Leadership challenges in communications

These are difficult questions to answer and asking them almost makes one feel like an idealist. Although we may not be able to answer them now, asking them makes us more aware of the deep challenges that face us at work, at home, in our communities, and in our lives in this country.

There are probably as many myths about leadership as sailors have about the sea. In the area of leadership, there are very few true guides and guidelines to point our compass to true north. Over the past three decades the study of leadership seems to have advanced slowly with some more significant insights being made over, perhaps, the past five to eight years. We have to be grateful for small mercies and nowhere is this gratitude more heartfelt than in the debunking of the leadership styles Holy Grail that has been so prevalent. Once you have coded everyone you meet into any of one of the numerous leadership style matrices, you are ready with your voluminous catalogue to match others with their equally huge catalogue of leadership styles and qualities. What a way to operate! While an awareness of styles is probably OK if you're so inclined, it leaves much to be desired as a way of explaining effective leadership.

A more fruitful approach is to look at the differences between managers and leaders. In short, managers maintain the status quo (greater efficiency of the existing order) while leaders effect change. (For those interested in finding out more about these crucial differences see John Maxwell or Max de Preez from Herman Miller or even our own Albert Koopman, the legendary Cashbuild leader.) The eye for the bigger picture has become more important in uncertain, turbulent and troubled times. Leaders need to take their organisation and people into the future. This involves change. But change starts with the leader. John Maxwell emphasises that the ultimate test of leadership is creating positive change. "Change the leader, change the organisation. Everything rises and falls on leadership! However, I have found that it's not easy to change leaders." But change is a challenge to leaders. Nicolo Machiavelli said, "There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things."

In today's post industrialisation, Internet and global age, it is even more difficult to change people. I think that communicators should consider the thoughts of leadership scholar and consultant James O'Toole who gives us the example of a painting entitled, "Christ comes to Brussels", painted in 1889 by Belgian artist James Ensor. The colours in the painting are garish, the multitude of faces depicted is surreal. "Then it hits you," says James. "Where is Christ in all this confusion?" "After much searching, the Redeemer is finally located in the background, a little left of centre, almost lost in a throng of revellers that threatens to engulf him." There is a figure of Jesus on a donkey, with the traditional gold halo around his head (click here to see a replica of the painting www.getty.edu/art/collections/objects/oz932.html). According to O'Toole, the painting is not a religious statement but a depiction of the plight of the leader in the modern world. No matter how perfect one's message, he said, one will have an impossible time getting it across in a world where billions of people don't give a damn about you - with or without a halo," notes Michael Finley in an article entitled, "Lost in the woods of modernity?"

What then to do? Instead of saying, "Listen to me", start listening to the people you hope to lead, says O'Toole. When someone appears genuinely interested in our thoughts, our reflections, our issues, we learn surprising things about our dreams, and ourselves, notes Finley. "This is what Jesus did in Feudal Judea. Staring with one person and listening to that person, and then another, and then another, you soon have a cadre of disciples, leaders taught by a leader."

Living by example and values - integrity, honesty, and authenticity are now being promoted as qualities of leadership since the corporate scandals and increasing corruption of leaders in business and society.

A leader is humbled before their followers. As Max de Preez, in Leadership Jazz, says: "At the core of becoming a leader is the need always to connect one's voice and one's touch."

A jazz band is an expression of servant leadership. "The leader of a jazz band has the beautiful opportunity to draw the best out of the other musicians." He goes on: "The music exists and it doesn't. It is written on the page, but it means nothing until performed and heard. Much of its effect depends on the performer and the listener. The best leaders, like the best music, inspire us to see new possibilities."

The possibilities that grow from leadership in public relations, communications and in support of business and other organisational leaders are there, if we can learn how to lead. We also need to listen to, and nurture, the voice of the people. But more than anything else we need to stand aside once followers become leaders themselves. Trainer John Heider points out that you are facilitating another person's process. "If you do not trust a person's process, that person will not trust you." Lao-Tzu in the fifth century B.C. summed it up:

'The leader doesn't talk, he acts.
When his work is done,
the people say, "Amazing:
we did it, all by ourselves!"'

We find leaders from all walks of life and all levels in society. A recent crisis (limitation of fishing rights) at the small fishing harbour of Kalk Bay where I grew up, reminded me of a leader in an unlikely setting. In our teens my friend, Peter, a local fisherman, and I befriended a young man, also a fisherman, called Dougie. He was exceptional in that he was a karate master, possessor of a sharp intellect, and was respected in the community, especially among the young. I suppose a common bond was fishing but also a shared understanding of our hardships in those days growing up. His family faced the group Areas Act (effective 1967) and consequent evictions and financial loss for 22 families (120 people). Fortunately he (more affectionately known as "Boeta Dougie") still lives in Kalk Bay - a testimony to a people with a fighting spirit. In any event, Dougie taught us self-discipline and self-respect, which was important in the 1970s. But it was his deep interest in us as individuals that marked him a leader among the people. When we visited him recently, he was instilling this influence in a young man who was a boarder in his flat. We are grateful to know such leaders who show us possibilities within ourselves.

Leadership and leading change will certainly pose an increasing challenge for you in the field of communications. Connecting with people and making your organisation's voice heard will test your leadership qualities. In the end, if your job in communications is not helping to influence positive change, then its time to take a hard look in the mirror and start to change within, or find some place where growth and vision are really valued.