Sensible Leadership

Human Centered, Insightful and Prudent

Nicolas Majluf, Nureya Abarca

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000368840
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Commerce
• Subtopic: Leadership

This Leadership book is part of the Human Centered Book Trilogy, the 2021 volumes of the Routledge Human Centered Management HCM Series. HCM books are pioneering transformation from the traditional humans-as-a-resource approach of the industrial past, to the humans at the center management and organizational paradigm of the 21st century. HCM is built on thetalent and wellbeing of people in the workplace driving work engagement, quality standards, high performance and productivity for long-term organizational sustainability in the global VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous) environment.

This book was carefully crafted by recognized human centered scholars emphasizing theneed for a new type of leader responsive to challenges of the knowledge age, global connectivity and instant communications. The book displays a comprehensive framework for the transformation of common individuals into sensible leaders with high capacity to improve organizational culture using Soft Skills to meet critical responsibilities. Sensible leaders are human centered, insightful, prudent, focused on the needs and feelings of followers. They are integral and ethical leaders serving as guides, coaches and mentors, not forcing followers but perceiving clues and responding promptly to solve organizational challenges. They perform honorably in personal and work environments always caring for the common good.

This and its two complementary titles Human Centered Organizational Culture: Global Dimensions and Soft Skills for Human Centered Management and Global Sustainability are timely readings for leaders, managers, researchers, acdemics, practitiones, students and the general public working in organizations across industries and sectors wordwide pursuing quality standards, organizational transformation and sustainability.

Part I

Towards a Sensible Leadership Model

We live in the 2020s in a complex, global VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous) environment that is particularly challenging for leaders. There is growing mistrust in leadership in many countries and worldwide in areas central to people’s lives, such as business, politics and society. We are often dismayed with traditional leadership that is insensitive to the needs of people and communities. Nonetheless, we need leaders to guide us through perplexing times. These concerns have motivated us to write this book on leadership. The purpose is to provide a different perspective on a fundamental management subject because leadership quality affects most human beings’ lives.

This first part of the book presents the development of the Sensible Leadership model. A sensible leader is human centered, insightful and prudent. This part includes three chapters. The first chapter emphasizes the need for a new and different leader to respond to current challenges and rapidly changing demands. It draws attention to the fact that despite growing evidence of disappointment in and with leaders, it is untimely and inappropriate to pretend that the solution is to discard leaders and ignore leadership. The second chapter delves into factors central to leaders’ effectiveness. We start with a review of traditional leadership theories, highlighting implicit assumptions on leadership’s effectiveness with the purpose of comparison. The third chapter is a preliminary presentation of the Sensible Leadership model grounded on three fundamental concepts: influence, insight and prudence. Also, the sensible leader is an integral leader and an ethical leader.

Influence is expanded in Part II of the book. The assumption is that leadership has significant effects on people’s life and work, so it is fair to assert that there is no leadership without influence. The other two concepts, insight and prudence, are elaborated in Part III. Insight is the ability of the leader to perceive and tune in closely in the organizational environment. Prudence is acting with restraint and respect in all circumstances and with all people. Insight and prudence are crucial capabilities in three main areas of leadership: paying attention to the needs of followers and coworkers; effective management of power and political processes in the organization; and dealing optimally with the social context.

1Leadership for the 21st Century

The study of leadership is a pressing need for the 21st century. The current level of disappointment and criticism of traditional leaders drives people to bet on new people, often based on image, disregarding previous experience. They offer to transform the current complex situations profoundly. The assumption is that taking the risk of leaping into the unknown is better than maintaining a status quo that is failing for too many people.

The Paradox of Leadership

Defining the appropriate leadership profile for these demanding times confronts us with a mystifying paradox. On the one hand, there is a deep sense of mistrust and even contempt for leaders. Simultaneously, there is a pressing need for new leadership to instill a sense of hope about the future of organizations and humanity, and to provide guidance, and show new ways to advance in the challenging global VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous) environment.

When life becomes routine and unchallenging, and inadequate or unfair situations appear acceptable, good leaders question prevailing values and attitudes and the appropriateness of conventional behaviors. They try to move people out of their comfort zone, defying the status quo, and challenging personal projects. Good leaders also bring novelty to followers’ lives, making them feel part of a collective project that opens opportunities to enhance human development.

Leaders’ achievements may be disappointing, but people feel relieved when someone is able to capture their attention and gain their confidence. Although they may have uncertainty about their performance as leaders, they are willing to bet on them and trust them. Followers feel grateful for leaders who propose challenging and creative projects with the potential to enhance their lives and open opportunities for personal and professional growth. A good leader responds to the deepest needs of followers, such as security and wellbeing, and gives meaning to life and work, which are crucial sources of their inner motivation.

An inner need for the figure of exceptional leaders, so ingrained in human nature, also leads to the trap of idealizing them beyond expectations. A common conception of great leaders often presents them as gifted with superior talents, intellectually brilliant with superb social skills and impeccable moral behavior. These kinds of leaders are prized as visionary individuals able to inspire and energize followers, leading them to achieve seemingly impossible goals.

