by Peter A. Arthur-Smith, Leadership Solutions, Inc.®

“A leader…is like a shepherd. He stays behind the flock, letting the most nimble go out ahead, whereupon the others follow, not realizing all along they are being directed from behind.” Nelson Mandela, former President of South Africa.

Leaders grow from the bottom up

Mandela’s deep truth is still largely ignored when we think of people leader-ship. So many executives still believe it’s their role to lead from the front – follow my lead. Enlightened leaders know this is a false assumption; certainly if we’re serious about engaging our people. But how do we make that transition?

One of the early leadership lessons this writer experienced regarding this topic was as a young lieutenant in the British Army. He was with a patrol of soldiers on the North Yorkshire moors in England. It was a bitterly cold, moonlit night. Their unit was looking to capture green berets acting as enemy combatants, wherever they could find them.

At one point, a patrol member spotted what appeared to be a human silhouette less than 100 yards away. Suddenly all the patrol members fell-in behind their lieutenant. He took the bait and stealthily led his men – out front – to discover that the silhouette was in fact the remains of a tree on their lane’s embankment. It stood out like a sinister form against the skyline. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief.

Later on, after the patrol had ended, this young lieutenant reflected upon their earlier enemy-scouting encounter. While he understood the knee-jerk reaction of his men to fall behind their leader, he assumed they probably weren’t so proud of their default reaction later on. This brought to mind his training at officer school and, in particular, the presence of a large contingent of Kenyan officer cadets who were unwittingly taught to lead from the front.

When asked why so many of them were attending officer school, the Kenyans referred to the high attrition rate among their fellow officers on Kenya’s war front with Sudan at that time. Fellow cadets in England were trained to move forward the moment they received battle orders, no matter the degree of danger. Back home, Kenyan soldiers were given rudimentary military training prior to being transferred to the war front. A Kenyan soldier’s natural thinking was more about survival and not getting shot. So, when Kenyan units were ordered to move forward into battle, the only ones that initially did so were the English trained Kenyan officers. The attrition rate became rather severe.

Although most executives have not been militarized, both they and their people expect leadership to be implemented from the front. This was likely further reinforced by the mass mobilization of two world wars, where participants expected their officers or non-commissioned officers, more often than not, to lead the charge. This was particularly true of WWI where the average war-front life of a young lieutenant was two days. Officer casualties during the American civil war, especially at Gettysburg, were atrocious; especially among the generals.

And so anyone bound for a leadership role has to think seriously about Mandela’s quote.  Many times it’s quite instinctive for young team leaders to beckon, “Follow me.” While their people find this convenient, in hindsight they learn nothing by following in blind obedience and also think less of themselves for doing so. Hence one of the key early lessons of young team leaders is to figure out how to stimulate their people to take the lead instead; especially as their people feel so much better about themselves when that happens.

Your writer subsequently thought long and hard about his Yorkshire moor experience.  What could they have done differently in the circumstances, despite potential danger? They could have immediately taken cover in the adjacent ditch – all dozen of them. By huddling close together, with 2-3 crouching on guard, they could have whispered among themselves with their young lieutenant taking the lead. Who’s going to volunteer to act as cover for everyone; pinning the possible enemy down? Which volunteer-pairs will take a skirmishing role and outflank the possible enemy on both sides? Who will act as reinforcement-pairs to the skirmishing-pairs? Count to three; then move out.

They would have found out what the original patrol found out. It was a false alarm, but it was better to hold ones ground rather than be sorry. At the same time, the soldiers would have learned a valuable lesson in taking a lead and would have felt proud of themselves, too. In fact, this young lieutenant humbled himself enough to share this alternative approach with some patrol members he found later on. They seemed to forgive him, in view of his humility.

Enlightened leaders (ELs) are highly mindful of their team leadership role. How to gather their people around them and brainstorm optimum solutions to gain their maximum buy-in on what needs to be accomplished. Once ELs notice the flash of understanding in their people’s eyes, the itchiness to move forward and engage; they then empower them to move ahead. This is a critical step for a team leader to learn: transferring some leadership from themselves to their people.

Once the chosen project or activities have been accomplished, ELs will usually take the time to re-gather or revisit with their team members to review outcomes. If their people are successful, this will be acknowledged in an appropriate way by their EL and everyone moves forward once more. If less than successful, then they regroup and revise their approach for another attempt until successful. By reviewing events afterward and complimenting success, leaders take back a degree of leadership from their empowered members, before they launch them back into their next empowered challenge.

The adjacent pictogram illustrates the key differences in mode between an enlightened team leader and a traditional supervisor. It’s presented in the form of a staircase, so as to demonstrate how a team leader’s skill set is built from the bottom-up, in the same way that people and plant life grows from the bottom-up. In contrast, a supervisor’s skill set is framed from the top-down.

So your take-aways from this article are likely to be:

» Forget leading from the front. Focus instead on inspiring your people to take the lead on their opportunities and assignments.

» Allow your people to think for themselves and work them in pairs wherever possible.

»Ensure you circle back to acknowledge their successes; rework their strategy to try again where things fall short.

» Be mindful of their well-being and safety at every turn.

To learn more about workplace people engagement, talk with: