Let's go back to wanting to have and be (good) bosses

Ideas

6/12

Billions spent on leadership development¹. The choice of verb was not innocent. To lose, waste or squander would also convey the idea. For the sake of transparency, this writer is one of the more-than-many who feed on this large and appetizing cake, despite the infinitesimal portion that belongs to him.

Let's move on to another type of number. Try typing the word "leadership" into the most well-known search engine. Record the number of entries that the system returns. Repeat the operation for the same term after translating it into English: "leadership". I would take little risk in saying that the numbers that came up on your screen are ones that require you to look carefully to be able to say them in full. Much is said and written about the concept. Too much to be true, because "when there's too much charity, the saint is wary". There are even, one can imagine, things that are written about the problems with this industry²like this text. Too bad they can't avoid the kind of content they seem to want to criticise³. New models, new theories and new methods are proposed, but they only seem to manage to pass on the message of those who are looking to bite and bite bigger slices of that cake. So the hake that opened its mouth bites its tail again. I hope I can manage not to meet the same end.

For knowing a little of this "industry", for having contact with so much pseudo-deep bullshit⁴ uttered so often by pseudo-wise men, I write these words in which I confess to being disenchanted and frustrated by the amalgamations of ideas conveyed by airy words, which are all too often airy. The air you breathe in there is not harmless. It can be intoxicating or even toxic. The pressure that the consumers of this content feel aggravates with every video, article or book that is released; with every development programme that is designed or lecture that is delivered.

Today's leaders are required to know their subject, to be competent and know how to "get their hands dirty" when necessary, to guide and train other people, to take care of them, to know how to adapt, to know how to deal with pressure, to have vision and know how to define strategy, to have the gift of oratory, to have energy and enthusiasm, to get up after a fall and help others to do the same, to laugh in the face of adversity and to overcome expectations and limits. I could go on but I got tired with so much aspiration. How hard is it to find in a person all these traits and all the others left out by too much fatigue? And to keep them consistent? It is not easy, not least because many of these premises are vague, imprecise and intangible. This is also why so much is spent on leader factories: if there are none, if it is difficult to find, you invent them, in the good human way.⁵in the good human way.

For all this, "we need to save leadership from leadership people"⁶, as Megan Hustad wrote in the title of her provocative and enlightening article published recently in the Journal of Beautiful Business. Taking it a step further, I believe we urgently need to save "leaders", especially people who are not yet tainted by prevailing doctrines, from leadership.

Leadership and leaders even to the language do harm, as Manuel Monteiro warns us in his book "Por amor à lingua". First, they seduce bullshit lovers, who invariably like to use foreign words or invent new ones⁷. Second, they make the language poorer, less precise, making other verbs and nouns that do not make us doubt so much and other verbs that indicate more concrete and consequent actions disappear. Coordinate, direct, delegate, order, ask, listen, suggest, discuss, talk, advise, train, demonstrate, learn, command should not be replaced by "lead". At most, they should be used to indicate actions of bosses, coordinators, managers, directors or heads⁸.

So often I hear people say that they don't want to be seen as bosses. They want to feel and be recognised as leaders. I understand that such a goal is desirable for those who aim to be perfect, with all the great risks that come with that. There are also those who delight in laziness because, due to the emptiness and imprecision of the concept, it may mean that one is able to reach the level of an "expert in generalities and banalities", without the (pre)occupation of printing practical consequences. It does not seem difficult to have a certain kind of success when this formula is adopted. And then there are the power-hunters, who like shiny titles and free recognition, with no interest in the course and all interest in the place where one lands.

Curiously and fortunately, I still hear many people praising former bosses, seeing them as a reference and even using the word with affection. In fact, when we want to refer to someone who leads us, we don't say that this person "is my leader". We say he/she is our leader. Let us stop wanting to be leaders, whom few people remember. We need good bosses⁹We need good leaders, who are easier to find and to teach. When we find them they remain in our memory.

Written for Link to Leaders on 3 December 2021; published 15 December 2021.