Pointership is prevalent
About the degeneration of leadership
What is leadership? Is there leadership at all? Is leadership even necessary? A recent book is claiming, leadership to ever elusive and not really a sine-qua-non for companies.
I thought about that… and do not agree. I still believe, there is “something” in organizations to which applying the term leadership is helpful. Helpful because it distinguishes this “something” from other “things”.
I find that intuitively obvious when looking at this picture:
The person in front of the group is its… leader. The people behind him are… his followers.
How come? What distinguishes a leader from followers?
A leader is ahead of the followers. That means there is a direction in which all are moving together. And the leader is leading everyone in that direction by being the first one.
As the first one of a group moving in a direction the leader is exposed. He’s at risk to face problems, even danger first. He also runs the risk of being wrong regarding the direction or the specific path.
As part of the group and even being the first one, the leader has skin in the game. Success or failure, he’s in it with his followers. It’s harder for him to abandon “the movement” than for the last of the followers.
From that I derive a minimal set of characteristics of leadership:
To be an active part of “the movement” as an equal: leaders and followers suffer alike.
To not only be a part, but a special part: an example to others.
As an example to others leadership stands out by being the first. It puts itself at risk of failure when setting a direction and going there first.
Risk of failure requires to have skin in the game. Any outcome affects not only followers but also a leader — for good or bad.
I even think, humans are wired for looking for leadership. Good leadership is what makes extraordinary feats possible.
That said, I do not want to equal leadership with a single human at the top of an organizational pyramide. Leadership might fluctuate between different members of an organization depending on context; it might also be distributed.
Also, leadership does not mean organizations will only act in ethical ways. Leadership is orthogonal to morality.
Nevertheless, leadership to me is a concept which is valuable to keep in order to understand success or failure of organizations.
There is truth in the ongoing quest for “good leadership”. It’s deeply human to lead and also to want to be lead.
But, alas, leadership is often missing. Sure, there is no shortage in organizational members who are (or want to be) called leaders. Unfortunately, though, many are lacking even the above minimal qualities.
They are not leaders, but just… pointers. They are examples of pointership instead of leadership.
What I mean by that is hinted at in these picture:
A pointer does only that: He is content with pointing in a direction. He does not (need to) move himself in that direction. That’s the job of others.
The pointer thus is not at risk himself. He does not have skin in the game. He’s no equal to the others he’s directing.
To be a pointer is a very comfortable position — not so being a leader.
But also being a pointer is pretty lonely. There are no followers. Nobody is looking up to a pointer for an example, to be inspired — and thereby feeling compelled to give something back.
My impression is, today’s businesses and even public organizations are filled with pointers, not leaders. Leadership is weak or even absent. Becoming a pointer is enough for most people. It comes with all the benefits: the title of a leader, the salary of a leader, the compensation package of a leader — but without true risk. No skin in the game required.
Nowadays no CEO or high level executive of a corporation, no member of a government is running the risk of going bankrupt due to bad decisions. Even criminal charges, let alone a conviction are only a remote possibility. Armies of lawyers are in place to fight them off.
Pointers are arm chair leaders. They are impostors, surrogates. The only example they give is to others who also want to become pointers.
Pointing is easier than leading. Pointing might even be sufficient in some contexts. But pointing where leading is required, will backfire sooner or later: pointing creates less energy and less cohesion in an organization. An organization just being pointed, not being lead will make it struggle to achieve its goals.
Which does not mean, leaders are infallible. No, leaders get it wrong, too. But two things are different in that case:
They will have made different decisions than pointers because they have skin in the game. The deliberation process will also include the impact of a decision on their followers.
Their followers are there to share the burden. They are a safety net for leaders empowering them to make bolder decisions.
Looking at the news and asking “Is it a leader or a pointer they are talking about?” is an interesting exercise. In my experience spotting a true leader is a rare event. Pointers are prevalent.