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Contents: Shared
Vision
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A Model of the Process of Authentic Leading
By Dr. Dean Pielstick © 1999, 2003
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Contents: Shared
Vision
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Shared Vision—Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner (1993) found that there are four characteristics of an admired leader (those with over 50% response rate): (1) honesty and integrity—87%, (2) visionary—71%, (3) inspiring—68%, and (4) competent—58%. They compared this with a list of characteristics that experts defined for credibility: (1) trustworthy, (2) expertise, and (3) dynamism. Comparing the two lists one finds three pairings:
The difference is visionary. Jim Kouzes said that vision is what distinguishes leaders from other credible people.
Vision is clearly the touchstone of leading. A vision is descriptive picture of a desired future for the organization. But vision by itself is not enough. It must be a shared vision. That vision may have originated with the person at the head of the organization, but often is an articulation of a collection of ideas shared by the leader and followers. By synthesizing these ideas and elevating them in a way that touches on the needs and dreams of these followers, the leader begins to elevate the vision to a moral level (doing the right thing), a vision for the common good (something bigger than one’s self). As George Bernard Shaw said, "This is the true joy in life, being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one."
Over time the vision becomes a source of energy and even excitement for the group that gives meaning to their work. As the vision becomes embraced by the group, it begins to take on a life of its own. In the best cases it becomes a shared vision, elevated beyond the original concepts of either the leader or the led.
Several characteristics are ascribed to shared vision. It provides meaning for the employees and other stakeholders. It is inspiring and often exciting, motivating individuals to extra effort to achieve the vision. The shared nature of the vision is unifying, creating a sense of community.
Another characteristic of this theme is change or adaptation. The shared vision provides direction and focuses attention on the proposed changes. The changes are described as opportunities, possibilities, potentialities, or an adventure. The shared vision helps clarify new expectations for both leaders and followers. Individuals expect to make a difference, to create reform, to innovate.
Transforming visions are long-range, often 10 to 20 years, and may incorporate specific goals or key initiatives. Having a limited number of initiatives helps provide focus and set priorities. However, the goals or issues may also permit the organization to articulate a multi-directional, but related, vision of the future.
Communication—The first pillar supporting the shared vision is communication. This set of skills is widely regarded as critical to authentic leading. And listening, not speaking, is the most important component of communication for authentic leaders. The authentic leader listens so as to fully understand the perceptions and feelings of followers, their needs and concerns. This requires empathy, asking probing questions and being open to receiving feedback, as well as reflective thinking to enhance understanding. These leaders display a willingness to be influenced and to use their understanding to further shape the vision, ever increasing the shared nature and support for the vision. Gandhi traveled India for a year after returning from South Africa before becoming actively involved in the free-India movement. John Kotter (1982) found that new general managers took six months to a year to establish their agendas.
The vision is first developed through dialogue. To keep the dream alive, it must be repeatedly articulated in many forms. Communicating the vision is a key to instilling shared meaning and purpose. Communication regarding the vision is used to excite, inspire, motivate and unify both followers and leaders. The communication is a two-way sharing that facilitates the process of elevating the moral purpose of the shared vision, building relationships, and shaping the culture of the organization.
An important role of the authentic leader is the ability to clearly articulate the shared vision, values, and beliefs of the organization—repeatedly—in exciting and enthusiastic ways. The skilled leader inspires followers, provides encouragement and enhances motivation. Followers are mobilized to action.
Authentic leaders clarify and illustrate the vision, values and beliefs by using metaphors, analogies, stories, ceremonies, celebrations, rituals and traditions. They communicate high expectations. Emotional appeals and a sense of drama may be added to help provoke, influence and persuade others. "The world is moved by highly motivated people—people who believe very strongly or who want something very much" (Gardner, 1990, 183).