There are many ideal leadership models, but the point to emphasize here is that people commonly fall into the snare of thinking about leaders as superior beings on whom to deposit their illusions and trust.

An example of ideal leadership, known in the literature as the Transformational Leader discussed in detail in Chapter 5, shows that followers and team members trust, respect and feel admiration for leaders and appreciate the considerate and polite ways of their relationships. Leaders who listen to them carefully can provide development opportunities and stimulate them intellectually. Furthermore, their vision of the future attracts followers, and their contagious optimism and enthusiasm inspire them. They idealize their attributes and behaviors and appreciate individualized consideration, the intellectual stimulation and motivation to participate in organizational projects.

From Idealization to Disappointment

Leaders are necessary to set the pace and progress of organizations and societies. We need the figure of leaders, and we idealize them and dream about all the good things they can do. We develop great expectations about how they can transform and improve our lives, alleviate our hardships and offer opportunities otherwise unavailable. So, it is not surprising that we end up disappointed with leaders when expectations are related to aspirations and not to leaders’ real abilities to respond to people’s multiple needs.

As human beings, leaders have limitations and are often removed from idealizations people build around them. In reality, the most relevant leaders are quite different from this grandiose image of superhumans. They are instead, as all of us, imperfect men and women, who have doubts, and make great efforts to overcome their shortcomings.

Perhaps the low esteem for leaders today is a reflection of an explosive increase in people’s expectations, pressing for a greater demand for perfection and excellence in leaders’ behavior, where minor blemishes become disturbing faults. Leaders can hardly meet these high expectations, considering the tremendous impact of social networks disseminating detrimental fake news and biased interpretations of facts. Fake news profoundly affects leaders’ image, casts doubt on their skills and integrity, and damages their reputation.

Because of poor leadership, trust in relevant institutions has decreased over time. For instance, Gallup surveys show that between 1972 and 2018, people who have a great deal or a fair amount of trust and confidence in the United States Government and the US mass media (newspapers, TV, radio) fell from around 70 to 40 percent. The same is true of other institutions of great importance in the country for society’s wellbeing, such as the parliament and the judiciary.¹

Leaderships are questionable around the world. In Latin America, confidence in government is around 20 percent. In Europe, perceptions differ, from the Netherlands at the top with 71 percent to Greece at the bottom with 13 percent (Pew Research Center, 2017). The distrust of leaders in business firms is also disturbing. Covey (2019) reports that only 49 percent of employees trust their senior management and 28 percent believe CEOs are credible sources of information.

These are demanding times that, as never before, discredit leaders in all fields, across the business sector and political environments. It is a highly challenging situation that negatively affects countries worldwide because effective governments and growing businesses are two critical pillars of national progress and development.

These challenging times for leaders uncover a bright side, stating loud and clear the imperative that the new leaders reach high standards of excellence in behavior, as a necessary condition to bring greater good to people and societies worldwide.

The High Demands of Leadership

Many models proposed in the literature describe the role of leaders. Most focus on relevant skills they must have to be effective. Yet these are magnified descriptions that can hardly be met by any human being. The literature is rich in ideal leadership models (Giles, 2016; Bornstein, 2017; Zaccaro, Kemp and Bader, 2004). The demands are daunting, as seen in Table 1.1. We have grouped the requirements of the ideal leader into five categories: (1) irreproachable morality, (2) trustworthy way of being, (3) competent and active person, (4) inspiring management style, and (5) well-connected person. Suffice it to say that poor perception of leaders’ performance is understandable because hardly any human being can meet all these overblown assumptions.

Table 1.1The Ideal Leader: Main Skills of Leadership Identified in the Literature

Skills of the ideal leader
Irreproachable morality High ethical standards guide behavior, and there is consistency between personal life and life in the organization		• Integrity, honesty, righteousness, probity (doing the right thing) • Sincerity, authenticity (transparency and truthfulness, without duplicity) • Equity, justice (acting with equanimity) • Prudence, moderation (showing measured and thoughtful behavior) • Humility (being respectful, without overpowering) • Perseverance, persistence, resilience, patience, stoicism (facing difficulties without giving up, no complaints, no negative feelings, and maintaining self-control of negative emotions)
Trustworthy way of being There are many ways to achieve this		• Empathic, friendly, outgoing, kind, respectful, generous • Coaching (helps others grow as human beings) • Open-minded (receptive to new ideas and ways of doing things, strives to learn; flexibility to change their opinions, adaptable) • Restraint in the use of power • Self-control
A competent and active person who makes a difference Applies with energy and enthusiasm their competences, skills and abilities and does not fear change, but instead promotes it		• Intellectual competence, analytical capacity, abstract thinking, expert knowledge, wisdom • Problem-identification and problem-solving skills • Negotiation and persuasion skills, conflict management • Orientation to innovation and change: original, intuitive, innovative, creative, does not imitate, willing to take risks • Intensity, energy, strength • Passion, love for what they do, motivation, they put no limits on their effort • Unsatisfie...