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What Do Leaders Want?

Heard this before? Managers need to change their ways. Employees want more autonomy. Employees want more respect, more opportunity, more, more, more. . .

It often seems from the books we read and the training courses we attend that attention is almost exclusively focused on how leaders and company cultures need to be changed to make them more hospitable to employee desires. But there is another side of the equation, and to be taken seriously by organization leaders, we ought to understand it. Most organization leaders live in high-demand and high-pressure environments where specific results are demanded of them by specific dates. Whether we approve or disapprove of that condition, it nevertheless exists and there are few signs of it changing soon.

Many people who work in organizations want and need environments that provide meaningful work and opportunities to participate in decision making. What is equally important for us to understand is that leaders have needs too. This article focuses on both sides of the equation.

The 'Good Model' of leadership

Before turning attention to the leader’s perspective, let’s review briefly the generally-held views of what ‘followers’ (‘constituents’, if you prefer) want from their leaders. According to a consensus of authoritative research on what followers want and need of leadership (see especially the works of Couzes and Posner, there are three core elements. Think of them as: Stimulation, Implementation and Character. The functions of the leader:

1. Stimulation She creates a (new) vision, enlists followers by translating it into their interests, and communicates the vision in a way that inspires their emotions, energy and spirit. She stimulates them to see it, feel it, taste it and to bring their creative and productive energy to it.

2. Implementation The leader uses his skill and energy to make the vision happen. He does this through intense focus on a limited number of specific targets. He solicits other’s relevant inputs in developing priorities and performance standards. He accepts responsibility for oversight of his organization.

3. Character From ‘charisma’ to ‘credibility’, inescapably, the leader’s personal character is considered crucial. Without stature the leader is seen as impotent, even when his vision is favored, and without character he is deemed untrustworthy. The credible leader must also be competitively adroit, and have the capacity to withstand adversity and come back from failures.

What do leaders want?

In my "challenge interviews" (Interviews in which respondents were pressed to report their own actual experiences, rather than their ‘theories’) with about 100 business organization leaders, turn-about seemed fair play so I asked them what they wanted of their followers (as well as what they didn’t). What these leaders wanted of their followers was distinct but fit readily under the same three categories: Stimulation, Implementation and Character. Their versions follow:

1. Stimulation From Alexander the Great, through Churchill, to contemporary politicians, leaders are dependent on followers for support. Trust in the leader confirms her leadership, bulwarks her in tough times and inspires her to 110% effort. Leaders value supporters who are in tune with them and the mission, but rather than ‘yes-men’, they prize those who see and point out specific opportunities and problems the leader doesn’t see.

2. Implementation Leaders, most basically, want subordinate-associates who do what they say they will do. As one said, "They deliver, deliver, deliver." Leaders, in these pressure filled times, also appreciate subordinates with initiative who help lighten the leader’s load and can "keep their monkeys off my back" as one interviewee put it. Leaders appreciate followers who ‘have a feel’ for the best times and techniques for making constructive arguments to change the leader’s mind. They especially appreciate those who know when to quit arguing and give their full energy to doing what has been decided, even when they don’t agree with it.

3. Character Leaders prize self-confidence in subordinates, and their willingness to accept responsibility and to be accountable. As one said, "There are those who naturally take responsibility for meeting commitments. They are self-confident yet they know their limits. They keep growing." Leaders also value, "people who are honest and independent in thought, especially when they understand the politics of the situation."

Leader and follower as mutual customers

I believe that work is one of the arenas of life in which each of us has the opportunity to express herself and to learn and be strengthened by the challenges of confronting difficulties. If that is the case then part of the time we must be willing and ready to deal with situations and people that we don’t like—those that don’t conform to our preferred models of what ‘should be’. We also need to give effective support as well as to receive it.

If a leader’s responsibility is to ‘translate his vision into the interests of others’, he needs to become aware of what those other interests are. The same kind of understanding is required for the follower. The clearer each party is about what the other wants (including their ‘affective’ needs) the better. Organizations that see themselves as participants in the fast-change environments of our time need to establish a method that encourages leaders and their followers at all levels to develop clear, quick, mutual agreements on compatible sets of aims and operating principles, based on what they want of each other.

Leadership and follower-ship are equally essential and mutually dependent functions, yet like the two sides of a coin (or better, like the yin-yang symbol) they are distinct and each must serve the other relevantly to bring forth intended results. Like the symbol too, within each leader there is also a follower, and within each follower is the seed-potential of leadership. Leaders need as well as want an increasing proportion of strong, self-confident subordinates—those who can openly explore alternative possibilities, initiate action and respond to decisions rapidly and skillfully. This requires followers who can operate in multiple modes and roles. Both leaders and followers (at all levels) need to be educated (preferably jointly) to inquire about, recognize and respond to each others wants and needs.

Stan Herman’s newest book, "Reinventing Organizations for the New Economy" is scheduled for release early next year. His last book, ‘The Tao at Work—On Leading and Following’ was published by Jossey-Bass. To ask questions or express your opinions go the to Water Cooler or email Stan: stan@NewEdgeLeadership.com