Forceful Leadership and Enabling Leadership as Opposing Virtues

Even though forceful and enabling are opposites, they are not necessarily incompatible, contradictory, or mutually exclusive. Robert Quinn (1991) understood this when he created a “competing values framework” for defining leadership using such “oppositions” as “a cooperative, team-oriented style” and “a dynamic, competitive style.” Carl Jung (1976) juxtaposed “thinking” and “feeling,” recognizing that individuals may prefer one or the other but never suggesting that one precluded the other. Daniel Levinson and his colleagues (see Levinson, 1978) discussed midlife transitions in terms of pairs of personal qualities or conditions such as “masculine-feminine” and “attachment-separateness.” They called each of these pairs a “polarity in the sense that the two terms represent opposing tendencies or conditions” (p. 197). Although it might seem “that a person can be one or the other but not both,” in fact “both sides of each polarity coexist within every self.”

Typically, managers and management experts think of leadership attributes in terms of lists of discrete characteristics. Ask a group of executives, as I have, what their truths—their cherished beliefs—about leading effectively are, and they will generate an impressive list: “Set the bar high,” “Hold people accountable,” “Listen,” “Turn people loose,” “Push people hard,” “Give them recognition,” and so on. If these lists have the quality of commandments (“Thou shalt delegate,” “Thou shalt not run roughshod over your subordinates”), then a conceptual step forward may be to define leadership characteristics in terms of opposing or complementary attributes. The idea is that, to be effective, managers must have some degree of capability in both types. This is not a new idea, just a generally unexploited one in the field of leadership as well as social science.

As evidenced from the controversy surrounding them, forceful leadership and enabling leadership can appear contradictory to the fervent partisans of each. When an executive believes that one precludes the other, it is a sure sign that the person lacks versatility. In fact, forceful and enabling can be complementary, which means that they are distinctly different but absolutely necessary to each other. Complementary means “to fill or complete.” Each approach completes the other. Forceful and enabling are literally “one of two mutually completing parts.” They are yin and yang. Together they make up a whole.

Talking and listening, two very different functions, are incomplete without each other. If you do all the talking, you can’t be effective; if you do a great job of listening but fail to make your own views known, you won’t get the job done. We could argue endlessly about whether talking or listening is more important to the manager’s job. We could discredit talking by citing examples of managers who utterly dominate meetings; we could discredit listening by citing examples of managers who are painfully slow to articulate their views. Granted, there are times when one is more important, but the either-or tension between the two is best resolved by defining them as complements.

Forceful leadership and enabling leadership are both necessary. One reason for my choice of the terms is that forceful and enabling both have positive connotations. This is in contrast to the two pairs of terms, Theory X versus Theory Y and autocratic versus participative, where there is little doubt that one is desirable and the other not.

On the one hand, leaders need to be forceful—to assert themselves by means of their own intellect, vision, skills, and drive and to push others hard to perform. Forceful leaders take charge, very much make their presence felt, make it crystal clear what is expected, let very little deter them from achieving objectives, step up to the tough decisions, and so on.

On the other hand, leaders need to be enabling—to tap into, bring out, and show appreciation for the capabilities and intensity of other people. Enabling leaders do a great job of involving their people and of opening themselves to their influence—in setting the strategic direction and in making those decisions that affect the unit as a whole. And they give their subordinates plenty of latitude to do their jobs. They invest in their people’s development and make sure that they feel valued.

If you take one type at a time, each can almost be seen as tantamount to leadership. Isn’t forceful leadership exactly what is needed in this tough competitive environment? Forceful leadership is certainly wanted in organizational life. Leaders are called upon in many ways to be forces in a direct, personal sense. They must be strong and capable personally on a number of dimensions. And yet isn’t enabling leadership just the sort of progressive, collective approach that has the best chance of meeting the competitive challenge by getting the whole organization involved and committed? Enabling leadership is also very much needed. Leaders are responsible for tapping into the strength and capabilities of other people. This is an indirect form of leadership, perhaps less visible but in fact no less useful and necessary than the obvious “I am in charge” type.

The overarching distinction between the forceful and enabling approaches to leadership is no more important than the concrete behaviors that operationalize each type. Table 1 lists some of the concrete managerial behaviors that operationalize the macro polarity. The section below on development needs will elaborate on several of these specific pairs of behaviors.

We will resist the temptation to choose one approach over the other.

Table 1
Forceful Leadership and Enabling Leadership: The Virtues