Boy, my entries have been pretty heavy recently. Being truthful, I’m glad we’re through with the leadership articles. Good info, but a bit weighty.

So, let’s have some fun. In fact, let’s talk about how to have fun in our daily work. An ancient Hebrew saying states: “A person can do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in their work.”

Sounds great. But how? Most of us are tired and stressed, often feel overwhelmed and, as a result, we can become farily grumpy.

First, look at your life and take a moment to be thankful. Yes, you have negative circumstances in your life. We all do. (As M. Scott Peck stated in The Road Less Traveled, the starting point to mental health is to accept that “life is hard”.) But one way to overcome the negatives in our lives is to focus on the positive aspects of our lives. Personally, I am thankful I still sleep well. I am also healthy and can exercise without pain. That is a gift that many people don’t have. I love nature and have the benefit of living where I get to enjoy birds, the stars, trees, rabbits and deer. And I have a great family — a wife who loves me and four kids (although they are not “kids” anymore) who are neat people and we have a blast when we are all together. I could go on. But take a moment and think about the good tings you have in your life and give thanks (if it involves others in your life, it is good to tell them directly.)

A second key to enjoying life is to enjoy the moment. For much of my life, I have lived always looking forward to the future — thinking about tomorrow, this weekend, March Madness (I love college basketball), the next vacation, etc. As a result, I wasn’t really enjoying the moment I was living at that time. And the people around me noticed — I wasn’t present with them and I had a distant look in my eyes. I have worked hard to try to change this. No matter the circumstance — whether I am stuck in traffic, waiting for someone who is late to a meeting, fixing a flat tire — there is a way to enjoy the moment, and to make it a positive life experience. Look around — see who is there and chat with them, or take a brief moment to rest. (This is clearly a continuing growth area for me.)

A third way to enjoy life more is to practice some behaviors that foster positive interactions. Smile. Answer questions or greetings with a positive voice tone (rather than a grunt or negative comment.) Compliment others (whenever possible, be as specific as you can, “I really like that tie.” “I love the way you have decorated your office — it is so warm and inviting.”) Laugh. Tell jokes. Bring others’ attention to the positive things in life — the beauty of a sunrise or a flower, the fact that your flight arrived on time, how great lunch tasted, the accessibility of medical treatment and medication when you aren’t feeling well (think about what life was like before we had all the wonderful meds we have now.)

Next, take a moment to enjoy the people in your life. Stop by your receptionist’s or coworker’s desk and ask how their weekend was — what did they do that was fun? Or share about your weekend — tell a story about something interesting or funny that happened to you. Invite a colleague to lunch — not to talk business, but just to chat and enjoy a little time together. (You might need to give them a context — “I don’t want to talk about anthing specific. I just thought it would be fun to go grab a bite to eat together.”)

And lastly, do something that you enjoy — reward your senses, even if it is just a small thing. Talk a walk at lunch and enjoy the sunshine on your skin. Listen to some soothing music for five minutes (with your eyes closed). Eat one Hershey’s chocolate kiss and let it melt in your mouth. Give your spouse an extra long hug and kiss when you see them tonight. Tickle or wrestle with your kids. Go to bed half an hour earlier than usual and take a long, hot shower. Whatever you enjoy — incorporate some fun in your day. It makes life a lot more enjoyable!

The final article on leadership in the January 2007 American Psychologist ,“Asking the Right Questions About Leadership” by J. Richard Hackman and Ruth Wageman, attempts to summarize the issues raised by the authors of the key contributing articles.

Hackman & Wageman suggest that a new set of questions need to be asked to better understand leadership. They contrast previously asked questions, with the new questions they suggest.

1. We shouldn’t ask, “Do leaders make a difference?”, but “Under what conditions does leadership matter?” The authors note that we often attribute the cause of change (positively or negatively) too much to the leader of an organization (known as “leader attribution error”). Rather, research suggests that leaders have the greatest impact when organizational opportunities are scarce but slack resources are plentiful.
2. The question isn’t “What are the traits of leaders?”, but “How do leaders’ personal characteristics interact with situational factors to shape outcomes?” Research seems to clearly demonstrate it is the interaction between a leader’s traits and the situation in which they find themselves that makes the difference. Unfortunately (from my point of view), however, researchers have not done much to identify individual traits with specific situations. One point does seem clear – trying to use the same strategy in all situations does not provide long-term successful leadership (sometimes psychologists [myself included] are wizards at stating the obvious).
3. Don’t ask “Do there exist common dimensions on which all leaders can be compared?”, but “Are good and poor leadership qualitatively different?” Research findings seem to be suggesting that there is no single dimension which differentiates good and poor leaders. Rather, it appears that leadership is a combination of factors linked together. Thus, good leaders do not only have good ability to use their intelligence, creativity and knowledge to bring about good decisions, but they must also have communication and interpersonal skills to influence others.
4. The real question is not “How do leaders and followers differ?”, but “How can leadership models be reframed so they treat all members of the system as both leaders and followers? The point is – leaders lead, but they are also influenced by their followers. And every follower is, at least theoretically, also a leader. In fact, some studies suggest that anyone who fulfills critical functions (or arranges for them to be fulfilled) is exhibiting leadership. And, as anyone who has served in an organization knows – one does not have to be in a leadership position to provide leadership.
5. Don’t ask, “What should be taught in leadership courses?”, but “How can leaders be helped to learn?” One researcher suggests that leadership training should explore the leaders’ own preferred leadership strategies and then investigate the conditions under which those strategies are and are not appropriate (falling back to the interaction model between traits and situations).

