The Leadership Challenge

How to Keep Getting Extraordinary Things Done In Organizations

by James Kouzes and Barry Posner. 1996. 340 Pages.

I want you to think back and describe a situation that you consider your personal best leadership experience. Now imagine spending eleven years collecting and studying the responses that thousands of leaders from all over the world gave to this. That is exactly what James Kouzes and Barry Posner have done. In the process, the authors discovered fundamental leader practices that are common to all leadership success stories and that create the conditions to get extraordinary things done in organizations (xvii). In other words, leaders doing their best exhibit common behavior. Moreover, leadership is not some kind of magic—leadership can be understood and it can be learned (xxiii). This leadership guidebook can serve both as a strong foundation for new leaders and as a source of inspiration for those of us who want to be better leaders.

I highly recommend this book for company commanders and their leaders. It goes without saying that you want your time in any “green tab” position to be a “personal best” leadership experience. If that position is command at the company level, then your entire company expects and needs a personal best from you! This book provides a framework that will definitely help you achieve the most while in command.

Although I highly recommend the book, I also recognize that it is long and not always entertaining reading. If you are short on time, I recommend reading both the first section (28 pages) which summarizes the five fundamental leadership practices and the final section (23 pages) which is a fantastic challenge to “discover and unleash the leader within us all” (340). If a specific leader practice excites you or connects with your current situation, then read that complete section.

The book begins with an introduction into what the fundamental practices and commitments of leaders are and includes a great chapter on what subordinates value most in their leaders. The rest of the book is divided into sections, one for each of the five fundamental practices; each section is broken down into two chapters that address a leadership commitment or behavior that supports the practice (see chart below). Finally, the book concludes by focusing the reader on self-knowledge and self-improvement as a prerequisite to successfully leading others.

The book is especially relevant to leader development. Throughout the book are excellent insights into this, and the final section talks specifically to how people learn to lead. Their insight is congruent with Army doctrine and the latest ideas emerging from the Center For Creative Leadership (CCL). According to the authors, there are three ways we learn to lead: experience (learning by doing), observation (includes relationships and both good and bad examples), and education (325).

The authors believe that experience is the best teacher; however, they point out that experience must be personally challenging if you expect to grow as a leader (326). In addition, they stress the importance of contemplation and reflection: “We find embedded in experience the grains of truth about ourselves, others, our organizations, and life itself. But unexamined experiences don’t produce the rich insights that come with reflection and analysis” (328). And in an earlier chapter the authors write: “It appears that when we gaze first into our past, we elongate our future. We also enrich our future and give it detail as we recall the richness of our past experiences” (106). The company commander might best achieve results by teaching leaders to reflect on their own experiences and to move from observations of their experience to “principles and application” which the authors refer to as “inductive learning,” the best way to learn leadership (329). Learning this way can be very powerful; however, it invariably requires a mentor to teach the process and to help the “student” make sense of their experiences.

Similarly, the Army’s self-development pillar often fails primarily because we rarely teach our leaders how to develop themselves. Self-reflection, journals, contemplation, addressing our weaknesses, and professional reading are learned skills and habits that are often neglected. Kouzes and Posner write: “The mastery of the art of leadership comes with the mastery of the self. Ultimately, leadership development is a process of self-development” (336). And again: “The most important trait of a leader is knowing who you are” (233). Helping our leaders first discover who they are and then how to be self-learners will have a tremendous long-term impact. What better time to learn this than while they are young NCOs and platoon leaders, and who better to teach it than the company commander?

The Leadership Challenge is a super leadership book that is applicable to all who aspire to lead. Studying the fundamental practices that leaders consistently use when they are doing their best is a fantastic way to learn about leadership. In addition to providing a framework for leadership success, the authors provide superb insight into leader development, both of the self and of others. My copy of the book is written in, highlighted, and tabbed; I know that I will continue to refer to it as I prepare for my future leadership positions, and I believe that every up and coming company commander would benefit greatly from reading it.

Notes and Quotes From the Book

“The most significant contributions that leaders make is not to today’s bottom line; they are to the long-term development of people and institutions who adapt, prosper, and grow” (xxv).

The more they control, the less they’ll be trusted. Leaders serve and support (15).

“Credibility of action is the single most significant determinant of whether a leader will be followed over time” (16).

“Leadership is an observable, learnable set of practices” (16).

Leadership Defined: “The art of mobilizing others to want to struggle for shared aspirations” (20).

Self development first: “The First Law of Leadership: If we don’t believe in the messenger, we won’t believe the message” (26).

Challenge The Process

“Those who lead others to greatness seek and accept challenge” (9).

“Challenge is the motivating environment for excellence” (53).

“Most ideas for improvement come from people other than leaders” (54).

See change as full of possibilities (71-73).

“Only challenge produces the opportunities for greatness” (76).

Ideas don’t magically appear in final form – they require nurturing (82).

Inspire a Shared Vision

Vision is imagining an ideal and unique image of the future (95).

“Get a sense of what you want the organization to look like, feel like, and be like when you and others have completed the journey. You may even write down your image of the future or draw a model of it” (96).

“Statement of destination, of the ends of our labor; they are therefore future oriented and are made real over different spans of time” (100).

“Human memory is stored in images and senses, not in numbers. We recall the images of reality, not abstractions from reality” (102). Help them “hear, taste, smell, see, and touch the vision” (143).

