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Third Generation Leadership In Context

Guest post by: Douglas Long

Article Overview: To “Generation Y” rigid reporting structures and narrow sources of information are a foreign concept. Their whole life has been lived in a world of personal computers, mobile phones, the internet, social networking, and the like. They have learned that by using the internet and the search engine of their choice they can find out almost anything about anyone at any time – and some of what they find out will even be accurate! Generation Y has an expectation that information will be readily available and that they will be involved in determining the accuracy and utility of such information. Their expectancy is that they will be engaged with what they do and with those they are doing it with. This creates a problem for traditional leadership approaches

Third Generation Leadership In Context

There are many solitary activities. Leadership is not one of them. Leadership is related to the achievement of some form of outcome or results of individuals and/or groups.

The activity of being a leader implies the existence of followers. How can you be a leader if there is no-one to lead?

First, however, we need to put leadership into a context. Some of the currently available material about leadership almost implies that leadership is an entity in its own right. When I talk of leadership, however, I am referring to that process which is the hub around which rotates everything impacting on individual and group performance.

"Performance" is central to everything we do. We may define performance in qualitative and/or quantitative terms; in short term and/or long term time frames; of an individual, a group, an organisation, or a nation. How we define it will depend on a whole range of factors and "performance" per se is neither "good" nor "bad". It simply "is" or 'isn't". Of course the value set from which we observe it will impact on our assessment of "good" or "bad" - but that is very much a subjective evaluation based on our personal, group, or national value set, the time frame at which we make that evaluation, and, sometimes at least, on the pressure we are experiencing in relation to making an evaluation.

I suggest that there are a variety of factors that impact directly and indirectly on whether or not desired performance is achieved. That which coordinates these factors is the process of leadership. (I am not getting involved in the "what is leadership?", "what is management?" debate as to responsibilities of those "in charge". I am using the term "leadership" in its broadest sense and that encompasses what some might call management.)

Those factors which directly impact on performance are the "willingness" and "ability" (or, if you prefer, the competence and confidence or the capability) of the individual or group involved. It is important to note that these two factors are related but totally independent. There are many people who are competent to do certain things - they have the ability - but they are not prepared to do them: they lack the willingness, confidence, or motivation to do them. Again, this is not necessarily good or bad - for example most of us have the ability to do things that are unlawful: fortunately we are not motivated in that direction and so we can lead relatively quiet, law-abiding lives. On the other hand there are many people who will enthusiastically declare themselves willing to undertake any task even when they have no idea of how the task should be done or what the task involves. This has the potential to be either very good as some innate competence comes to the fore and they learn quickly or the potential for disaster if what they do proves to endanger themselves and/or other people. It is well known that the effective leader does not confuse willingness with ability.

The factors that impact less directly on performance are in two areas - those in the organisation and the more distant area of the environment in which the organisation operates. (I must be clear, here, that I am using the term "organisation" to refer to any group of people who are working together to achieve some sort of results. Accordingly "organisation" may refer to an entity as small as a family group through to an entity as large as a nation.)

First, those factors within the organisation - knowledge, strategy, non human resources, structure, and human process.

"Knowledge" refers to the aggregation of data and information available - it includes the history of the organisation in a micro and macro sense as well as all the information that is necessary for the organisation to function effectively. Traditionally the organisational elders - the leadership team - have been the guardians of this knowledge and their ability to impart or withhold information has given them a significant power base. An example of this is seen in the family organisation". The responsibility of parents is to help their children understand about their families (including the "bigger" family history scenario) as well as the values and norms that dictate acceptable behaviour in the family. (This can prove to be somewhat of a problem sometimes in these days of sperm banks and blended families.) Parents are the fount of all wisdom and knowledge when a child is very young but, as the child matures, his or her perception of the parents' wisdom changes and there is the desire to check things out and to find other sources of information. Many parents have difficulty in dealing with this and a source of family conflict ensues. Parents often resort to various power sources in order to maintain their control with the result that the child may well become increasingly disillusioned and rebellious. Wise parents choose their battles very carefully!

"Strategy" refers to the long term approaches that are in place to help us achieve goals. It takes into account such things as our visions of the future and the goals that we set in order to get there. In commercial organisations (whether for-profit or not-for-profit) the issue of strategy is well known and usually well documented but in small organisations and families there may have been no real discussion or planning in this regard.

"Non-human resources" refer to the assets we have available in both the short term and longer term. These may include things like cash flow (in a family, monthly wages or salary), buildings, vehicles, machinery and the like. The availability of these for the right people, at the right time, in the right place, and for the right use has a very real impact on whether or not people are able to perform as required.

"Structure" is the mechanism by which strategy can be implemented and non-human resources can be properly deployed. It refers to who does what and where everyone fits into the overall need to get things done. For most of our history there were clear cut delineations between "man's work" and "woman's work", between "young person's work" and "old person's work"; etc and this has lead to many of the stereotypes and discrimination problems we still encounter today.

