The product, the package.

[Eamonn]

Thanks to this forum, last week I started thinking about natural born leaders.

About the same time I received an email from my team leader at work, telling me that in July I have to present a four hour training for the entire team.

The team is a very small team which should have eleven members but one guy is on deployment with the military and one is off work with a broken leg.

We have one guy who has a PhD. He isn't the team leader but seems to be the go to person in the team. He is a department head, a super nice guy and is the most experienced team member, not only because he has the most time in, but has had to deal with more real world situations than anyone else.

I think that I'm the oldest team member but I'm the newest member on the team.

We are a special team that is called on when needed to deal with hostage negotiation.

Team members are selected by the team and undergo a fair amount of training and have to attend eight hours of training every month.

We are on call 24/7.

There are a lot of procedures, policies that are laid down by the department which are supposed to be followed. In a real world situation our team is one special team of four.

The other three are armed teams.

 

As you can imagine communication is very important for us.

We do have a team and assistant team leader, but when we train we cross train so that any team member can take on any role that is needed.

 

Back to last week.

Thinking about natural born leaders got my little gray cells working.

On one side I thought about the team and how could and should all have the ability to be able to lead.

On the other side I thought about situations where the bad guys are following their leader.

It seemed to me that while I like to think that I know about Leadership Skills, for the most part I'd never given a lot of real thought to the make-up of the natural born leader.

Of course over the years I've met both youth and adults who have the stuff it takes to be natural born leaders. But I wanted to find out more about what this "Stuff" is.

I found a book that is titled The 108 Skills of Natural Born Leaders by Warren Blank.

I bought it and read it.

Sad to say, while there is enough in the book that if I wanted I could use for the four hour training that I have to present. Most of it is the same old same old leadership jargon that I've already read in other books on leadership. The book did very little that had anything to do with what I's call real natural born leaders or leadership.

While I was reading this I was also reading the Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. (I'm just starting on the third book.) While of course this is a work of fiction, I found a lot more about what the stuff it takes to be a natural born leader in this book than I did in 108 Skills of Natural Born Leaders.

While I'm not saying that no good comes from reading some of the Leadership books that are out there.

I do think that trying to make leadership into a product that can be sold as a package is fast becoming something that is way over done.

Overdone almost to the point that finding anything worth while is becoming really hard.

 

Eamonn

[Gunny2862]

I think you've discovered the dichotomy between those who can and do lead, and those who are natural born leaders.

I am not a natural born leader.

I have sought out leadership, and at times been placed in scenarios where I was required to lead. I can make it work.

My experience with natural born leaders is that they do it so effortlessly they seem to not know they are leading.

For us as Scout leaders, part of our job is developing those naturals to lead the right kinds of things... because they will lead someone to somewhere; and to develop the abilities of those who would lead in the right direction - if only they knew how to lead.

 

Now if I only had this in a package and could sell it... but you have to work it with each person, according to who they are...

[Tampa Turtle]

If you have already read it I think John Gardner's "On Leadership" is pretty good. (I met the guy once--he had the touch). He talks about the different types of leadership physical, moral, etc that individuals have. Really broadens the conversation and is a pretty quick read.

 

I do some emergency/disaster stuff and I see folks with natural leadership--almost situational leadership--where they excel in a particular time and place.

[qwazse]

[Meant to post this as a new topic, but got an error. Anyway, it fits here.]

 

I went to a Venturer's senior dance recital. The program had bios of the graduating class (submitted by the youth). This youth mentioned Venturing as one of her activities, but did not say that she was an officer at the crew or council level. What she did say:

 

"often goes hiking, camping, and sailing"

 

It's not that she wasn't a leader, or that we did not spend a lot of time focusing on leadership training. But her *focus* was not the leadership, but rather the tasks of our crew.

 

I think natural born leaders aren't so bothered about who's in charge, but they show a passion for the task at hand.

[Eagledad]

This is a great discussion and I will learn a lot from it. It's also exciting to be a friend of someone on a hostage negotiating team. Pretty cool!

 

Everyone has already contributed some great stuff and I'm really enjoying it.

 

My observations of natural leaders is they make us willing followers.

 

Barry

[packsaddle]

When I was with the federal lab I was a team leader. I didn't much like it though. I had to deal with too many team members who were too much like me (obstinate, contrary, loose cannons). The worst of it was that most of them were contractors so while I had to make sure the work was done, I had no direct influence over them. They knew it and told me so...the federal employees often had to take up the slack. To me the 'privatization' of this function was a terribly destructive idea.

I was glad to end that responsibility when I was offered this position. Now I'm in the perfect environment for a loose cannon. But I'm a lightweight compared to my colleagues. Wow. Now those guys really know how to roll around bashing things and doing random damage!