One really interesting point to me, given my belief in the importance of emotional intelligence was the following:

“Leading well … may require a considerable degree of emotional maturity in dealing with one’s own and others’ anxieties. Emotionally mature leaders are willing and able to move toward anxiety-arousing states of affairs in the interest of learning about them, rather than moving away from them to get anxieties reduced as quickly as possible. Moreover, such leaders are able to inhibit impulses to act (e.g. to correct an emerging problem or to exploit a suddenly appearing opportunity) until more data have appeared or until … members become open to the contemplated intervention. Sometimes it is even necessary for leaders to engage in actions that temporarily raise anxieties, including their own, to lay the groundwork for the subsequent interventions that seek to foster learning or change.”

Final Thoughts

So this is the last of the articles in the American Psychologist issue on leadership I reviewed. After summarizing the articles, I have some reflections to share.

As psychologists, maybe we are now asking the “right” questions, but the dearth of research completed on these issues is discouraging.

The reporting of the research feels somewhat like a theoretical exercise, saying:

-we really don’t much about leadership (from a research point of view)

-a lot of our prior research hasn’t shown us much;

-it appears that we have been asking the wrong questions for the past 30 years;

-we now know (what we believe are) better questions to be

asking and answering;

-it may be a long time (and difficult) to achieve any good answers to the new set of questions.

Practically speaking, I want to know:

1. Can I become a better leader? (I think we generally assume we can improve ourselves)
2. If so, how?
3. On what basis should I select a person who is going to serve in a leadership position?

4. What can be done to improve the leadership behaviors of those who are developing leaders?

As often is the case, it appears that psychologists are better in asking questions than they are answering them definitively.

Robert Sternberg is one of my favorite authors. He has written a wonderful book entitled, Successful Intelligence. In the January 2007 American Psychologist he summarizes his “systems model of leadership.”

Although he agrees that “the environment strongly influences” the display of leadership, Sternberg clearly believes there are characteristics that set leaders apart from others.

CREATIVITY. Leaders are able to generate ideas and products that are (a) relatively novel; (b) high in quality; and (c) appropriate for the task at hand.

Sternberg then describes different ways creativity is used by leaders:

1. Problem redefinition. 2. Problem analysis. 3. Selling their solution. 4. Recognizing how knowledge can both help and hinder creative thinking. 5. Willingness to take sensible risks. 6. Willingness to surmount obstacles. 7. Belief in one’s ability to accomplish the task at hand. 8. Willingness to tolerate ambiguity. 9. Willingness to find extrinsic rewards for the things one is intrisically motivated to do. 10. Continuing to grow intellectually rather than to stagnate.

SUCCESSFUL INTELLIGENCE

Sternberg defines successful intelligence as: “the skills and dispositions needed to succeed in life, given one’s own conception of success, within one’s sociocultural environment.”

He differentiates successful intelligence from academic intelligence (the ability to learn and perform well in school.) Leaders do need academic intelligence to help them process information and ideas, remember information necessary to make decisions, and to be able to think critically about situations and options. But research has shown that if leaders are too much brighter (in a traditional sense) than the people they lead, the leader may not “connect” with the people and is less effective.

Practical intelligence (another term for successful intelligence) is used to solve everyday problems by applying knowledge gained from experience. It includes the ability to adapt to one’s environment, to shape your environment to fit your needs, or finding a new environment in which to work.

One aspect of practical intelligence is emotional intelligence — which has been shown to be a positive predictor of leadership. (Emotional intelligence includes the ability to get along well with others, to manage your own emotions, and to demonstrate self-discipline.) As I have stated to many young people, academic success doesn’t matter if you can’t get along with others or manage yourself.

WISDOM

To me, this is an interesting concept, because I have not heard much discussion about “wisdom” in our culture. Sternberg defines wisdom as “the use of successful intelligence, creativity, and knowledge as mediated by values to (a) seek to reach a common good, (b) by balancing intrapersonal (one’s own), interpersonal (others’) and extrapersonal (organizational, institutional …) interests, (c) over the short and long term to (d) adapt to, shape, and select environments.”

