DO YOU HAVE A LEADERSHIP PROBLEM?
Is your group getting results? Is it hitting targets, achieving quality standards, meeting deadlines, making timely decisions, or exceeding stakeholders’ expectations? If you answered “no” to any of these questions, whether you are the leader or a member of the group, you should explore the roots of the problems your group might be experiencing.
Do you have the right talent or resources in the group to get the job done? Is the group basing its work on faulty assumptions (e.g., what clients or customers value most, the promise of a new technology, the willingness of different agencies or divisions to cooperate)? Has something in your organization’s environment changed, such as additional competition or new forms of regulation, making the group’s original aims unrealistic or irrelevant?
Or, do you have a leadership problem?
The most common definition of a “leadership problem” is a “leader problem”—a problem stemming from the person or people in charge, such as managers, chairpersons, or team leaders. Are they not doing their jobs? How can they improve their effectiveness? Do they need to be replaced? It is reasonable to examine what the individuals with formal authority in the group are or are not doing that is contributing to the group not achieving results. However, the quick leap from “leadership problem” to “leader problem” can create tunnel vision.
Leadership involves far more than the person who holds the leader title. It is a social process that enables individuals to work together as a cohesive group to produce collective results—results they could never achieve working as individuals. Central to the process are the interactions and exchanges between the formal leader and group members, and among group members themselves. The process is influenced by the beliefs and values of the individuals involved, the quality of relationships in the group, formal structures and procedures, and the group’s informal routines. To diagnose the source of problems in this process, one needs to take a whole system rather than an individual leader perspective. Formal leaders are an important part of the system, yet they are only one component in the multifaceted and dynamic process of leadership.
How do you assess the effectiveness of a group’s leadership process? The most useful place to start is with the immediate outcomes that the leadership process needs to produce. When the leadership process in a group is effective, it generates three crucial outcomes: direction, alignment, and commitment (DAC).
DIRECTION is widespread agreement in the group on overall goals. In groups with strong direction, members have a shared understanding of what group success looks like and agree on what they are aiming to accomplish. In groups with weak direction, members are uncertain about what they should accomplish together, or they feel pulled in different directions by competing goals.
ALIGNMENT is coordinated work within the group. In groups with strong alignment, members with different tasks or roles or with different sets of expertise coordinate their work. In groups with weak alignment, members work more in isolation, unclear about how their tasks fit into the larger work of the group and are in danger of working at cross-purposes, duplicating effort, or having important work fall through the cracks.
COMMITMENT is mutual responsibility for the group. In groups with strong commitment, members feel responsible for the success and well-being of the group, and know that other group members feel the same. They trust one another and will stick with the group through difficult times. In groups with weak commitment, members put their own interests ahead of the group’s interests and contribute to the group only when it is easy to do so or when they have something to gain.