In the 1970s, and during the war in the United States, a researcher described how "[military] [l]eaders serve the newest followers when they welcome them to the installation, driving them to where they will work, introducing them to the other soldiers in the unit, helping them move their personal belongings into their barracks room, and showing them around the installation and surrounding towns." What if we all became aware of how army leadership culture shaped and changed leadership practices — for the better?
Fast forward to the nineties, when transformational leadership was now on our plates and seemed to save the day. Avolio, Waldman, and Yammarino famously wrote in 1991 that transactional was out (is it really?) for the "alignment of values." This could sound too familiar to some — this talk of "company culture alignment." Has "culture" become an empty leadership catchphrase that is, in fact, quite similar to nineties-like "value alignment" instead of "empowerment"? And what does "value alignment" mean? To some, it means focusing on performance and effect — which is anything but innovation in leadership.
The way leaders are trained today implies leaning toward two poles: either a laissez-faire model or a strictly controlled, transactional leadership model. That's action-driven leadership. However, there's no need to pick sides as leaders — not for a transaction, not for a transformation. Today, we seem to have left terminology aside and talk of alignment and values without practicing trust — value alignment does not equal value fostering and accepting differences, nor is it inviting thoughtful dialogue.
Now is the right time and place to reevaluate leadership trends, such as the ones the Center for Creative Leadership has highlighted. Mainly, the trend of cognitive, vertical development (vertical development: developing overall capacity, instead of filling the pre-existing capacity up with new information). But what the army structure has taught us, even nationally, is to be value-driven to make everyone win. This leads to what researchers call functional attributes: trust, appreciation, and empowerment.
Hot and Cold Leadership: When Effectiveness Isn't Enough
In his book, Understanding Media, communication and media theorist Marshall McLuhan talked about "hot" and "cold" media. Hot media, he explained, allowed for less interactivity and participation, while cold media could bring participation to the forefront. He said: "For many people, this cooling system brings on a lifelong state of psychic rigor mortis, or of somnambulism, particularly observable in periods of new technology."
For McLuhan, when it came to media and any form of human communication, participation (cold) could soon become boring (hot), and vice versa: "Concern with effect rather than meaning is a basic change of our electric time, for effect involves the total situation and not a single level information movement. Strangely, there is recognition of this matter of effect rather than information in the British idea of libel: 'The greater the truth, the greater the libel.'"
How can we take this "hot and cool" media theory to leadership styles today? One step in servant leadership is having truth-telling and meaning as a principle: the opposite of "the greater the truth, the greater the libel." A servant leader believes in truth and integrity as a medium for greater participation. They prioritize information over effect, for truthfulness' sake: radical honesty.
Why Tech Leadership Needs an Update
An effect-based leadership theory in tech has been in place for too long. As Melissa Horner states, "With this idea [of contingency] leaders, a more realistic view of leadership emerged, allowing for the complexity and situational specificity of overall effectiveness." What is a given for theorists of almost any school is that the greater the effectiveness, the greater the effect. And greater effect equals values.
This could not be further from the truth.
Now, the "we did it ourselves" model of servant leadership might seem outdated, though it's quite the contrary. That is because, in tech, the power model ("you did it for me") is alive and well. Proof of this is that when one thinks of the greats — tech leaders and figures such as Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, or Mark Zuckerberg — one immediately associates their success (however temporary) with the stereotypical "lone genius." A person who didn't (doesn't) struggle to power-lead, in other words. So it might just be that tech could be leading the way in business styles — with the wrong way to lead. But, with the advent of remote teamwork, that could also be shifting for once.
Today's Style Is a Thing of the Past for Tech Leadership
Servant leadership reflects the ways in which communities actually work; because the origin of servant leadership is, precisely, helping shape communities into a whole constituted by the sum of its very unique parts. It's a transcendental model (transactional, transformational) versus a practical, down-to-earth model based on understanding (servant).
What could this look like today for, for instance, remote tech teams and their leaders? Well, trust must necessarily come to the forefront for an actual lack of physical space: an "I trust you to do good no matter where you are" stance.
Raushan Gross (unknowingly) wrote an article for the new leadership normal that was to come in the 2020s. In "Connecting the Links Between Leadership Styles and Virtual Team Effectiveness," Gross characterizes what he calls a "virtual esprit de corps." He states: "Effectiveness, as it relates to team performance, can be increased or decreased based on the frequency of interaction incidents in the virtual team." (McLuhan again, and interactivity in virtual media and tech.)
We can easily make the case, then, that servant leadership might be a very good solution to promoting interaction, which, according to Gross, is the number one concern when it comes to remote work. Collective projects and collective projections are what servant leadership has that no other style can guarantee anymore. But, contrary to what Gross says, servants (the word Sargent comes from there etymologically) aren't concerned with effectiveness: lead right and that will be a given. Effectiveness and culture: have they erroneously led the way? We shall find out soon.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