“Reflecting upon our past may enhance our ability to be forward-looking” (107).

Great summary about vision: “A vision is a mental picture of what tomorrow will look like. It expresses our highest standards and values” (111).

“If leaders need one special talent, it’s the ability to sense the purpose in others--…In a sense, leaders hold up a mirror and reflect back to their constituents what they say they most desire” (130-131).

“Sensitivity to others is a precious human ability” Requires a receptiveness to others and a willingness to listen “It means being delicately aware of the attitudes and feelings of others and the nuances of their communication” (131).

“The greatest inhibitor to enlisting others in a common vision is a lack of personal conviction” (139). You must be sincere in your own belief.

Learn how to “convey abstract thoughts and how to appeal to human emotions” (143).

Enable Others to Act

Create strong, positive, confident subordinates.

“Leadership is a relationship, founded on trust and confidence. Without trust and confidence, people don’t take risks. Without risks, there’s no change. Without change, organizations and movements die (12).”

Competition as negative (152). Talks about collaboration.

Differences generate more alternatives and better solutions than similarities do (162).

Individuals who fail to trust fail to become leaders—people won’t trust them (162).

“Trust and distrust can come with mere suggestion, it seems, and in mere seconds. It’s also highly contagious and can spread throughout the group” (165).

Give up control to gain trust (166), be vulnerable (167).

The most genuine way to demonstrate that you care and are concerned about other people as human beings is to spend time with them—Plan on unstructured time to joke and kid and learn more about each other; and five or ten minutes at a time is sufficient, if done regularly (172).

When we don’t trust someone, we resist letting that person influence us. We’re suspicious of and unreceptive to his or her proposals and goals, suggestions for reaching those goals, and definitions of criteria and methods for evaluating progress (165).

“When people do things because they are told to, not because they want to, they don’t perform at their best. Thus reliance on external power and control whether by the authorities or the members over time diminishes the capacity of individuals and organizations to excel” (181).

Power in service of others. “Thus any leadership practice that increases another’s sense of self-confidence, self-determination, and personal effectiveness makes that person more powerful and greatly enhances the possibility of success” (185). Giving power away idea- “We become the most powerful when we give power away” (185).

“The key to unleashing the organization’s potential to excel is putting that power in the hands of the people who perform the work” (193).

“Dependence on others creates intense feelings of powerlessness; it also leads to acquiescence” (193).

“And remember: there’s nothing more disempowering than to have lots of authority to do something but nothing to do it with” (202).

“The more that people know about what’s going on in the organization, the better off you will be - Information empowers people, strengthening their resolve and providing them with the resources they need to be successful” (203).

Model the Way

“To model effectively, leaders must first be clear about their guiding principles” (13).

Goal setting needs to be taught at the team leader level. Making goals public is proven to dramatically increase commitment to those goals (258).

Have every leader write a one pager describing their personal values (see p. 212, 218). Then have them reflect on what they spend their time doing “the truest measure of what leaders deeply believe is how they spend their time” (222). Warren Bennis quote: “But until you truly know yourself, strengths and weaknesses, know what you want to do and why you want to do it, you cannot succeed in any but the most superficial sense of the word” (232).

“The most important trait of a leader is knowing who you are” (233).

Use “critical incidents” as an especially important time to reflect and help shape leaders (See pages 223-224).

“Credibility is the foundation of leadership” (210).

“Choice unleashes the power of expectations” (253). Make the program voluntary. “Choice builds commitment and creates ownership, and making people feel like owners is key” (262).

“Although choice is always bounded, people have varying amounts of space within which they have to operate. The larger the space, the greater the maneuvering room. The art of leadership lies in knowing how to create a sense of spaciousness while staying on the horizon” (263).

On change: First clearly communicate the benefits of the change. Show how the program fits “into the accepted beliefs and expectations of the company and the individuals “ and “Find highly respected individuals or groups in the organization who agree with you, and ask those people to introduce the change” (264).

Encourage the Heart

Link rewards with performance.

When behaviors are aligned with unit’s values, make sure they are rewarded.

Must love followers.

“If criticism is necessary, comments should be restricted to behavior rather than character” (289). Feedback should be in terms of continuous progress not comparison to other leaders.

“Experience without feedback is unlikely to build or enhance competence” (277). “Leaders use feedback to make sure that people acquire the competence that should come with experience” (288).

Spend time developing self-worth of soldiers see self-fulfilling prophecy idea (271-272).

Conclusion

“Failures can be as instructive as successes, if we take the time to reflect upon them” (329).

“We find embedded in experience the grains of truth about ourselves, others, our organizations, and life itself” (329). A mentor can help reveal these grains of truth.

Help the leader understand the value of lifelong learning see 3 pillars of development.

“Leaders must be interpersonally competent. You must be able to listen, take advice, lose arguments, and follow, and you must be able to develop the trust and respect of others; otherwise, you can’t lead” (337).

Learning to Lead (325). How to best learn to lead:

Trial and error (experience that often includes hardships; must include the element of personal challenge (327).

Observation of and Interaction with others (Mentors, Role models, Relationships)

Education (Professional development, Academics – thinking process etc.)

“Leadership is, after all, a set of skills. And any skill can be strengthened, honed, and enhanced if we have the proper motivation and desire, along with practice and feedback, role models and coaching” (323).

Great focus on individual integrity and humility. “Leaders without integrity are putting on an act” (340).