The Paradox of Leadership
Every leader will tell you that leadership is difficult. It is a skill that has to be learned, and many mistakes have to be made along the way. Some of the greatest leaders which have graced our presence have fallen, and it deeply saddens us when this occurs. Great leaders install optimism and motivation, they keep us going when the going gets rough.
Leaders take on responsibilities and task which do not wish to be done by the majority. This is why they are leaders. Hollywood has done a rather poor job of painting a leader's job. We have all seen a scene from a movie where the CEO or boss's boss is in his office with his feet on the desk smoking a cigar. It appears as though leaders seem to just delegate and sit on their high chair.
The good thing is, the attitude toward leadership is changing. And we are all accepting that leadership is not for everyone. It is a hard job that requires sacrifice and much diligence. But few of us understand the many contradictions which occur in a leader's mind.
What makes leadership difficult is the constant dilemmas they are faced with. And these dilemmas can not be passed onto the team. Mostly, the team is seeking an answer to the dilemmas which the leader faces. It is easy to say things like, “put the team first” or “be vulnerable with your team members” but what do those things mean in the bigger context of leadership. And how do those things create the paradox of leadership in our society today?
Well, if you read on, I would like to show you some things I have found leaders of today have to wrestle with. None of the things is easy. I am one of those people who believes leadership is a skill that can be taught, however; it takes a particular person with certain qualities to wish to take on this load.
Making Sacrifices vs Sacrificing the Team
You might think this is a straightforward decision. Of course, if you are a good leader, you never sacrifice the team. You carry the team through thick and thin; you do your best to nurture and guide them through the difficulties of work.
But in all of this, think about the leader for the second. They might be late home for dinner with their wife. They probably could not read their child a bedtime story because of helping someone with their big presentation that day. More often than not, it is always easier to sacrifice the team. When we tell leaders to never sacrifice the team, we must understand we are telling them to go against intuition.
They are actively choosing every time to do something they would rather not do. Not that they are a bad leader or they should not be in that position if they do not enjoy it. It is a paradox that comes with their role. Everything in them is telling them to get home for bedtime stories and sacrifice the team. But they decide to stay invested in the people who carry their goal forward.
The good thing is leaders hopefully get a return for their efforts. When they need to sacrifice the team if they have made the right decision enough times, the team willingly sacrifices themselves. Great leaders have a team behind them that admire not only their sacrifices but wish to do the same for them.
Taking the Blame vs Blaming Others
Leaders are positioned in a place of accountability. This means that every task done underneath their leadership is essentially a reflection of them. This means when things go wrong, everyone looks to them for the answer or to blame.
First, we learn from a very young age that being blamed for something brings shame. When a child who gets in trouble points to their friend and says, “It was their fault”, automatically the child doing the blaming feels better about themselves. But the one being blamed hangs their head in shame.
Now imagine living your life on the brink of being blamed at any moment. Most of us would never choose a life like that. However, we look to our leaders to do it for us. Almost all of us would rather be on the other side, pointing our fingers at where someone went wrong. It is much easier to do and makes us feel better about our work.
Leaders do not have this option, though. Of course, they could use their power to pass the blame onto someone else, but we know this is not what good leaders do. They swallow the hard pill for us. Even when it was not their fault they tell us they could have done something better.
But as we know, leaders who practice vulnerability and hold their hands up when they are wrong, often get better responses from their team.
Personal Gain VS Shared Gain
You have probably heard of the 90/10 rule. If you are not familiar with it, here is a quick article, I found on it. In a nutshell, it is a law which states that,
“10% of people do 90% of the work,”
Now imagine that. If you were to create a reward system of these numbers, it would make perfect sense to do this:
10% of people get 90% of the reward
But again, the leader faces a paradox. It is so much easier to think about your personal gain. We have to remember we do this all the time. We decide what time we want to go to sleep, wake up and what we want to it. We are in control of how we go about receiving gratification in life.
However, we tell the leader constantly that this way of thinking sacrifices the team and puts everyone to a detriment. Now, this is true. But how easy is it to put into practice? Especially if the leader feels as though he has done most of the work.
Shared gain endorses teamwork and gives a sense of unified purpose. But it is not always easy to share. Sharing is not even intuitive to us, children have to be taught how to share.
But we know that the great leaders who practice sharing the gain will reap the rewards of more gain in the future.
Co-operation vs Dictatorship
Dictatorship is a bit of a strong word, but it paints the picture well. In most cases when we can do something ourselves we tend to not ask for help, especially when we can do it to a good standard. I remember being a part of a group at University or School which was just a waste of my time. I knew I could do all the work by myself without the “help” of others.
Most of the time they pulled me back, and I had to slow down to help them. Now you might say that I was not practicing good teamwork. But we all get like this when we believe we are more competent than others. It is a natural feeling and often causes clashes in teams.
Leaders have the power to control how and when they want things done. Instead of sitting down having to listen to bad ideas from other people in the team, they could just restrict the autonomy of their team and do it their way. In the short-term, this works to everyone’s benefit. The task gets done quicker and there is less time spent thinking of how to do things.
But in the long-run, this reduces creativity amongst the team and stops people from having the desire to contribute. A leader who dictates has a team for a short while, but not for too long. However, this is a paradox of leadership. At the moment it feels right to just get it done themselves, especially if their solution is the right one.
Yet again, they are faced to do something which is outside of their innate response, which would be to take the short-term gain.
Demand VS Supply
Finally, our leaders face the two curves of demand and supply in every decision they make. When leading the team they can do one of two things, they can supply the team with the resources they need or demand from the team the resources he/she needs.
We all know that once people have the basic resources for their jobs, what is left for the leader to decide is how they should do it. We find that the demand model is often used in today’s market. The leader will set a list of demands that need to be met, and then off we go to do it.
However, studies in organizational behavior are beginning to show that this model is not the best for performance. Science is clearly showing that humans need to feel a sense of purpose in the work they are doing. And more often than not, that purpose does not come from demands set by the top. Instead, we are learning that people actually want to create their own demands and contribute in a way they decide to.
This increases productivity and improves creativity. Many of the great ideas Google has come up with came from this way of working. They allowed employees to work on their own personal projects and contribute in their own way. The leaders at Google took a nurturing approach. They supplied what the employees needed and let the demands be filled by their workers.
You can see how this model seems slightly unorganized and places a lot of trust in the team. I would argue that the leaders are not necessarily leaders in this model, but instead supporters of the team. They are the fuel to the car rather than the driver of it.
Once again, the leaders are faced with a paradox. It is much easier to know what you want and ask someone to do it for you. However, we are now telling our leaders to do it the other way round. Let the team decide what you need and provide them with the resources to achieve it.
Closing Thoughts
Not all leaders are great leaders, but one thing is certain. All leaders face these uncomfortable decisions at some point or another. I have come across extremely bad leaders before and often used to ask myself why are they like that.
But now I understand that leadership is not for everyone. It takes a special person to be willing to put themselves through these paradoxes day in and day out. Of course, being a leader reaps its rewards. But from what I can see, good leaders understand that leadership is more a sacrifice than anything else. It is a choice to be in a position that is necessary, yet unpopular.