Theo Fer­gu­son

Great lead­ers are like great works of art-you see them and you love them, but they are both not eas­i­ly du­pli­cat­ed. You can de­scribe in high­ly graph­ic and de­scrip­tive terms how love­ly they are, but the art they pro­duce de­fy a step-by-step de­scrip­tion of ex­act­ly how they were cre­at­ed. Not even the artists or lead­ers can ful­ly ex­plain what they have done and why they are so im­pact­ful. Great works of art re­main in the world of the mys­te­ri­ous, even to their cre­ators. Sim­i­lar­ly, great lead­ers live in the world of the mys­te­ri­ous and the spir­i­tu­al. They dis­play a warm and em­brac­ing lead­er­ship au­ra that en­velops their fol­low­ers with a blan­ket of in­spi­ra­tion. They are like spir­i­tu­al mag­nets.

On the oth­er hand, man­age­ment is like an en­gi­neer­ing sci­ence that pro­duces great struc­tures. Like the great works of art, you see them and you love them, but un­like the great works of art, there is a blue­print for their re­pro­duc­tion-they can be du­pli­cat­ed. Hence, there are blue­prints for man­age­ment but none for lead­er­ship, al­though not for want of try­ing. Per­haps this is the rea­son why col­leges, uni­ver­si­ties and busi­ness schools find the teach­ing of man­age­ment rel­a­tive­ly straight­for­ward but strug­gle to de­vel­op and teach an ef­fec­tive lead­er­ship cur­ricu­lum. And where lead­er­ship is taught it is most­ly about de­scrib­ing the artis­tic dis­play of lead­er­ship but with lit­tle about the path to true lead­er­ship de­vel­op­ment.

Through­out the his­to­ry of mankind peo­ple have been try­ing to de­vel­op blue­prints for pro­duc­ing great works of art and for de­vel­op­ing great lead­ers, but with lit­tle suc­cess. With­out such blue­prints the teach­ing of lead­er­ship re­mains il­lu­sive as a sci­ence and con­tin­ues to re­main solid­ly plant­ed in the fuzzy world of art. Great lead­er­ship al­ways con­veys tremen­dous per­son­al pow­er and re­spon­si­bil­i­ty on those who can win the trust and fol­low­er­ship of oth­ers. Great lead­ers ex­ude in­spi­ra­tion, which in­fil­trates deep with­in the psy­che of their fol­low­ers such that the fol­low­ers are will­ing to fol­low them vol­un­tar­i­ly. With great lead­ers, fol­low­ers do not have to be co­erced or ca­joled. In­spi­ra­tion is the pow­er that stim­u­lates the mind of fol­low­ers such that they join those who they see as lead­ers in ex­e­cut­ing some grand course of ac­tion.

True lead­er­ship on­ly hap­pens at the spir­i­tu­al lev­el. The most no­table ex­am­ple of a mod­ern-day spir­i­tu­al mag­net is Nel­son Man­dela whose lead­er­ship and hu­man­i­ty is high­ly revered across our hu­man di­ver­si­ty. Most or­gan­i­sa­tions recog­nise the val­ue of lead­er­ship and the ex­tent to which lead­er­ship can pos­i­tive­ly im­pact on the per­for­mance of the or­gan­i­sa­tion. Many ob­servers have re­peat­ed­ly not­ed that lead­er­ship ac­counts for over 80 per cent of the suc­cess of win­ning or­gan­i­sa­tions. And this is why busi­ness, mil­i­tary and re­li­gious or­gan­i­sa­tions have placed and con­tin­ue to place great em­pha­sis on lead­er­ship as the core com­pe­ten­cy for those who oc­cu­py po­si­tions from which lead­er­ship is ex­pect­ed.

Dis­ap­point­ing­ly, most of what is be­ing taught is about man­age­ment al­though the teach­ing may be con­duct­ed un­der the rubric of lead­er­ship. For ex­am­ple, man­age­ment ter­mi­nolo­gies such as "styles" and "skills" have been im­port­ed and er­ro­neous­ly ap­plied to lead­er­ship. When we recog­nise the spir­i­tu­al ba­sis of lead­er­ship we quick­ly recog­nise that "styles" and "skills" re­fer to our man­age­ment com­pe­ten­cy and have ques­tion­able ap­pli­ca­tion in the world of lead­er­ship. Lead­er­ship is al­ways per­son­al. It de­rives from our abil­i­ty to in­spire oth­ers to want to im­prove them­selves. Our lead­er­ship gives hope to oth­ers that they them­selves can be­come bet­ter. Man­age­ment, on the oth­er hand, is de­rived from the po­si­tion that we oc­cu­py that en­trusts us with pow­er over oth­ers and with the con­trol of fi­nan­cial and ma­te­r­i­al re­sources.

Lead­er­ship comes from deep with­in our­selves. It does not em­anate from our cog­ni­tive do­main. Our in­spi­ra­tional pow­er lies with­in our­selves. It con­fers per­son­al au­thor­i­ty on those among us who are able to ex­ude in­spi­ra­tion. It is per­son­al to the hold­er and can­not be du­pli­cat­ed by oth­ers. It is not a style to be copied. It is not a skill to be learnt and ap­plied. It can­not be pre­tend­ed. Our lead­er­ship rep­re­sents our truth, Satya­gra­ha or the truth force of Mo­han­das Gand­hi. It is now wide­ly recog­nised that it is the pauci­ty of moral­ly ground­ed lead­ers in the glob­al fi­nan­cial in­dus­try that led to the melt­down of the fi­nan­cial sys­tem in 2008/2009 and con­tin­u­ing. Fin­gers were im­me­di­ate­ly point­ed at the lead busi­ness schools which, un­til then, loud­ly claimed to be train­ing the lead­ers of the mod­ern world and which, in fact, on­ly pro­duced some of the most greedy and nar­cis­sis­tic man­agers who self­ish­ly abused their po­si­tions of trust, re­sult­ing in the im­plo­sion of the fi­nan­cial world which had to be res­cued by the or­di­nary tax­pay­er.

All the lead busi­ness schools are now scram­bling to rein­vent them­selves around a more spir­i­tu­al un­der­stand­ing of lead­er­ship. We must wait to see whether or not they get it right this time around. Our Lead­ing From Above The Line pro­gramme is based on a phi­los­o­phy that recog­nis­es the spir­i­tu­al na­ture of lead­er­ship. It ad­dress­es the "how" of lead­er­ship by seek­ing to help peo­ple to dis­cov­er them­selves so that they are bet­ter able to ex­press their true spir­i­tu­al selves. It awak­ens peo­ple to their po­ten­tial and takes them on a jour­ney of strength­en­ing them­selves to­wards the ful­fil­ment of their hu­man po­ten­tial. In so do­ing, it helps them to live more truth­ful and in­spi­ra­tional lives. Lead­er­ship be­comes a con­se­quence and aris­es from the more pos­i­tive and mag­net­ic au­ra that they are more like­ly to project. Lead­er­ship is there­fore a con­se­quence of their own self-de­vel­op­ment.

When we are true to our­selves we ef­fort­less­ly and un­con­scious­ly present our­selves to oth­ers as beau­ti­ful works of art to be seen, ad­mired, re­spect­ed and fol­lowed, whether or not we are con­scious of it. Lead­er­ship is best re­ceived. It is not ours to re­quest.

Lead­er­ship ed­u­ca­tor

fer­gu­son.theodore@gmail.com

www.the­ofer­gu­son.com