed not by leaders, but by mere role players and faceless bureaucrats. What does it take to be a real leader—one who is confident in who she is and what she stands for, and who truly inspires people to achieve extraordinary results? Hewlett, S. A. (2019). The sponsor effect: How to be a better leader by investing in others. Boston, MA: Harvard Business Review Press. Rarely. A whole cottage industry has grown up around the teaching that good leaders ought to be good coaches. But that thinking assumes that a single person can both inspire the troops and impart technical skills. Of course, it's possible that great leaders may also be great coaches, but we see that only occasionally. More typical are leaders like Steve Jobs whose distinctive strengths lie in their ability to excite others through their vision rather than through their coaching talents. Another response to negative stereotyping is to collectively resist it—for example, by mounting a campaign that promotes the rights, opportunities, and even the number of women in the workplace. But on a day-to-day basis, survival is often all women have time for, therefore making it impossible for them to organize themselves formally. Although Goffee and Jones assiduously avoid giving leadership recipes – they rightly maintain that leadership is contextual – there are some good learning points for aspiring leaders. Chapter four for example – Read and Rewrite the Context – has some gems. In this chapter, they describe three levels of analysis for leaders; key leaders who may make the biggest impact on one’s performance, important teams, and thirdly the context and constraints within which one must operate.Another quality of inspirational leaders is that they capitalize on what’s unique about themselves. In fact, using these differences to great advantage is the most important quality of the four we’ve mentioned. The most effective leaders deliberately use differences to keep a social distance. Even as they are drawing their followers close to them, inspirational leaders signal their separateness. Franz Humer, the CEO of Roche, is a classic sensor. He is highly accomplished in detecting shifts in climate and ambience; he can read subtle cues and sense underlying currents of opinion that elude less perceptive people. Humer says he developed this skill as a tour guide in his mid-twenties when he was responsible for groups of 100 or more. “There was no salary, only tips,” he explains. “Pretty soon, I knew how to hone in on particular groups. Eventually, I could predict within 10% how much I could earn from any particular group.” Indeed, great sensors can easily gauge unexpressed feelings; they can very accurately judge whether relationships are working or not. The process is complex, and as anyone who has ever encountered it knows, the results are impressive. One of the things they emphasize time and again is to know yourself and be authentic with others. It is a temptation to want to seek to imitate others in the hope to like them experience success. This is commendable in one sense, for we seek to learn from others and thus improve upon our strengths and shore up our weaknesses. But in another sense this is dangerous because people can easily see through a manufactured individual who is clearly not being himself.