Clichés such as "actions speak louder than words" illustrate the power of nonverbal communication. Authentic leaders consistently "walk the talk" and "lead by example." These leaders are very aware that their actions are closely watched and interpreted for consistency with the spoken word. Consistency helps build trust. Symbolic actions are frequently used to make a point. I once worked for a college president who, without saying anything to the college community, moved out of his large office suite into a smaller area nearby in order to make room for the Opportunity Center, a faculty-run professional development program focused on teaching and learning. The symbolic message that teaching and learning were most important rang throughout the organization. Every action (or lack thereof) by the leader is subject to symbolic interpretation by followers.
Relationships—The second pillar is building relationships. Interpersonal skills are also critical to authentic leading. This pillar reflects the interactive, mutual and shared nature of behaviors exhibited by authentic leaders. A web of high-quality relationships makes it possible to communicate, to effect the shared vision, and to shape the community that supports the vision. Shared values are important to the nature of the relationships and facilitate achievement of the vision.
These interactive relationships have been described as being shared, two-way, mutual, collaborative, and collegial. They cross boundaries. Wise leaders tend to be friendly and informal. They treat subordinates as equals, give advice, help and support and encouragement. Leading clearly involves a establishing a relationship in which the leaders and followers are fully engaged with each other in achieving the shared vision of the organization.
Authentic leaders build trust through their actions. Walking-the-talk, role-modeling, and setting-an-example describe the consistency of actions critical to building trust among followers. In addition, these leaders trust followers. The trust of followers must be earned. Trusting them first builds credibility and leads to trust of the leader.
These leaders most often use participatory decision-making and build consensus. However, as James MacGregor Burns has noted, there is also an important role for conflict in the process of leading. As previously noted, leading involves change. Change generates conflict. The leader may need to create dissatisfaction with the status quo to initiate change. John Kotter (1996) talks about the need to create a sense of urgency. In addition, if there is no conflict in an organization, there is a danger of tunnel vision. On the other hand, excessive conflict can rip an organization apart. Therefore, the wise leader moderates the level of conflict.
At this point, we need to address the issue of charisma, a very popular concept for describing leaders. Charisma is generally regarded by experts as an attribution to the leader, rather than a trait. It is an identification with the leader. In transforming leadership, the identification is with the purpose or vision of the organization, a "charisma of purpose." Among leadership scholars, there is much debate about the role of charisma with no clear answer. Additional study is needed. However, I suggest that charisma and transforming leadership may not be mutually exclusive, that is, it is possible that the follower may identify with both the leader and the purpose.
Charisma, of course, has its dark side. In extreme cases, the follower is struck with a sense of reverence and awe to the extent that they become dependent and may be willing to commit heinous crimes or suicide at the direction of the "leader." Thus, the authentic leader is careful to moderate such attributions, commonly through a personal sense of humility.
Community—The third pillar is creating a sense of community within the organization. Community is a form of organizational culture characterized by a sense of belonging. Organizational culture is the shared values and beliefs of the organization. "Edgar H. Schein has said that the only important thing leaders do may well be constructing culture" (Sashkin & Rosenbach 1993, 99). Shaping community contributes to building relationships and internalizing commitment to the shared vision. Authentic leaders must be clear about their own values and ensure that their behavior consistently reflects those values.
Some key values identified with authentic leaders are:
Organizational policies and programs are directly based on its shared values and beliefs. Two of the popular metaphors currently in use to characterize a sense of organizational community are "family" and "learning organization."
The primary means of shaping community is through interactive communication, including symbolic action, described earlier. As followers interact with leaders and others, tell the stories and myths, and participate in the rituals and ceremonies, the values and beliefs are reinforced and institutionalized. Just as all actions of a leader are subject to symbolic interpretation by followers, all actions potentially affect the nature of the organizational community.
Guidance—The fourth pillar of authentic leading is guidance. Leaders conduct themselves and even communicate through their actions. These actions help build relationships and shape organizational culture. However, authentic leaders also guide implementation of the shared vision in addition to relying on the actions of empowered followers. One does not lead a team to the top of Mt. Everest by saying, "There it is…Go for it." At the other extreme, this does not mean that they micromanage the organization either. Rather, they engage in a variety of guiding actions.
