The foundation for effective approaches to leadership development is the development of the situation in which leadership will occur. It is not, as is the common practice, the development of leaders. Consider the following:
Javier Sotomayor is the world record holder in the high jump. He has jumped over 8 feet (2.45 meters), a truly amazing record. Yet each of us can jump just as high him. How? We just need to create a situation that renders his abilities irrelevant. Perhaps we’ll see who can jump highest in quicksand, or in a room with 3-foot high ceiling. Javier is really talented but, as it is for all of us, his talents are limited by the situations in which he finds himself.
The imact of the situation on one’s ability to perform cannot be overstated. Phil Zimbardo has done fascinating and enlightening research in this area. His work demonstrating how the situation could so quickly and easily transform normal individuals into ruthless prison guards remains one of the most powerful experiments in all of social psychological research.
We’ve all been in situations that prevented us from being all we could and should be. It may be hard to admit, but situations are the dominant factors in the direction and level of human performance. This dominance has a profound impact on modern day leadership development strategies.
Billions of dollars are spent each year on leadership books, training, seminars and conferences; all in the hope of building better leaders. The theory seems reasonable: better leaders will result in better organizational leadership. Despite the immense expenditures, however, the results are universally considered disappointing. The reason, the theory is flawed.
Despite their quality, most leadership development programs do not deliver desired results. Such failures are the result of equating leadership development to self-improvement. The metaphor is not appropriate because it overlooks the context of the organization, the situation where the leader’s performance will take place. Unless the organization provides a solid foundation for great leadership, leadership development interventions will flounder and leaders’ talents will be rendered relatively irrelevant.
In the modern organization a quality system of leadership is that solid foundation for great leadership. In the absence of such a system talented leaders will likely find themselves stuck in “performance quicksand” or bashing their heads on very low “performance ceilings.” The inevitable impact on the organization and its most talented leaders are frustration and ineffectiveness. The key to avoiding this all too common result is to always develop the system of leadership first. To do otherwise is to “put the cart before the horse.”