Making Sense of Leadership

Citation

Rausch, E. (2010), "Making Sense of Leadership", Leadership & Organization Development Journal, Vol. 31 No. 3, pp. 288-289. https://doi.org/10.1108/01437731011039398

This book provides an interesting report on extensive surveys on leadership combined with the findings of reasonably extensive literature research. It comes from a different perspective as other discussions of leadership, by exploring five roles of leaders. Each has its own chapter in Part 2, the longest part of the book. They are: Edgy catalyzer; Visionary motivator; Measured connector; Tenacious implementer and Thoughtful architect. Other Parts are devoted to the Introduction, Research, Expanding Your Role Repertoire and Resources for Developing Others.

The book suggests that managers and leaders find themselves in these roles to a greater and lesser extent, depending on the needs of the situation and their natural inclinations. The book also suggests that individuals with these responsibilities can gain from reflection on where the five roles might fit into their respective styles and how they might become more effective by learning to apply them in appropriate situations.

To arrive at the five roles, the authors first gathered up many of the models and ideas on leadership, and then asked the following two questions: What do successful leaders pay attention to and what do successful leaders do? To answer these questions, they looked deeper into the literature, added some “real‐world” examples gleaned from client organizations. They apparently also drew conclusions from other sources since they cite examples of ways the roles were adopted and used by major world figures and high‐level managers in major corporations. Later on in the book they describe situations such as restructuring, crises, technology‐led change, working with partners and stakeholders, etc., and discuss what roles are most useful in these situations.

So far, so good. However, when it comes to justifying the selection of the five roles, and to describe their characteristics, the book gives little validation for the statements in the respective book sections. Nevertheless there are useful thoughts in the descriptions of these characteristics that include “inner experiences”, the roles' outer presentations, their organizational aspects, and their applications to different environments.

There are other negatives. For example, the use of the adjectives in the titles of the roles are not helpful and even have a tendency to make understanding the respective role a little more difficult. To this reviewer, Catalyzer, Motivator, Connector, Implementer, and Architect is clearer without the adjectives. It would not be easy to define the dividing lines between catalyzers who are “edgy” and all the others, to specify under what conditions motivators are “visionary”, and so on. In addition, though many people find it useful to slot leaders/managers into categories based on their preferred roles – or any other groupings, other people see little that can be gained from that, especially not on the basis of the roles in the book Not only do the roles overlap, but, even if the question about the adjectives is set aside, they are not clearly delineated. Catalyzers, connectors and implementers are likely to also be motivators. Similar overlaps can be described between any of the other roles as defined. As one of the figures in Chapter 10 (What roles do effective leaders use?) depicts, each of the roles that survey respondents chose as being most like them – their respective “natural” role – contains significant elements of the other roles. The book would have benefited from discussion of these issues. The roles were also defined based on the literature research, prior to the onset of the surveys. The book does not provide the survey instrument that was used, or any validation information. Readers therefore cannot judge themselves how appropriate the instrument is for this purpose.

Another problem is that nowhere in the book is there a reference to the impact that the roles have on organizational success or aspects of it. Nor are the role descriptions extended to the skills that are desirable for effective performance in the respective role. There is a chapter on how to step into a new role, and one on useful exercises for groups and teams but from the perspective of an experienced human resource developer neither of these chapters offer practical suggestions relevant to the roles as described in the book, though they could be helpful in various management and leadership development programs.

To summarize, there is much in the book that stimulates thought and reflection on one's leadership style and on the benefits of various aspects of behavior. It can therefore be a useful book for managers and leaders to peruse, since it leads to a new perspective for judging one' own style. Many ideas are also presented that can help an individual who would like to become more effective – though it is left up to her or him to figure out how and in what settings to apply them. Unfortunately there are some weaknesses. While they detract from the benefits of the book, they do not destroy them.