ERAU OBLD 633 Adaptive Leadership in Complex Environments Week 1 (CRIGOE)

I have been working in leadership roles for nearly three decades now, and my view of leadership has evolved from that of an impetuous teenager who saw his leaders as out-of-touch old men and women who couldn’t do what I did, to being an older man who can no longer do what my people do. Besides the literal shift in position, my perspective has also changed. I have realized that leaders cannot be as technically skilled as their workers in all things. That's okay, that's good, and that's normal. Leadership and management require different skills, often more abstract skills, such as strategic planning, problem-solving, communication, emotional intelligence, and influence, among others (Northouse, 2022). The distinction in skills and the misunderstanding of what leaders do can create dissonance in teams and lead to a shift in the perspective of leadership among followers.

For example, my parents always taught my brothers and me to respect people in positions of authority. Teachers, police officers, firefighters, soldiers —the list goes on. We had presentations by police and fire departments to discuss with us, as kids, how to stay safe in our world and to create that connection between them and us, fostering a relationship built on respect. My Grandmothers espoused similar thoughts around authority. The phrase “listen to your elders” was heard often enough, but always in the sense of offering advice; it was their way of saying “I told you so” without hurting my juvenile feelings. I have seen a trend in employee engagement with and their responsiveness to leadership. The same is true of leadership; we also have a shift in our perception of followers, and that also needs to be addressed.

Buzzwords like quiet quitting are circulating to describe leadership’s view of employees doing the minimum at work to stay employed, rather than working above and beyond (Hetler, 2024). I do not see quiet quitting as the problem, but rather the leader’s perception that an associate only doing their job is somehow a bad thing. If there is no benefit to putting in extra effort, I understand why people do not make the additional effort. A few weeks ago, we had the opportunity to invite associates to work extra hours, and only five people volunteered. I had already planned to buy the team pizza as a way to thank them for coming in early, shook their hands when they came, and thanked them, and at the end of the shift, I also sent them a thank you note for coming in that would post where my supervisor would see it. Leaders often forget to be grateful for the extra effort people put in. Not everyone can or wants to work additional hours, not everyone wants to advance within a company, and not everyone is willing to sacrifice their personal time for the company’s sake in the pursuit of advancement. Our responsibility as leaders is to respect what our people want to do and support their efforts to be the best employees they aspire to be, whatever that looks like to them, within the confines of productivity expectations.

Two reasons why this shift has occurred among employees are the concepts of safetyism and radical individualism. Safetyism is the idea that emotional safety is prioritized to a significant degree, leading to a decline in the free expression of ideas (Haidt & Lukianoff, 2015). Leaders then begin to disconnect from their people by not discussing performance and expectations with them, leading to a growing resentment of merely doing their jobs, which leaders refer to as quiet quitting. Radical individualism prioritizes the well-being of the individual over that of the community, leading to an emphasis on doing one’s work, rather than going above and beyond (Castelberry, 2023). These changes have created a unique relationship between leaders and followers, along with the seismic shift in technology and ways of working that have never existed before. The constancy of change is not new, but the speed and scale of the changes are dramatic, and there is a lack of adequate leadership development to guide them effectively (Obolensky, 2016).

 The only way to close the gap between leadership quality and available resources is through practical training and development. Every time I have been promoted, it was because I excelled at the job I was currently doing. I was never promoted for the skills I developed for the role I was being promoted to. At the frontline leadership position, I was troubleshooting; at the next level, I was planning; and now I am designing goals and key performance indicators. Those skills do not overlap. What is consistent is my approach to leadership, but not everyone has pursued an education in leadership and management. Companies need to spend more time teaching how to lead at the level people are at, rather than promoting strictly for the skills they have mastered in their current role. The effort to teach leadership must be intentional and sustained, as does the effort to learn it. Popular sources of leadership are great inspirations for many. I love Jocko Willink’s material, but he lacks academic credibility. That does not mean his material is not good; it just means it is based on his opinions. Academic material relies on inaccessible linguistics and pay-per-view academic journals that the average leader is unaware of. This leaves the most valuable material accessible only to those who deliberately seek to pursue it, obscuring and growing wider the gap between leadership quality and available resources. As leaders, we must close the gap by making our knowledge more accessible and leading the way by teaching what we know, while also asking that our organizations invest meaningfully in the development of our people and leadership.

 

-Chris

References

Castleberry, J. (2023, September 5). Leadership and moral individualism. Northwest University. https://www.northwestu.edu/president/blog/leadership-and-moral-individualism

Haidt, J., & Lukianoff, G. (2015, September). How trigger warnings are hurting mental health on campus. The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/09/the-coddling-of-the-american-mind/399356/

Hetler, A. (2024, May 14). Quiet quitting explained: Everything you need to know. WhatIs. https://www.techtarget.com/whatis/feature/Quiet-quitting-explained-Everything-you-need-to-know#:~:text=What%20is%20quiet%20quitting%3F,to%20improve%20work%2Dlife%20balance.

 Northouse, P. G. (2022). Leadership: Theory and practice (9th ed.). SAGE.

Obolensky, N. (2016). Complex Adaptive Leadership: Embracing paradox and uncertainty. Routledge.