It must be noted that, in most organisations, there are two quite distinct structures - the formal one to which assent is given by everyone involved and the informal one - which is the network of personal interactions and power alliances that has very significant influence over whether (and how) desired goals are achieved. Both of these are important and attention is needed to both if desired performance is to be obtained.

"Human process" refers to the way in which people interact with each other. These interactions are impacted by the value sets, attitudes, degrees of commitment, willingness to cooperate, and other "behind the eyes" factors that affect how we behave. This is the area of potential conflict and the source of much which makes an organisation dysfunctional.

The role of a leader is to ensure that these are appropriately coordinated or integrated.

Second, those factors outside of the organisation - the environment.

The environment is usually associated with issues such as the weather, climate change, and other such matters. However the environment, from a leadership perspective, also includes such things as legislation impacting on personal, family, and business organisation behaviour. This would include such things as building regulations, occupational health and safety legislation, antidiscrimination legislation, minimum wage and employee entitlements, the overall job market, international and national economics, and a myriad other issues that tell us what we may or may not do and how we may or may not do it. The Global Financial Crisis of 2008-2009 focused attention on this in a way that hadn't been seen since the time of the Great Depression eighty years before.

The roles of the leader are to be aware of these issues as they relate to his or her responsibilities and to ensure his or her followers both understand and are compliant with any such legislation or regulation. Obviously this leads to the issue of competence and training as a person cannot be fully competent if they are not aware of the regulations with which they must comply. The direct implication of this is that, the more senior a leader becomes in any organisation, the greater the degree of complexity with which he or she has to deal.

So far this is not too far removed from that with which most leadership researchers, theorists and practitioners would agree. Some may quibble about which parts of this are "management" and which are "leadership" but the general consensus would probably be that all these variables need attention if desired performance is to be achieved.

Under the traditional approaches that were extant until about 1980 this was not an issue. In the First Generation Leadership world only the leader needed to be aware of many of these variables (and there were less of them) with everyone else simply going along with what they were told to do. In the Second Generation Leadership world again it was the leader's responsibility to ascertain and monitor compliance and, in the main, followers were prepared to go along with this. But the situation is different in the world of Third Generation Leadership.

The critical factor in this is "expectancy". Ultimately the quality and quantity of performance for anyone has its genesis in the expectancy of the person and/or people involved. Until about 1980 this wasn't too much of an issue because the people affected had been educated in the worlds of First Generation Leadership and/or Second Generation Leadership schools.

Under First Generation Leadership everyone knew their place in society and there was very little expectation that there could be any significant movement to higher levels. Accordingly the command and control ("you will") approach was effective.

Under Second Generation Leadership the stratum parameters within which a person could move broadened significantly but it was still generally accepted that not everyone could have power and authority. Accordingly there was an expectation that followers would be told what they needed to know. Of course, for some people this was never enough and the phrase "treated like mushrooms" became widespread amongst those who were frustrated at being told what their leaders believed they needed to know rather than what was really necessary. As someone once told me: "I get enough information to get me out of the muck once I've fallen in - but I never get enough information to avoid the muck in the first place!"

Arising from this, and an important part of the Second Generation Leadership world, was the matter of performance feedback and performance appraisal. It was recognised that most people were goal orientated and also that progress needed measurement. It was generally acknowledged that "what you can't measure you can't manage" and performance management systems were designed to enable managers to be more effective. It is a truism to acknowledge that, in the main, many managers hate having to conduct performance appraisals and see them as a "necessary evil". The result is that the feedback loop available from these is not often implemented as well as it may be and, far too often, performance appraisal in commercial organisations receives only perfunctory attention from all involved (apart from the HR team!)

But the situation is now changing. For those people who went to school from about 1980 the world is different and their expectations are different.

To these people - "Generation Y" as they are colloquially called - rigid reporting structures and narrow sources of information are a foreign concept. Their whole life has been lived in a world of personal computers, mobile phones, the internet, social networking, and the like. They have learned that by using the internet and the search engine of their choice they can find out almost anything about anyone at any time - and some of what they find out will even be accurate! Generation Y has an expectation that information will be readily available and that they will be involved in determining the accuracy and utility of such information. Their expectancy is that they will be engaged with what they do and with those they are doing it with.

And herein lies a potential problem for leaders who continue to operate in a First Generation Leadership or a Second Generation Leadership world - including many of the leaders in the older, established religious faiths in which compliance with their interpretation of what is in a Holy Book or what they believe is Divine Inspiration is de rigueur. Generation Y sees the right to question and to seek alternative answers as being automatic. Unless they are involved in such discussions and can explore such alternatives they may reject even that which is most worth retaining. The fighting of rearguard actions by those in authority - no matter what the sphere - only serves to further alienate those people whose commitment is actually critical to survival.

Only Third Generation Leadership provides a mechanism for engaging everyone.

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Article Tags: expectancy, generation y, leadership in context, social networking, third generation leadership, traditional leadership



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