What’s Real Leadership?

What’s Real Leadership?

Decisions! Decisions! If you can stand to recall another election season, on November 7, 2000, chaos tumbled out of Florida voting booths and into communities across the country as a storm of controversy erupted over the Presidential election. Did George W. Bush or Al Gore win Florida’s electoral vote? Should a “dimpled” chad count? What about a “hanging” chad? And what in the world was a “pregnant” chad? On November 6, 2000, the decision process seemed clear: registered voters cast their ballots, they are counted, and the winner takes all Electoral College votes. After that election, we learned that it wasn’t nearly that simple. At the heart of the matter was the question: What exactly was the decision process?

Are your decision methods clear? My clients frequently seem to have internal combustion explosions within their organizations when decisions are made in the absence of an articulated decision process and a strategic communication plan. Does everyone know the decision-making process beforehand?

There are countless ways to reach a decision-circumstances call upon leaders to use a variety of strategies daily. You might take a poll about where to grab a bite of lunch with colleagues, seek consensus about hiring a new person to join your management team, and decide alone to approve overtime. Each decision-making model has a role, and a good leader is flexible, using an array of techniques as appropriate. Especially when it comes to decisions where the stakes are high, and many people have an investment in the result, leadership consists of building a consensus around difficult issues. To quote my colleague Professor Paul C. Nutt, “The idea of a charismatic leader, someone who gets his one idea realized by sheer force of his personality, is a myth!”

What Should You Do?

Communicate How the Decision Will Be Made: Your staff may mutiny (or at least grumble) if you decide something without their counsel if the result has an impact on their work and they assumed they would be allowed to weigh in. While they still may disagree with your determination, if they are forewarned about the process, they will gripe less.

Consider the Pros and Cons of Each Model: You could use unanimity, convincing argument, following a popular leader, implicit majority or voting, compromise, the intensity of preferences or meeting everyone’s needs (true consensus.) As I’ve written before in my book “The Power of a Good Fight”, each of these methods has pros and cons. The key is to pick the right method for the specific issue and then manage the expectations of your staff.

Beware Consensus: I’m all in favor of using consensus for the right issue but groups frequently fail to understand the pitfalls. Consensus building may eat up an enormous amount of time, and the larger the group, the more time you will need to allow.

Many leaders tell me they “manage by consensus”. Just their terminology always makes me question whether this is truly their approach. The consensus is not something that can be “managed.” When leaders say this, what they usually mean is that they already have in mind an approach but want to give their group the idea that they are interested in input. They will convene an open forum to go through the appearance of listening to other ideas. This approach can backfire since people may be enthusiastic the first time this occurs, but they will soon realize something else is going on.

What Consensus Requires: If you want to use consensus, each member of the group must go in with an open mind, take responsibility for speaking up to make sure the group hears their concerns, as well as truly listening to the issues of others. Consensus requires each member to give up their beloved positions and focus on underlying needs. Most groups need a fair amount of training, discussion, and practice to make this work successfully.

For more information on group decision making, consensus building, and conflict resolution visit our Monday Memo archives.