One common guiding action is to teach. John Gardner says that great leaders are great teachers. These leaders provide opportunities for their employees to learn and grow, often creating a learning organization, as described by Peter Senge. They practice lifelong learning—personally and organizationally. They mentor or coach their followers. As noted above, the nature of relationships is friendly and informal. The leaders treat subordinates as equals, while providing encouragement for their personal and professional development. They see their role as servant leader and seek to serve their own followers, as well as other stakeholders inside and outside the organization. Authentic leaders also guide by engaging in moral reasoning and principled judgment, as well as teaching these ideas to their followers. Symbolic actions, described above, also provide guidance for followers, an indirect but powerful means of teaching. Living a congruent life of spiritual synchronicity can also model a higher purpose for individuals and the organization as a whole.
Guiding the process of strategic planning is one of the roles of the authentic leader. This is particularly true when the process includes a review of the mission, vision, and values of the organization. The leader helps guide the process by taking a systemic view of the planning to help ensure that plans synergistically support achieving the shared vision. In addition, the authentic leader participates shoulder to shoulder with the rest of the team in the planning process.
Authentic leaders encourage taking reasonable or calculated risks, experimenting, and innovating. At the same time, they are careful to assess the degree of risk and take steps to reduce the risk of failing by providing risk-takers with the necessary resources and connections to facilitate success. They monitor progress and may suggest modifications to avoid traps and pitfalls while they also resist directing or taking control. The process of leading is that of servant leader, not of micromanager. Followers are fully empowered with both the responsibility and the authority to do what needs to be done. Empowerment means giving power away. The authentic leader gives power away, receiving even more power in return. It takes tremendous self-confidence for the leader to trust followers enough to give away their power in this manner.
Guiding actions also include team building. Authentic leaders seek to make the organization the place to be. One of the best examples was when Steve Jobs formed the team to create the Macintosh computer. There was a sense of camaraderie that energized the team beyond even the typical "high-performance team." A similar phenomenon occurred with the Apollo space program to land a man on the moon by the end of the 1960s.
Finally, leaders today are always concerned with high standards of excellence and quality. They may support programs for total quality management, continuous improvement, six-sigma, benchmarking, and so forth. The key is genuine support, not just verbal approval. They ensure that the resources are there and take an active interest in any efforts to ensure or improve quality and customer service.
Character—The foundation of our model for authentic leading is character. Character generates moral authority, a powerful form of influence within an organization. As with shared vision and values, these leaders are principle-centered, believing in and demonstrating lovingkindness, dignity and respect for everyone, honest and integrity, fairness and forgiveness, service above self, excellence, and humility. They are particularly noted as being ethical, perhaps even "noble." Character enables the authentic leader to engage moral authority to elevate and pull followers toward the shared vision. Authentic leaders also live a congurent life of spiritual synchronicity that enhances their influence even further.
Authentic leaders have a high level of self-confidence, but they check their egos at the door. That is, they have a humble self-confidence. These leaders are committed and motivated by a higher or ultimate purpose. Furthermore, they are centered and have an internal locus of control. Authentic leaders exhibit self-understanding and are self-disciplined. They may have a need for power but use it for empowering others, rather than for their own purposes. When it is used personally, power becomes a source of energy rather than a source of control over others. Authentic leaders gain power by giving it away.
Authentic leaders are passionate. They are focused and committed to the shared vision, a vision of the common good, a commitment to improving the quality of life of society at large. So strong is this passion that they may willingly give all of their time and energy to this cause. These leaders are disenchanted with the status quo and pursue their calling with a sense of giving. Yet authentic leaders view themselves and are viewed by others as servant leaders.
