The EQ Leader. Stein Steven J.

      Good Leader, Bad Leader

      Often when doing presentations on leadership I assign the audience an exercise. With participants working in small groups, each team is assigned one of two tasks. Each group is asked to write on a poster either the leadership characteristics most valued by their organization or the leadership characteristics least valued by their organization. On one of the posters, I found this list of descriptors:

      I stopped to chat with the gentleman leading the group with these items on the board. When I started to ask how these behaviors were discouraged in his organization, he quickly corrected me and explained that these were the valued characteristics at the organization he and several others in the group had worked in. He then explained to me he had worked at Enron and that these were the characteristics valued by the senior team during the two years before it imploded.

      We went through the list to see how these factors could be applied to leading an organization. Being explosive was a way of getting other people's attention. It also scared potential detractors and showed them you were serious. Most people would rather not confront someone in that state. Having a high ego is another tactic that implies you are right. After all, if you are so sure of yourself, well, why would anyone argue with that?

      Always being right is a show of strength. If you are known around the organization as always being on the right side of an issue, then more people are likely to come onboard with you next time around. It reduces the amount of opposition you're likely to face and will help you win arguments more often than not. Being results driven is not an uncommon corporate position. The problem comes when nothing else matters. Treating people badly, taking shortcuts in processes, making promises you can't keep to customers, all these things are secondary to driving results.

      The ability to minimize ethical issues is my favorite, especially when I'm presenting to lawyers and compliance officers. It sometimes gets referred to as ethical overrides. That is, you reward people for finding ways around codes of ethics, sometimes referred to as loopholes. So if I can justify why I needed corporate money for that private jet rental, luxury hotel, great meals, side trip with my family, and so on, everything is okay. I guess at Enron this only worked for a period of time, or until they got caught.

      Being rigid is another way of telling people “it's my way or the highway,” something that seems to go over well in Texas, which conveniently is the home of Enron. Similarly, not having, or not displaying, emotional control is a fairly effective way to signal to others that one is not to be crossed/questioned. So is having strong attitude, which was described to me as being bold and assertive, in such a way that people knew not to question the leader's authority. This was described to me as a Texas attitude, which goes along with “don't mess with me.”

      In looking at these traits it seems like they can be boiled down to being steadfast (high ego, always being right, results driven, rigidity, serious attitude) and being above questioning/criticism (no emotional control, ability to minimize serious issues, explosive).

      It's hard to believe (at least for me) that companies can still operate this way in this day and age. Nevertheless, I've come across variations of this in my travels. Needless to say, some of these procedures can get you short-term results, but, as we've seen in this example, they don't seem to be viable long-term strategies. When I first started this work, it would often take a lot of convincing for some leaders to buy into the idea that managing emotions, for example, not using random anger to motivate, could be good for business. In the following chapters, we'll explore the case for emotionally intelligent leadership and what you can do to get there.

      CHAPTER 2

      WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED ABOUT LEADERSHIP?

      The scientific study of leadership is about 100 years old. There are hundreds of studies that have looked at such things as personality, leadership style, cognitive intelligence (IQ), as well as leadership potential and performance. There have been a number of major reviews of the psychological and business/managerial literature summarizing much of what we know about leadership. One such review by Robert Kaiser and his colleagues nicely summarizes much about what we know from the academic literature.23 For example, they point out the overwhelming evidence that leadership styles are associated with certain effects – “considerate leaders enhance the job satisfaction of subordinates, structured leaders have higher performing teams, and transformational leaders inspire greater commitment.”

      In addition, certain styles of leadership have been found to be better in order to get specific results. For example, the best way to lead when you have a high degree of control over a situation is with a task-oriented approach. On the other hand, when you don't have as much control over the situation a people-oriented approach can be better. In other words, in situations with low control, you would need to spend more time dealing with the people and their needs before getting them focused on the task you want done.

      Defining Leadership

      There are many different definitions of leadership that have been documented in the scientific literature as well as in popular writings. And many of them are very good. However, for the purpose of this book, I will define leadership as: