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Mind the (Leadership) Gap

The Rebel Child

As I suspect you may have experienced, I had a complicated relationship with leadership in my younger years. I conflated leadership with authority and, boy did I dislike authority. Parent's telling me precisely how to live my life. Administrators telling me exactly how to perform my job duties. I saw these authority figures as barriers to freedom of choice and how I wanted to live my life or perform my duties. I felt that the role of a leader was that of a dictator. Growing older, and having had a taste of leadership through my roles in different organizations, I learned to untangle leadership from authority. I learned that leadership can be assigned or emergent and that what I experienced in my younger years was not the ideal example of leadership (Northouse, 2016). This experience of leadership seems to conflict with those of my parents and my grandparents.

Changing Views - A Generational and Technological Difference

I am lucky enough to have one living grandparent and both of my parents that I talked to for this blog. Reflecting on how my parents, and even grandparents view leadership, I am left stunned. They felt that their leaders knew best and did not question them. I felt growing up that leaders did not always know best. This is a big generalization, however, it is supported by some of the literature around leadership (Obolensky, 2016). A notable difference here is my mother who migrated from Colombia, South America in the late 1980's. She left the country, against the advice of her parents and never looked back. Her views of leadership aligned more closely with mine. My father and his parents both still hold a view of the leader as someone to obey and listen to. They are in charge for a reason, they thought. In the nearly 100 years since my grandparents were born, technical advancement and social change has taken off at an extraordinary rate, but our concepts of leadership have shifted less dramatically.


Image From: https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2011/08/03/the-abatement-gap/

Why the Gap?

The picture above depicts a great chasm. On the left we have old ways of understanding leadership. On the right is all of the information that we have learned from decades of academic research. As you can see the gap is wide, deep, and profound. Why is there such a disconnect between what we know about leadership and how it is practiced in business, organizations, and life? I recently watched a documentary on Netflix that provided me with an interesting insight into how leadership, namely monarchy, operated historically. In the days of kings and queens, their authority to rule was provided directly by God. They viewed their monarchs as divinely chosen. Today, most monarchies are symbolic in nature and do not wield any real power in politics (Haaser, 2021). I bring this up to suggest that perhaps many leaders today view their authority as innate. I’m not sure I would go so far as to suggest that some politicians and organizational leaders view their role as divinely selected, but it is possible that some do. To me the fatal flaw is hubris - excessive pride and self-importance. I believe that there is a gap between how we understand leadership and how we practice leadership because many leaders are holding on to old notions of leadership that hold them to a higher regard. If we practiced leadership as a behavior and skill we would know that anyone can develop them and become one.


References

Northouse, P. G. (2016). Leadership: Theory and practice, 7th ed. SAGE Publishing.

Obolensky, N. (2016). Complex adaptive leadership: Embracing paradox and uncertainty. Routledge.

Haaser, C (Director). (2021, July 23). Royalty explained, (Sn 3, Ep 2) [Digital Series Episode]. Gordon, C. (Executive Producer), Explained. Netflix Worldwide Entertainment. https://www.netflix.com/title/80216752
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