Leadership vs. Authority

 

The definition of leadership

What is leadership? Well, we know it’s a very popular phrase that management folks like to throw around. I hear it at least 100 times a day. But what is it really?

To me, leadership is lifting up others around you and moving the needle together in the right direction.

The skills and tactics used to be a leader will be different from organization to organization and even from day to day. Sometimes you might need to confront a co-worker about their bad attitude. Sometimes you need to empower a co-worker to meet their potential. Sometimes you just need to bite your tongue. It’s not enough to be an extrovert or smart or anything else. A true leader does what is needed in a given situation in order to make good things happen.

The problem

When a lot of people use the word leadership they mean authority. And this is a real problem.

Authority is a necessary piece of progress. If there is no “the buck stops here”, your work can devolve into endless meetings and rewrites and opinions and a hot mess of “too many cooks in the kitchen.” But when those in authority see themselves as the leadership they are essentially stripping the word of its meaning.

Whether you agree with my definition of leadership, you might at least agree with the concept of creating a leadership pipeline. This is, again, a common term in the nonprofit sector, although the way we go about it I think it should be called the authority pipeline. The idea is that while you might currently have a great leadership (authority) team in place, that will not always be the case so you should be grooming the next generation.

This grooming can take many forms, but the key is mentoring, engagement, and giving authority.

Leadership and the generations

Before I get into that, let me first talk quickly about age.

As I type this I am at a conference. I won’t say I am frequently at conferences, but I’ve been to a handful over the last few years, and I’ve noticed a trend. At 34 (almost 35 now), I am often the youngest person in the room. I see people of all colors and backgrounds (although mostly white), but 99% of them are 40 and over.

Why is this the case?

In short, it’s because not enough resources are spent on staff that don’t fill authority positions. While there are some 20 year old CEOs out there, the majority of people in authority position are 40+. And the leadership/authority tangle gets even more tangled here. Those in authority have the opportunity to learn, network, present, etc., while non-authority positions aren’t given as many options. But in order to be a leader, you should be giving those not in authority those opportunities. So you essentially strip it of its meaning yet again.

Confused yet? Let’s move on to how those in authority can develop their leadership pipeline.

Mentoring

Imagine you have a baby and you keep them in a room and never speak to them. Do you think they will grow up to be a great orator? No. They probably won’t be able to communicate with words at all.

Mentoring works the same way. You pass on the things you’ve learned to others. Now, and this is very important, mentoring does not have to be an older person or even a more experienced person working with a younger or less experienced person. Everyone can learn something from other people. Do you think I want a 65 year old CEO of a corporation teaching me about social media? No. But I could teach them a thing or two. And they could teach me a lot about business.

Every person, regardless of their age or status should always be learning and looking to improve. This is an aspect of leadership.

Engagement

This goes along with mentoring, but is more action oriented. Are you wondering how you can attract more donors? Ask a millennial on your staff. They know hundreds of technology solutions that can help in seconds. Are you attending a conference or event that is covering big issues that are important to your organization? Ask who else would like to attend and see who raises their hand. Those people are saying, “Hey! I’d like to improve!” Those are the people that you should be working with. Not all of those people will be young, but young people tend to be the thirstiest.

Granting authority

Above all, you need to give everyone in your organization some authority. And you need to increase that authority over time. If I hear one more Executive Director talk about their “tough, lonely job” or burnout I’m going to scream. If you were any good at your job, you’d hire a team that does most of your job for you. I see a lot of people (usually young) that are asking for more only to be told no. If you don’t trust that employee to do more, you either need to mentor them, engage them in projects and activities where they can learn, or fire them.

I was just talking with a former classmate who was moved into a higher position where he has the authority to make decisions. He was mentioning that at a recent meeting he presented a plan for moving forward and was met with, “Have you checked with so-and-so about that yet?” No he hadn’t, and didn’t need to. He had to authority to say, “We’re doing this.” But because his authority wasn’t increasingly “turned up” so to speak in regular intervals the staff wasn’t ready to trust his decision. He then went on to say that to get a simple donor letter written he has to start 2 months ahead of time because it has to move up the ladder and get the opinion of every Tom, Dick, and Harry with a better title than his. I promptly punched myself in the face and blacked out.

Ok, so I didn’t do that, but that’s what it felt like. I want to say to those leaders, “Why is your opinion better, and more importantly, what’s the worst that can happen if the employee you entrusted falls flat on their face?” If you’d given them increasing levels of authority, they would be less likely to fail and would have learned big lessons from smaller failures.

A challenge

I’m trying to say a lot of different things here about leadership issues here:

• Leadership and authority are intertwined, but are in fact two different things.
• Building a leadership pipeline means giving everyone the chance to thrive. Some of those people will emerge as rock stars who end up moving into authority positions. The rest will at the very least be better at what they do.
• Age is just a number. There is something to be learned from everyone.
• The pace of change is negatively affected by leadership vs. authority issues. The nonprofit sector has too many problems to solve to turn away bright minds.
• True leadership comes in many forms. It may look like following. It may look quiet or it may look loud. The only thing we know for sure is that it won’t look the same all the time.

So I issue a challenge to you.

Authority folks – for the next week, ask the opinions of some of your younger, junior staff. Listen carefully to what they have to say. If their ideas are shit, ask yourself why and what you can do about it. Was it just poorly communicated? Was it not backed up by fundamental knowledge of the issue? Was it unfeasible? Consider how you can help them improve using mentoring, engagement, and authority-granting. And then stop considering and actually help them get better. At the end of the week, ask yourself what you learned from the exercise.

Young folks – stop waiting for permission to lead. If you can’t get help at work, create opportunities for yourself to grow. Take some free classes online. Convene a group of peers to talk about issues. Find your own mentor. Schedule informational interviews with people who are doing work you admire. But don’t wait for someone to tap you on the head and say, “Ok, you can be awesome now.”

To anyone who doesn’t feel they fit into either of those categories – just be curious. Keep learning and trying to improve. And if someone gets in the way of that, don’t stop until you’ve found a way around them.