Genius Leadership

“Genius…means little more than the faculty of perceiving in an unhabitual way!” William James

The challenges that today’s business leaders face is quite similar, regardless of the industry or profession in which they operate. These challenges include delivering services and products of highest quality, creating and preserving values of multiple stakeholders, building & maintaining sustainable relationships, caring for the environment and its’ surrounding communities. All these challenges are in the midst of sustaining productive futures for the generation who will follow. In short, our obligation as business leaders is to ‘leave it better than we found it’. Recently, we have witnessed many corporate responsibility initiatives in recent years, aimed at regaining the public trust that has been undermined in the discovery of scandals. All are important; whether they focus on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), governance, supply chain integrity or sustainability. However, none of these will succeed if they are not embedded within the conceptual and practical foundation of responsible leadership that integrates the people, planet, profit and principles it governs. Corporate responsibility is first and foremost a challenge of responsible leadership.

Ever since Enron, WorldCom and other high profile cases of management failure and leadership misconduct, there has been a growing awareness that one of the core challenges, if not the challenge in business, is leading responsibly and with integrity. It is fair to say then, that the responsibility leadership is one of the most pressing issues in the business world. Or is it misunderstood? I give three examples of this misunderstanding… One, there seems to be an implicit assumption that people who take on a leadership position have a heightened sense of responsibility once they are in a leadership position. Therefore, no explicit guidance is needed and not much thought must be given to the issue of leading with integrity. Two, leadership is far too often mistaken for good management, a leader being someone who motivates people to get things done efficiently. But that is management, not leadership. Leadership is the drive behind the force of motivation. Leadership is the vision and more importantly, it is connection between management and those managed. For at best, leadership and management complement each other. At worst, we find only management but no leadership. Three, there is what Rost (1991) called the industrial paradigm in leadership research, imposing on researchers a leadership effectiveness focus and a denial that leadership is a normative phenomenon.
Maak, T. (2006). Responsible Leadership

The business in society perspective is at the core of responsible leadership. It requires a relational and transitional perspective, capturing the complexity leadership in both a moral and a practical sense, and living by sort of a rhythm that encourages at a high level of indefinite past, through the present moment, to the indefinite future. Insight and foresight, empathy and listening skills, self-knowledge and a sense of community, moral imagination and a morally sound values base are all among the hallmarks of a responsible leader. Responsible leadership involves complex, dynamic relationships based on values, emotions and mutual recognition.

I believe that while leaders need certain capabilities and should have good moral character in order to become responsible leaders, none are born that way. Nor is responsible leadership limited to an individual trait. It is rather instead, a balance of leaders’ character, the leader’s relationship with people and followers, the roles and tasks he or she fulfills. Responsible leadership depends not only on principled individuals along with their education and training, but also on a holding environmental context where responsible leaders can flourish. Whatever it is, responsible leadership has to be authentic. I pose the question to you how do you perceive your leadership capabilities? Is responsible? Is it moral? It is self serving?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kunl3F-0_A4