The key part that Sternberg emphasizes is that wisdom is focused on the common good. He states “wise leaders skillfully balance the interests of all stakeholders, including their own interests, those of their followers, and those of the organization for which they are responsible.” He goes on to say that intelligence, knowledge and creativity do not guarantee wisdom.

Sternberg concludes:

“Truly good leadership is relatively rare because it requires a synthesis of all of the elements described above. . . It is possible that in the past, creativity was an optional feature of leadership. In today’s world, with its staggering rate of change, it is no longer optional. . . A leader lacking in creativity will be unable to deal with novel and difficult situations. . . A leader lacking in academic intelligence will not be able to decide whether his or her ideas are viable, and a leader lacking in practical intelligence will be unable to implement his or her ideas effectively. An unwise leader may succeed in implementing ideas but end up implementing ideas that are contrary to the best interests of the people he or she leads.”

Wow. I like this guy’s ideas.

As I have stated in an earlier post, the January 2007 edition of the American Psychologist reviews the psychological research on leadership.

I would like to share some thoughts from a fascinating article entitled, “The Role of the Situation in Leadership” by Victor Vroom (professor at Yale) & Arthur Jago (professor at the University of Missouri).

The authors start out by curtly stating:

“the term leadership, despite its popularity, is not a scientific term with a formal, standardized definition. . .(and) there are almost a s many definitions of leadership as there are persons who have attempted to define the concept.”

But they do summarize:

“virtually all definitions of leadership share the view that leadership involves the process of influence… There are, in fact, a myriad of processes by which successful influence can occur (including) threats, the promise of rewards, well-reasoned technical arguments, and inspirational appeals… Exhibiting leadership means not only influencing others but also doing so in a manner that enables the organization to attain its goals.”

Vroom & Lago then present their own definition of leadership:

“a process of motivating people to work together collaboratively to accomplish great things.”

Interestingly, they then attempt to debunk the idea that there are great leaders – and this is the reason researchers have not been able to find common traits of good leaders.

The opposite position – that leadership is solely determined by situational factors – has some merit based on the following arguments:

“a) Leaders have very limited power (much less than is attributed to them); b) candidates for a given leadership position will have gone through the same selection screen that will drastically curtail their differences: and c) any remaining differences among people will be overwhelmed by situational demands in the leadership role.”

However, Vroom & Jago argue that we must look at “contingency theories” – that is, looking at “the kinds of persons and behaviors who are effective in different situations.”

[A side note: this reminds me of the research which occurred in psychology regarding counseling and psychotherapy. In the 1960’s & 70’s, researchers were looking for those qualities of therapists or characteristics of therapy that led to positive results for clients. Ultimately, this line of research failed – with the exception of identifying some core therapist behaviors that seem to be helpful – maintaining eye contact,, not being distracted with other things, and responding in ways that make the client feel “heard”. However, in the ‘80’s & 90’s, psychologists asked a different set of questions: What characteristics, behaviors or processes are most impactful in helping xxx types of clients with yyy types of problems? This had led to significant findings in knowing how to better to help individuals with anxiety disorders, depression, eating disorders, obsessive compulsive disorders, anger management problems and so on. The therapist’s behaviors and the processes used in counseling for each specific problem must differ, if they are to be effective.]

Now, one researcher named Fielder has proposed that a person’s leadership style is an enduring characteristic that can’t be changed. Thus, good leadership occurs when a leader is placed in a situation that is favorable to his or her style. If this is not possible, then the next best option is to “engineer the job to fit the manager”.

Vroom & Jago then summarize their research which has specifically looked at the interaction between when& how a leader involves their subordinates in decision-making. They have looked at situational variables and different styles of involvement. It all gets a bit deep (for me, at least) but some major themes they have found are that leaders use decision rules that help them respond to combinations of situations. For example, good leaders allow more participation by group members when the members possess knowledge or expertise in the problem area. Also, their approach to conflict also varies. Good leaders seek less participation from members when commitment to the decision is required and are more participative when the members’ acceptance of a
Decision is voluntary.

Vroom & Jago summarize their article with the following points:

1. Organizational effectiveness is affected by situational factors not under the leader’s control.
2. Situations shape how leaders behave.
3. Situations influence the consequences of leader behavior.

The authors criticize the tendency of writers of popular leadership books to focus on simple maxims (“place your trust in people”, “the customer must come first”) without paying attention to the situational factors in which these behaviors make sense – and when they don’t. They emphasize that:

“Actions must be tailored to fit the demands of each situation. A leadership style that is effective in one situation may prove completely ineffective in a different situation.”

What does all of this mean practically? I believe as leaders in different roles and different types of organizations, we need to begin to ask ourselves some questions:

I am intrigued to try to figure out what behaviors and actions are needed in my current roles of leadership, and I am going to strive to be observant of these issues as I go through my day.