I emphatically believe that the world needs more heroic leaders.
In fact, the purpose of The Leadership Crucible is to “forge heroic leaders.”
But what I mean by a heroic leader is very different than what is espoused, or more accurately these days—decried—by the popular leadership literature.
Read on to discover what I mean.
THE TRADITIONAL VIEW OF HEROIC LEADERSHIP
The traditional understanding of heroic leadership has its roots in the “great man theory” that evolved around the mid-19th century. Popularized by Thomas Carlyle, the great man theory assumes that the traits of leadership are intrinsic to the person. In other words, leaders are born with the traits essential to great leadership and therefore will rise successfully to the occasion.
For all intents and purposes, this viewpoint has been discredited.
In 1978, James MacGregor Burns published his Pulitzer Prize winning book, Leadership where he introduced the concept of heroic leadership as a relationship between leader and follower in which followers placed great faith in the leader’s ability to overcome obstacles and crises.
Twenty years later, William A. Cohen, a student of management guru Peter Drucker, published his model of heroic leadership based on surveys of hundreds of uniformed military personnel and a careful study of 7,000 years of historical writings on leadership.
Cohen defines a heroic leader as one who does what is right while ignoring the potential benefit or harm to the leader. This approach allows the leader to act with integrity while at the same time inspiring high levels of performance and establishing a team spirit of sacrifice for the common good.
Save for the great man theory, there is nothing irredeemably wrong about the traditional concept of heroic leadership.
However, there seems to be a backlash against this idea of heroic leadership. Many criticize it as antiquated, ego-driven, and command and control oriented. People are a means to an organizational end rather than valued members of a collective team.
The current movement advocates “post-heroic leadership” in which organizations operate without any hierarchical control. In these organizations, the members themselves lead the organization and the titled leader is more like a cheerleader.
To Peter Drucker, implementing one particular form of leadership didn’t make sense. In his view, you need leadership that’s appropriate for the organization’s mission and culture. That might be heroic, post-heroic, or something altogether different. Although Drucker did not use the term heroic leadership, it’s clear from his writings that he believed the right kind of leader was someone special. Drucker’s leader was selfless, putting subordinates, customers, and mission before himself. Drucker’s definition of leadership involved “…lifting of a man’s vision to higher sights, the raising of a man’s performance to a higher standard, the building of a man’s personality beyond its normal limitations.”
THE LEADERSHIP CRUCIBLE VIEW: LEADERS ARE HEROES
Although the traditional view of heroic leadership has much to offer, I hold that leaders are heroes by virtue of the role they accept and the journey they take.
First and foremost, leaders are required to take on responsibilities greater than themselves. Leadership is not easy, and in fact, it can be uncomfortable, even arduous. Leaders face tasks, trials, and challenges that are often intense, onerous, and unpredictable. Leaders face the stress of having to deliver results. Leaders must support the growth and well-being of the people they lead and deal with all of the drama and problems they can bring.
In short, leadership is a crucible where the leader is tried, tested, and refined by pressures and forces both internal and external.
In this crucible, leaders forge their capability through their experience and strengthen their character by overcoming challenges in spite of their fear, failings, and shortcomings.
Leaders are heroes not because they are inherently great but because they have overcome sometimes insurmountable obstacles and stayed true to the role to which they were called. Through the crucible they become great by fulfilling their potential in a role greater than themselves.
LEADERSHIP IS A HERO’S JOURNEY
In his book, The Man with a Thousand Faces, Joseph Campbell summarizes the hero’s journey as one in which, “A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man.”
The leader-hero ventures into a role that challenges competency, skill, and psychological mettle on a daily basis. Every day, in many large and small ways, the leader must face forces that endanger the success of the organization and the team. In this ongoing adventure, the leader-hero gives the gifts of credibility, vision, motivation, innovation, empowerment, and encouragement to the team. Herein lies the leader’s true power.
Although leaders such as Lincoln, Churchill, and King are tested in seemingly superhuman ways on the historical stage, I hold that the thousand small acts of leaders everywhere are no less heroic.
In fact, it is in the performance of these daily leadership acts and in the perseverance of accomplishing them, despite the challenges to self and mission that true heroism is displayed.
The journey can take place on a battlefield or in a cubicle. It is lived out in a myriad of ways for a myriad of purposes. No one’s journey is exactly the same, but all travel under the common bond of leadership.
Failure is as much a part of the journey as success, and in fact, failure may be the most instructive part of it.
Perhaps most importantly, the journey results in growth and change which yields maturity of purpose, deepening of wisdom, and humble awareness of limitations and dependency on others.
So similarly, each in their own way, leaders everywhere play out their vital role on the historical stage. It truly is heroic stuff.
Done well, the journey produces greatness.
And great leaders are exactly what we need today.
YOUR HERO’S JOURNEY—YOUR LEADERSHIP CRUCIBLE
The Leadership Crucible is a metaphor for the hero’s journey that leaders undertake.
The crucible is visceral process and the journey that it symbolizes is at once intensely personal and inexorably communal. It is as much about challenge and failure as it is reward and success.
We need thousands more in this world to take this journey.
So when I say “We Forge Leaders” at The Leadership Crucible, I mean that we accompany those who are called to lead on their unique hero’s journey. We support them, guide them, coach them, and at times push them through the fire, heat, and pressure that constitutes their crucible: their hero’s journey.
Will you enter the crucible?
By Joe Scherrer |The Leadership Crucible