One of the concepts I often stress when giving presentations about leadership is that of function. The idea is that leadership is more about providing the function of the position of leader that a system needs at the moment than it is about those things people assume leadership is all about, like, personality, intelligence, experience, style, power, authority, or even competence.
It’s that last characteristic, competence, which often challenges people’s assumptions regarding leadership. In a performance driven, image-obsessed, and results-oriented culture, competence is seen as a high commodity for success. At least, the assumptions people have about what competence is all about that may lead to the over-focus as the sine qua non of leadership. Competence is important, and I would never discount its significance. As I often remind leaders, keeping the incompetent around and accommodating their shortcomings to the detriment of the system is a good way to ensure that you’ll lose your best people. Star performers have little tolerance for incompetence, and they resent leaders who do not hold, and maintain, high standards. If you tolerate mediocrity and accommodate incompetence, your best workers and staff will soon seek a more satisfying context, leaving you with the weakest players as your only resource.
But an overfocus on competence as the key quality related to effective leadership is misguided because the simple truth is that leadership is not about competence. Leadership is about function. Again, what leadership is about is providing the necessary, unique, functions that a system needs of its leader at the time. Which suggests that the functions of leadership can change given the circumstance, the developmental stage of the system or organization, or the type of crisis or transition the system is trying to navigate. Some leadership functions are perennial, others are temporary and contextual.
During one presentation a member of the audience challenged the idea that competence is not at the heart of leadership. I’m always pleased when that happens. For one thing, it’s evidence that the participant was alert, paying attention, and engaged with the presentation at a critical, thinking, level. Second, it always gives me a chance to clarify the concept by providing explications and illustrations. That occasion caused me to come up with three illustrations about the concept that competence is not the issue at the heart of leadership.
Scenario 1:
Imagine a worker who is very competent at his job. He becomes an expert at what he does and hones his skills to an extent that he becomes a resource for his fellow workers and an asset to his company. As a result of his competence on the job he is promoted to the position of supervisor and manager. He is now no longer a worker, he is leader and boss. But before long it becomes apparent that this is a case of the Peter Principle–the promotion of someone to his level of incompetence. It becomes evident that the expertise and competence he was able to bring to his former job does not translate to his ability to lead people. He does not manage well, cannot work within the framework of a higher organizational level, has trouble delegating, and is hesitant to hold people responsible for their performance. He was a competent worker in the former position, but he does not know how to function as a leader. Those components of competence he banked on: expertise, skill, knowledge, and experience are insufficient in helping him function as a leader.
Scenario 2:
Imagine a different scenario. You meet a person who enjoys a reputation as a good leader. He has a good track record and has become the kind of leader that organizations seek and try steal for themselves. As a result he’s moved from one organization to another—the last three of which were totally different in their type: an educational institution, a health care organization, and now a non-profit. After spending some time with this person it does not take you long to discern that, while he seems like a nice fellow, the man’s incompetence. In fact, he seems generally clueless about the subtleties of his business and lacks deep understanding on the fundamentals of the business. As the conversation progresses, this man gives indication that he is aware of his limitations! He so much as admits that he knows little about the field he currently is in! In fact, he jokes about his lack of organizational skills. But, at one point he shares the secret of his success: he knows enough about himself to know what he does not know, and recruits competent staff who compensate for his weaknesses.
This leader has learned that the function of leadership does not need to be personalized. He’s learned that if you focus on providing for the functions that the organization needs, you don’t fall into the trap of trying to be personally competent in everything. By identifying the functions that the organization needs at the time, he’s able to delegate some of those while providing the other leadership functions the system needs of him at the time. In his case, the leadership functions he provides best are those that are personable, people-oriented, warm, and relational.
Scenario 3:
The third scenario may be the most challenging, but also the most telling of related to the notions of the importance of competence as the key to successful leadership. Imagine a case of a young women who is called to an organization (a corporation, a congregation, a small company–the context does not matter). This young lady is a natural-born leader. She is competent at her job, having mastered all of the basic skills of the vocation. She knows the nature of the work, has the experience, practices expertise, and is the very image of professionalism. Further, she’s smart enough to know the leadership function that the system needs of her, in this case, challenging homeostasis, prompting some organizational developmental changes, and regulating some acting out willful members. These are things she understands and knows how to do.
However, her appropriate and responsible leadership functioning caused acute anxiety in the system. She is not naive about the source of the resistance–no organization welcomes change easily. And she is neither surprised nor discouraged by the sabotage to her initiatives. But as she continues her path toward challenge and development the resistance gets stronger and the anxiety spikes. In fact, people start complaining that things are getting worse, not better. One staff member was even heard to say that he “liked things better when the former ‘bozo boss’ was in charge.”
So, here we have a competent leader who is doing all the right things in the right ways at the right time and still seemingly not getting ahead. An overfocus on leadership competence may lead to a form of magical thinking that believes that if we are competent and do all the right things well, people will appreciate and like us, rill follow our leadership willingly, and we’ll succeed. But as this third scenario shows, that’s not how things work in real life. And here’s the rub: not only is she competent, but she’s providing the very leadership functions the organization needs. Organizations may call the very leader they need and still not be able to follow. The young woman in this case is competent, but success is far from being on the horizon. The only decision this young leader needs to make is whether or not she’s willing to outlast the resistance in order to see her vision realized.
Leadership is about providing the functions the system needs of you, which can only come from the person in the position of leader, at the time the system needs it.
“Isn’t it a bit unnerving that doctors call what they do “practice”?
Competence, which is essentially about technique, may be easier to learn than function, which is about presence (and requires self-management in the moment). Function can be learned but it is a long slow process for all of us.