Is the "crucible of leadership" a crock-pot?

Citation

Allio, R.J. (2003), "Is the "crucible of leadership" a crock-pot?", Strategy & Leadership, Vol. 31 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/sl.2003.26131bae.002

Is the "crucible of leadership" a crock-pot?

Robert J. AllioPrincipal of Allio Associates, is a strategy consultant, educator, and author of several books on planning, strategic management, and leadership (rallio@worldnet.att.net).

Geeks & Geezers: How Era, Values, and Defining Moments Shape Leaders Warren G. Bennis and Robert J. ThomasHarvard Business School Press, Boston, MA, 2002

Are geeks (young founder/innovators) truly different from geezers (veteran top managers)? That's one of the central puzzles posed by Warren Bennis and Robert Thomas in their latest attempt to solve the riddle of what makes a leader. Bennis is noted for his unswerving pursuit of the answer to this question in some 27 earlier books over a period of almost 50 years. He still hasn't discovered a solution that can be easily imitated by managers or taught in a management-training course, but he and his coauthor do offer some new insights to the process of leadership development.

The book's basic premise is that leaders are shaped by the era in which they grew up, the values they espoused, and the experiences they had along the way, most notably those that served as a crucible for a personal transformation. The authors conclude that such experiences shape the leader - accordingly, leaders are made, not born.

The starting point for this book was a series of interviews with putative leaders, 25 in their 70s and 80s (the geezers), and 18 with those under the age of 35 (the geeks). Unfortunately, nowhere do the authors share the criteria for their choice of interview selections. Clearly, they all appear to be high achievers, and many have demonstrated entrepreneurial zeal, founding one or more new companies.

However, we might fairly ask, "Are these geeks really leaders or merely merchandisers of technology?". Innovativeness may not equate to leadership. As we all know, many entrepreneurs fail because they are ultimately unable to share power and build successful organizations. And most observers today bestow the mantle of "leader" only on those men and women who have left a lasting legacy - short-term successes don't count. Did the firms founded by the geeks prosper? Were their employees enriched and empowered? Have the geeks contributed to society? We're left to speculate.

Nor is it obvious that the geezers in this sample qualify as leaders. Although they've all led productive and distinguished lives, men like Mike Wallace (TV commentator) and Ned Regan (former NY State Comptroller) don't match the conventional criteria for leaders. We're not told if they led organizations that made enduring contributions to the stakeholders or if they altered the course of history, the economy, or society.

Not surprisingly, the authors conclude that the worldview of the geeks, growing up in an era of options, is different from that of the geezers who grew up in the 1945-54 era of limits. The geeks claim to have more ambitious goals and seek more balance in their lives than did geezers at their age. By and large, the geeks exhibited disdain for the heroic leaders admired by the geezers (such as Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Gandhi, Lincoln, Mandela, Kennedy, and Churchill). In contrast, the list of heroes for the geeks includes parents, friends, and rock stars like Jerry Garcia, as well as athletes like baseball star Roberto Clemente.

So far, so good, although how the different values and attitudes of these individuals affected their leadership behavior is not made clear. Nevertheless, from the data derived in their interviews, the authors concoct a "new model" of leadership. The crux of this model is that all potential leaders must pass through a crucible that provides a transforming experience. They can then become leaders, if they derive meaning from the experiences. But they must also develop a set of complementary leadership competencies, such as adaptive capacity, the ability to engage others, voice, and integrity.

Do all leaders have a crucible experience? The book omits the data that would allow the reader to understand how each of the men and women in the database was transformed. And it's difficult to embrace fully the notion that the crucible constitutes the necessary and sufficient variable in leadership development.

The authors weaken their case by citing the leadership behavior of Rudy Giuliani, former mayor of New York City, and George W. Bush, current US President. Giuliani served as the symbolic leader for the city during the 9/11 crisis. Before then, his role as mayor was less heroic. Although he is widely credited with reducing crime, the educational system floundered, infrastructure deteriorated, and he made little progress on other civic problems. For example, the police committed a number of horrific crimes during his administration, fostering rage and distrust in many neighborhoods. Since the 9/11 crisis, Giuliani has not found an opportunity to act as a leader in other arenas by leveraging his personal credibility. He seems now to spend most of his time on the lecture circuit collecting handsome fees explaining how to be leaderly. We might fairly ask, "Does power or fame dilute the essence of leadership?".

The author's case for George W. Bush is even less convincing, although Bennis and Thomas are obviously enthralled by his behavior after the 9/11 terrorism crisis. Bush seized on the World Trade Center attack as an opportunity to establish personal credibility, and for a short time gained extraordinary approval ratings for the manner in which he galvanized America's solidarity, patriotism, and moral outrage. But to be measured as a successful leader Bush must be judged on his management of the economy, his record for prosecuting corporate malfeasance, his stewardship of the environment, his development of a cogent foreign policy, and his achievements to promote education and better healthcare. In all these areas he falls far short of the comportment that many of us expect from our leaders - and his approval ratings have dropped, both in the US and abroad. In the recent evaluation of the leadership of US presidents conducted by the Siena Research Institute, Bush ranks a mediocre 27th.

According to the authors, the most important single competency that determines leadership success is "adaptive capacity", which they define as the ability to understand context and to recognize and seize opportunities. In addition, leaders need to engage others by creating shared meaning. They must encourage dissent, exhibit empathy, and communicate obsessively. They also must have "voice", that is, a sense of purpose and self-confidence. Some of the authors other notions about leadership skills and qualities, such as "practice while playing" and of "neoteny" (the retention of youthful qualities by adults) are helpful in understanding the achievements of older men and women.

Many of the book's conclusions derive from flawed research methodology. As a result, the model, however plausible, doesn't stand up well to close examination. Where, for example, is the control sample? Do non-leaders exhibit the same attitudes as leaders? Do some leaders exhibit other attitudes? Must exceptional people (for example, Abraham Lincoln) survive a personal crucible experience to become genuine leaders, or are there some leaders (like Theodore Roosevelt) who seem never to have had one? Does an era really shape leadership behavior - or will the geeks in 40 years act and talk like today's geezers? And conversely, would today's geezers have expressed themselves 40 years ago like today's geeks? These are some of the unanswered questions.

Despite the fuzzy research, Bennis and Thomas have written an engaging set of case histories about how men and women ultimately find out what they were meant to do in life. Aristotle many years ago identified this goal as eudaimonea, achieving man's potential by leading a life of virtuous activity.

But if the authors really believe that leaders are made, they should have given us some better advice on how to make ourselves, or others, into leaders. They assert, but don't prove, that personal development is the precursor to leadership development. And in the end, they raise more issues than they answer.

The failed potential of this book underscores the continuing need for research that demonstrates the causal relationship between leadership values, behavior, and outcomes. The cautious manager reader has to ask, "Is the 'crucible of leadership' a crock-pot?". And it's time for the business press to resist publishing speculations on the correlation between strategy, leadership, and performance. We need leaders more than ever, but no one has yet given us a cogent, proven strategy for creating better leaders or a primer on how they can be more effective. It's time for our business schools, corporations, and consulting firms to step up to this challenge.