Intelligence, a quality that is essential in a complex and ever changing world, is increasingly critical for leaders. These leaders have good judgment and expertise in their industry, their profession, and leadership. They demonstrate cognitive complexity—the ability to understand and attend to complex and competing needs simultaneously—and approach challenges with a variety of perspectives and approaches.
Authentic leaders also practice and support lifelong learning. Such learning promotes personal renewal. On a larger scale, it also promotes organizational renewal. These leaders use and promote the use of critical, creative, and reflective thinking, which supports the development of cognitive complexity. This provides a basis for multiple frames of reference, situational alternatives, or other forms of requisite variety.
These leaders have a broad perspective, including an awareness of complexities, systemic connections, patterns and situations, that helps them deal with the complexities, ambiguities, and uncertainties of the "permanent whitewater" in which we live. They are equally comfortable with the political, cultural and technical functions inside and outside of the organization. These leaders understand organizational history, gender and cultural sensitivity, and global issues. They are well-rounded, open, unbiased, and flexible with a tolerance for ambiguity.
In addition, authentic leaders exhibit a positive attitude. They are personable, energetic, resourceful, giving, and—most importantly—show a sense of humor!
Spiritual Synchronicity—We live in a world where leading scientists now meet with the Dalai Lama each year in a dialogue regarding insights that might help each other better understand their research and spiritual traditions. In Sacred Hoops , Phil Jackson writes, “The most effective way to forge a winning team is to call on the players’ need to connect with something larger than themselves…essentially a spiritual act.” Spiritual synchronicity is the inner sanctuary of the temple metaphor for authentic leading .
Spiritual synchronicity may be defined as “living a congruent life grounded in a transcendent or higher purpose.” This worldview provides meaning and wholeness , and is likely to value interconnectedness and self-transcendence . As a form of power, spiritual synchronicity strengthens from within. It is a product of one’s personal worldview that influences behavior, both in word and deed, which in turn indirectly or directly influences others.
Spiritual synchronicity manifests in the values , beliefs and behaviors of authentic leaders. Among the values demonstrated by these individuals are humility , lovingkindness and compassion , dignity and respect for all people, honesty and integrity , fairness and forgiveness , altruistic service , and excellence . These values drive these leaders in their pursuit of a vision rooted in higher purpose . Such values result in open communication and caring, trustworthy relationships with others. Authentic leaders seek to build community congruent with the sense of wholeness found in their spiritual path. They provide guidance with an altruistic sense of service, pursuing a higher purpose shared with those they serve. Their character is built upon these values and beliefs. They walk the talk and lead by example .
Whether their spirituality is religious, secular or mystical in form, there is a profound synchronicity between that perceived worldview and their sense of caring and purpose in their business lives. They seek to make a difference for others through the genuine altruism of service above self. They are servant leaders. Ego has been replaced by humility , though their confidence and passion for excellence remain strong. That “fierce resolve ” is focused on a higher purpose of creating a better world, whereas the bottom line is viewed as the result of that effort, not the goal itself.
Authentic leaders realize the truly interrelated, interconnected and interdependent nature of people, the world, and the universe. We are one and we must share for the benefit of all. (See also "Spirituality in Business.")For a more complete description of authentic leading, see Dr. Pielstick's Authentic Leading: Where the Blue Sky Hits the Road, Rocky Mountain Press, 2003, ISBN 1-929149-13-1.
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Bibliography
Gardner, J. W. On Leadership. New York: Free Press, 1990.
Jackson , P. Sacred Hoops : Spiritual Lessons of a Hardwood Warrior. New York: Hyprion, 1995.
Kotter, J. P. The General Managers. New York: Free Press, 1982.
Kotter, J. P. Leading Change. Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1996.
Kouzes, J. M., & Posner,. B. Z. Credibility: How Leaders Gain and Lose It, Why People Demand It. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1993.
Sashkin, M., & Rosenbach, W. E. "A new leadership paradigm." In Contemporary Issues in Leadership, edited by W. E. Rosenbach and R. L. Taylor, 87-108). Boulder, CO: Westview, 1993.