Kozlowski: Not everyone is destined to be a leader

There is such a thing as too much leadership. There is such a thing as too much leadership.

As demonstrated by the complaint of a Confederate officer who once said that Georgia militia companies were comprised of “3 field officers, 4 staff officers, 10 captains, 30 lieutenants and 1 private with a misery in his bowels,” it’s possible to have too much of a good thing when that good thing is leadership.

The requirement of the OCC that students engage in leadership development through programs titled, “Young Leaders Boldly Forging Paths to the Future of Tomorrow,” typifies how the development of leadership is constantly stressed in our society. Although some training in leadership is probably not a bad idea, there are problems with assuming everybody wants to, can, or should become a leader.

How did we get to the point where everybody is supposed to be a leader? I blame Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson believed that the future of the republic lay in the hands of yeoman farmers who would be ready, willing and able to stoke the flames kindled on the Fourth of July, 1776; keep them from being extinguished by the “feeble engines of despotism,” and consume those engines and all who worked them. As such, every man had to be able to lead. As long as he was, you know, white.

This feeling was shared by other Founding Fathers who likewise saw private leadership as the best guarantor of a free state. The legend of Cincinnatus was a particularly strong one. Cincinnatus was a regular guy who was granted dictatorial powers by the Roman senate just long enough to save Rome from the ravishes of the Gauls and the horrors they brought — such as escargot, frog’s legs and snobbishness. After Cinncinnatus routed the Gauls, he went back to his plow instead of deciding to pull a Moammar Gadhafi and remain in charge. This is who George Washington was trying to emulate when he kept resigning positions of power only to keep getting dragged back into positions of influence.

So to keep a constant supply of Cincinnati on hand, America was to be filled with a bunch of yeoman leaders. However, the idea that special training was needed to become a leader is relatively recent. Even as late as the start of the Civil War, it was believed that any educated and/or politically connected man would make a fine regimental colonel. The great captains of industry — Rockefeller, Carnegie, Edison and Ford — didn’t have business degrees, never mind membership in “Young Plutocrats of America.”

The problems with a drive to turn everybody into leaders through formal training are manifold. First and most obvious is the problem of ego, as those who are trained in leadership might find themselves more fit to lead than those who are not. If everyone is convinced that he is destined to lead, this can result in discord, back-biting and even civil war. On the other end of the spectrum, some people are not interested in leading. Trying to make them into leaders is only going to make everybody unhappy.

Another problem is that “leadership” (the buzzword) is a catch-all term, whereas leadership (the skill) is not. In the lowest positions of leadership, interpersonal skills and attention to detail are vital. Also important is the ability to translate abstract directives from superiors into reality. At more senior levels of management, however, leadership can be more strategic, abstract and focused on administration rather than gruntwork. Details aren’t as important, and an obsessive attention to detail can lead to micromanagement. People who are very good at some levels of management can be disastrous at other levels. This is an observation succinctly noted in “The Peter Principle,” which holds that people tend to be promoted to a level at which they are incompetent.

Finally, with so much focus on leadership, there is not enough focus on how to be a good follower. There is a skill to being a good follower, from knowing how to anticipate the needs of your superiors to knowing what to do when a superior is unreasonable. There is a need both to put the team first and not to allow oneself to become a doormat. Finally, the skills of following are an important subset of the skills of leadership. Unless you are the CEO of a corporation, you are going to have to report to somebody, who will expect you to use the resources — human and otherwise — that you control in order to attain a particular objective. To lead, one has to be able to follow.

Granted, there are some people for whom leadership training would be important. Yet it is a very unusual situation where a power vacuum exists and there are no leaders to fill it — after all, people are fighting for even the dubious privilege of controlling Somalia. Furthermore, assuming that everybody needs to become a leader is like assuming that all pegs are round and will fit in round holes. Finally, emphasis on leadership and leadership development comes at the expense of development of good followers, with the end result of everybody fighting to be general and neglecting the vital role of sergeant.

Write Mark at kozthought@gmail.com.