THE GUILD OF LEADERSMITHS™
Is leadership recognised as a necessary skill for new employees to an organisation? Or is it only considered important when one reaches the middle or higher echelons of that organisation? Does the myth that leaders are born and not made still persist?
These are valid questions to anyone responsible for growing a business today. Consider this: suppose that you run a high-tech factory and you have people working on production lines. When something goes wrong on one of the lines, what would you like your people to do?
a) Nothing?
b) Stop the line and wait for someone to notice?
c) Go and get the supervisor?
d) Assess the problem and deal with it accordingly?
We are sure most people would choose option d). Assessing the problem and dealing with it means that the person on that line has taken responsibility, shown initiative and is analysing what might be wrong and coming up with solutions. The person has applied creativity in solving the problem. All of these skills are leadership skills and, sadly, many businesses invest little time or money in developing them in their employees, no matter what their positions in the organisation.
People are usually recruited and employed for a specific set of skills that, over time, often become redundant. For example, you recruit a new sales person, X, who does an outstanding job, doubling sales, increasing turnover and expanding your client base. X is then rewarded with a promotion. X is now managing a small team of sales people. The team produces brilliant results so X gets promoted again. This time the team is much bigger and X has a whole department reporting to him/her. By now, X's selling skills are no longer relevant. X is now a leader and although X has excellent selling skills, he/she does not have leadership skills. So now what? If X is lucky or happens to work for an organisation that believes in investing in its people, X will be sent on a course for Senior Managers in order to learn how to be a leader. If not, then X will just have to muddle through somehow. Clearly that is not ideal and it can be costly to the organisation.
This is an exaggeration, of course, but not much. And there are many excellent leadership courses available; indeed, we have often been either participants or tutors! The point we are making is this: leadership is not recognised as a necessary skill and potential leaders are not spotted and nurtured early enough in their working lives. In fact, many people still believe that one is born a leader and that one cannot learn leadership skills.
We have been working in the field of organisational and personal development for a total of 35 years and in our experience, leadership is something that people feel one may aspire to but does not achieve until one has reached a certain level in an organisation. We have seen that most - if not all of the skills needed for leadership are skills that can be learned.
One of the problems behind this is to do with the fact that there is no single, accepted definition of leadership. We often know what it isn't, but find it hard to describe exactly what it is. We began our research to come up with a definition that people could agree with. We did a literature search and spoke with many people, both recognised leaders and people who could tell us about good leaders they knew in all sectors (corporate, not-for-profit, public, community, church) and many countries. What we ended up with is distilled in the following:
Our definition is founded upon thirteen Disciplines:
- The Discipline of deep creativity and collective creativity - lateral,
inventive
and out of box thinking -Using creativity and facilitating creativity in others
- The Discipline of relationships - Coaching and mentoring others,
servant leadership
- The Discipline of reflection - Reflecting on a daily basis in order
to learn and share learning
- The Discipline of integration and alignment - Integrating diversity
and leveraging it in the organisation, creating alignment in an organisation
- The Discipline of cultural and environmental awareness - Knows what
is happening outside the organisation and how it might effect the organisation
- The Discipline of spiritual intelligence (human being vs. human doing)
- Achieving a balanced life, understands the being behind what they are
doing, the bigger picture, the 'what am I here for'
- The Discipline of responsibility and accountability - Taking responsibility,
not blaming others; transparency of working, no hidden agendas; clarity of purpose
- The Discipline of motivation - Motivates and encourages others
- The Discipline of gaining commitment (overcoming organisational defences)
- Keeps the organisation connected to its vision and inspires people to
want to follow it
- The Discipline of managing ambiguity - Able to see ambiguity, work
with it and make something excellent of whatever comes
- The Discipline of passion (for your work and the craft) - Being
passionate and enthusiastic about the craft of leadership and ones work
- The Discipline of appreciation and acknowledgement - acknowledging
and rewarding success and learning
- The Discipline of mapping a legacy - Able to let go of 'power',
leave a legacy and forge new leaders.
We then began to think about how these skills could be developed in people. We had an idea that something like a Medieval Guild would be an excellent metaphor. Our research into Guilds showed that it is a fitting model to use. In the Guild system there were Apprentices, Journeymen/women and craft Masters. The Master was responsible not only for the development of the Apprentice in the craft, but also for his or her moral and spiritual development. The Master was also responsible for developing and refining the craft and sharing the learning. Mentoring, coaching and learning on the job played a large part in the learning process. In addition, there was the commitment to giving something back to the society that had granted privileges to The Guild and its members. So, drawing a parallel, why not have Apprentice Leaders, Journeymen/women and Master Leaders in our organisations? It was thus that we coined the name 'Leadersmith' - a leader who forges other leaders, rather like a goldsmith forges gold. Once we had the model, we could define the competences that would be needed in order to become a Journeyman/woman or, indeed, a Master of the craft of leadership, 'Leadercraft'.
Our vision is that the work of a Guild of Leadersmiths™ will generate the need for significant changes in the current culture of leadership, a culture that is still power based and dependent upon promotion, to one that recognises the value of learning and practising the craft of leadership as a life skill as well as a business skill early on; and, one that is committed to making a difference to the community (as did the Medieval guilds), whether that be in the organisation or in the local community. The purpose of the Guild is to promote and encourage the craft of leadership as a learned skill from the beginning of a career, at least, if not at school leaving age. The Guild will also promote and invest in the growth of indigenous leadership in developing countries.
An organisation that uses the Leadersmith Disciplines will have a clearly articulated definition of leadership throughout. Everyone will know about and understands the craft of leadership at all levels of the organisation. Each Discipline is defined by a set of competencies and skills, many of which are observable behaviours and therefore measurable.
We want to change the way leaders are developed - working from the inside out - leaders who are fulfilled, satisfied, and passionate about their work. We want to create leaders who can and will measure their own success by the number of people they have helped, supported and nurtured to become the Leadersmiths of the future.
In May we registered a new Guild, The Guild of Leadersmiths™, at Guildhall in the City of London with the express purpose of addressing these fundamental issues. We would be delighted to hear from people who may have suggestions or questions regarding the leadership model set out above.