 

I guess I'm willing to accept that a real leader might have an innate leadership skill. But I think that most times, it takes some perspective and experience, even if the latent skills are present, for a person to be a great leader.

I've seen a few. They're the persons, like my current dept chair for whom the team will do anything they can to contribute to the team. And the reason why is that this leader makes it all about the team, and not all about the leader. This leader demonstrates that fact in every aspect of day-to-day duties and backs up the team, even at own expense, if necessary. Most of us would walk through fire if this person asked us to join, on behalf of the team...we'd know this leader is already standing there in the fire waiting for us.

[Eagledad]

>>When I was with the federal lab I was a team leader. I didn't much like it though. I had to deal with too many team members who were too much like me (obstinate, contrary, loose cannons). The worst of it was that most of them were contractors so while I had to make sure the work was done, I had no direct influence over them. They knew it and told me so...the federal employees often had to take up the slack. To me the 'privatization' of this function was a terribly destructive idea.>I guess I'm willing to accept that a real leader might have an innate leadership skill. But I think that most times, it takes some perspective and experience, even if the latent skills are present, for a person to be a great leader.

[JMHawkins]

Some people are very good at getting others to follow them, but don't necessarily make the best choices about where they're leading everyone off to. They're natural born leaders, but they're also disasters.

 

But looking just at the "getting others to follow them" aspect, I think natural born leaders have a handful of traits. One, they have a plan, a goal, something they want to achieve. It may not always be a wise, useful or socially redeeming goal, but they have one and have a desire to reach it. Two, they tend to see other people in terms of what that person can do to help the leader achieve his goal, and try to steer that person towards doing those things. In the best of cases, this is wonderful, because it gives the follower a powerful sense of accomplishment and belonging, allowing them to make meaningful contributions to the team. In less charitable cases, they're just being used and later discarded.

 

Three, natural leaders have the self-confidence - both in their judgement and in their goals - not to worry very much about seeing people as tools to get the job done. In their minds, they are doing their followers a service by giving them a role to play in their plan. Four, natural leaders have enough empathy to understand how their followers feel during each stage of the plan, and can tailor their message accordingly.

 

Natural leaders are leaders because they naturally think in terms of how the members of the team can contribute to achieving the goal.

[qwazse]

Adding to JMH, I would say that natural born leaders produce a vision that suits them, finds people who will fulfill that vision (either because they share it or are willing to adopt it) and ignores folks who don't have that vision or aren't willing to adopt it.

 

That's where conflict may come in, and natural born leaders have to learn to become good leaders, just like the rest of us. Because you may need the folks who you've just ignored, and suddenly impersonal skills that might not have been part of your toolset have to be deployed. If you don't have them, you may have to set aside your aspirations until you do.

[Kudu]

 

qwazse writes:

 

'"often goes hiking, camping, and sailing" ... *focus* was not the leadership, but rather the tasks...'

 

Eamonn, if you want your presentation to contribute something original on the subject, simply start with the BSA's famous anti-Scoutcraft quotations from 1965 to the present day.

 

From the very beginning (1965), Boy Scout "Leadership Development" has defined "the product, the package" as Scouting's "common vision" of leadership as the very opposite of qwazse's quote, above.

 

Yours at 300 feet,

 

Kudu

http://kudu.net

 

[Eamonn]

It's strange how at times something that is and has every intention of being well meant and helpful can end up really getting on your last nerve!

Back when I first attended WB, I swear that if one more person had said "Check your resources!" I very well might have punched him on the nose.

 

Could it be that a true Natural Born Leader can see and identify resources better than others?

A long time back, I remember reading about the Brits exploring Africa.

The Expedition Leader was most of the time a wealthy Englishman, who hired a group of natives as guides.

Again most of the time, there was one native who was the leader of the natives.

This native leader was of course able to speak English. I never worked out how come?

Bit being able to communicate with the natives and the English expedition leaders gave this guy a big heads up.

The Native Guide also knew the lie of the land, where the water was, where the places to avoid were. He also knew the best places to hunt. He took care of the lighting the fires and the cooking.

All of this has me wondering.

Who really was the true leader?

The Englishman because he was using his resources?

Or the Native Guide? Without whom the English guy would have either been eaten by a lion, fallen in quicksand or died from thirst or starvation?

Wasn't the guide a real example of servant leadership?

Even if the guide didn't share in the same vision as the Englishman?

Ea.

 

[Kudu]

 

Who really was the true leader?

 

The poor Den Leader who was unfairly excluded from Expedition Training because she hates outdoor skills.

 

 

[Stosh]

Natural leaders have followers. It has nothing to do with will they lead for the good or for the bad. Either way, whatever their goal, people follow. It has nothing to do with the task at hand. Will they follow even if there is nothing to be done?

 

If one talks about good/bad it is a moral issue.

 

If one talks about getting a task done it is a management issue.

 

If one talks about people following it is a leadership issue.

 

Business spend a lot of time training their managers to make ethical decisions. That combines two of the above, but has nothing to do with leadership. It doesn't guarantee that an ethical manager will have ethical subordinates.

 

Too often we incorrectly define such things calling it leadership when it has nothing to do with leadership. The gal that liked to camp, be outdoors, etc. doesn't mean that Venturing has gained a good or natural leader, it means the gal likes to camp, be outdoors and so she joined a Venturing Crew.

 

General George B. McClellan was a business man prior to the Civil War. He owned a major railroad company. He was an excellent organizer and accomplished a ton of good things in his lifetime. However, when asked to overall lead the Union troops, he built up a huge army and when it came time to lead them into battle, he couldn't do it. He couldn't destroy that which he built. He was loved by his men, but when he ran against Lincoln for the presidency, his men didn't vote for him. General Grant on the other hand had an alcohol problem earlier in life, failed at business, and accomplished very little before the war. But when he refused to back down even after a major defeat in battle, the men followed. Why?

 

Never mistake management for leadership. They are not the same thing.

 

Just because your boys are experts at management, know how to tie all the knots and teach them, too, doesn't mean these boys are leaders. It means they are experts at management, know how to tie all the knots and teach them too. If he says, Hey boys, lets go camping this weekend and every has an excuse not to go, it speaks loudly of his leadership skills, natural or not.

 

Attendance problems, discipline problems, etc. all have their basis in the lack of leadership. No one wants to go camping. No one listens when I tell them to do something, etc. all means no one is following.

 

Stosh

[qwazse]

The gal that liked to camp, be outdoors, etc. doesn't mean that Venturing has gained a good or natural leader, it means the gal likes to camp, be outdoors and so she joined a Venturing Crew.

 

Agreed, there is nothing in her equating Venturing to outdoor activity that indicates her leadership ability. You'll just have to take my word for it that she was a strong leader (not entirely natural, a work in progress), and without her efforts we would not have had half the hikes, no sailing, etc ... My point is she didn't name any of the leadership that she exercised as what defined her life in the crew.

 

I guess a more reflective leader might say "got a bunch of kids out into the big woods." Making the notion of acquiring followers more explicit. But most natural leaders don't measure themselves by anyone following them, but by accomplishing a task. Implicit in that is that a handful (or sometimes a council full) of youth followed them in the process!

 

You have to point out to them when they are leading. They might just miss it if you don't.

[Stosh]

qwarse,

 

One of the reasons today's youth do not define themselves in leadership terms is because the world around them doesn't define leadership properly around them. Maybe this gal does leadership, but no one ever defined it properly for her. If she is capable of organizing a group to go out into the woods, she's a good manager. If 10 of her friends want to go along with her, she's a leader. If 10 of her friends don't want to go along, she might still be a good manager, just a poor leader that could have inspired and excited her followers to come along. Maybe it is something as simple as picking the wrong activity for her "followers". Her leadership may have been more successful had she found out what activity her friends wanted, then organized things, she would have been a better leader.

 

I see this all the time when troops organize grand programs, i.e. Philmont and Sea Base or Jamboree and then struggle with getting people onboard. I realize how over-used the term servant leadership is, but servant leadership starts at finding out what the people want and then organizing the tasks around that. Followers have an ownership in the process right from the beginning and are less likely to drop out or less reluctant to step in and help out.

 

Taken to the extreme, a group of true leaders is what is necessary for a well oiled team. Maybe no one person actually leads, but at various times, each of the team members leads, taking turns in the areas they are best suited to. Old patrols had PL (organizer), activity-master who's job was the identify and initiate activities, grub master to make sure people were fed, quartermaster to insure the gear was available, scribe to do the paperwork, etc. etc. They all lead so that the team will succeed. Is the PL the only leader? Heck no. At meal time, the grubmaster rules! Diverse leadership in a patrol also reduces the friction between competing egos. There should be one go-to guy for meals, one go-to guy for gear, one go-to guy to do the paperwork. When a patrol has two of such leaders, there will be friction between the two. Can the PL trump the grubmaster? If one wants good meals, I wouldn't try it. The PL is there to make sure he has good leadership in his group. Can the PL put together a great meal? Not as good as the grubmaster. Can the PL fill out the forms and get the permits and collect the money? Not as good as the scribe. Can the PL organize the gear for everyone? Not as good as the quartermaster. So what good is the PL? He's the glue that holds all the other leaders together.

 

If every leader is focused on what it takes to make others look good, and when they do they follow, does the leader ever think of themselves as the actual leader? In our society, not very often. Do people follow them? Yep, sure do.

 

Again, always ask the question who's following and you will quickly find out who the true leaders really are.

 

Stosh