a general sat by an Indian River and
contemplated his soldiers betrayal their
adoration had turned to sullen silence
angry shouts meetly how could this
happen
they’d loved him all his life followed
him because of that love and now they
just wanted to go home
the year was 327 BC the general was
Alexander king of Macedon known to
posterity as Alexander the Great and the
limitations of authoritarian and
charismatic leadership had just been
demonstrated on a truly epic scale
there’s still a myth that leaders are
born and not made it’s certainly true
that leadership comes more easily to
some people than others if you’re an
Alexander leadership probably being part
of your identity for as long as you can
remember but leadership isn’t just about
you it can’t be it has to be about your
followers too because by definition
psychology’s also looked mainly at the
leader themselves or personality traits
and behaviors my fields might lansky so
I’m more interested in how a leadership
identity affects a leader and their
followers if you can be confident and
motivated in your leadership persona and
if you can make those around you
confident and motivated you can be a
good leader regardless of whether or not
you were born with so-called leadership
traits twenty years of actual corporate
experience proves to me beyond a doubt
in building up the people around you you
build up your own leadership identity
and recently social psychologists
provided some academic bones to this
argument with the work of professors
Ryker hustling and plateau providing
that identity leadership can reach the
path that other methods cannot reach
being a really excellent leader requires
three things a group identity that
people can share and leadership identity
that they can follow and being able to
build people up to positively develop
their own identities seeing yourself as
a leader isn’t enough
I still see examples of the old
authoritarian leader who needs to
micromanage and can’t take any input I
think most us realized by now that that
doesn’t make for a comfortable
environment charismatic leadership
worked well for certain entrepreneurs
and yet you can only carry people on
charisma if they share your vision
transformational leadership has two
problems firstly people come in and
implement change for changes sake
there’s a lot of truth in the old adage
if it’s not broken don’t fix it change
makes people on easy it can be costly
and it doesn’t always deliver anything
better than was there in the first place
and it’s often implemented too quickly
and too sweepingly leading to a
disconnect between people and process I
think identities the key to
transformation if you want to
successfully lead a company a department
or a team you have to be seen as a
member of it not above or a part the
worst organizational breakdowns happen
where there’s a big disconnect between
leadership another staff back in the
seventies tosh Ville and Turner were
already showing with their social
identity theory that we humans like to
categorize people into groups and label
them in grief or out grief just seeing
someone is out grief can be enough to
cause miss chest and hostility if you
want people to follow you they have to
see you as in-group what’s more they
have to see you as an exemplar of angry
as demonstrating to a high degree the
values and the abilities of the group
that your rep
sensei and finally they have to see you
as acting for the benefit of the
in-group not for your own benefit or the
benefit of an out grave
Alexander found this out when his troops
meet the man they’d followed was the
king of Macedon a soldier a warrior who
dwell complain speaking from his man
Alexander ruler of the Persian Empire
surrounded by respectful acolytes and
expecting the same subservience from
them wasn’t the leader they knew he’d
become out-group he was still a leader
modern business has many parallels the
reason that pay gap between top and
bottom earners in a company has such an
effect on productivity is that it
accentuates the in-group out-group
divide the reason that teams become
disconnected from their managers is that
they’re seen as a mouthpiece of the
management rather than a member of the
team with shared goals and values the
reason that staff become disengaged is
they don’t understand their own part in
the vision and mission of the company
which should be getting communicated
down through the organization this
brings us to the second part of identity
leadership creating a shared group
identity I’ve said that a leader needs
to be an exemplar of the in-group but
that doesn’t mean that you have to take
the group identity as you find it part
of the job of the leader is creating the
group of identity with its shared goals
and values a really good leader will
create the group identity build the
vision and make their people a part of
Alexander built a vision around the
greatness of Macedon
traditionally the city-states of ancient
Greece had seen Macedonians as
uncivilized barbarians Alexander built a
vision of Macedon is respected and
powerful and successful but the Greek
identity fell apart when the beliefs and
values that made up the group changed
because he hadn’t sold a new vision or
taking his people with him into the new
group identity I see this happen when
international companies take over local
ones when big corporates buy out smaller
companies when hotshot executives come
into traditional industries or young
leaders into an old-fashioned company
what they have to offer could be hugely
positive but the existing self resists
it because they haven’t been sold the
vision or brought into the new group
identity so that brings us on to the
final point empowerment and motivation
some managers still tell me that money’s
people’s primary motivator that is a
fallacy money is just what hertzberg
called a hygiene factor source of
dissatisfaction when there’s not enough
of it but a very poor motivator what
motivates people is feeling good about
themselves feeling successful feeling as
if their skills are being used and
they’re appreciated so your job as a
leader is to make all of those things
happen how we see ourselves is called a
self representation and it’s made up of
multiple self aspects which are all the
different roles that we have in life one
of those self aspects will be self at
work and it will have multiple beliefs
associated with it some positive some
negative and all made up from
experiences that we’ve had that doesn’t
mean that they’re all at
so you may have an employee that thinks
they’re useless at something because
they once failed at it who thinks you
don’t like them because they’re really
bad at taking criticism or who thinks
they’re absolutely fabulous at something
that they really have no skill at at all
and your job as a leader is twofold
because they’ll have emotions associated
with all of these beliefs and they’ll
act accordingly firstly you need to
understand what those beliefs are and
then you need to work with them and
provide evidence for and against to
build them up and beliefs that are
realistic but also that are supportive
and helpful to them and then when they
understand and you understand where they
actually are now you need to work with
them to help them to develop so if they
need more responsibility and a chance to
shine then give it to them if they lack
confidence then support them and guide
them and let their confidence build up
and acknowledge their successes
reinforce everything positive that you
can because being a leader isn’t about
the leader as such it’s about being a
leader as a leader of followers and your
success as a leader shines out in them
and the results that they get for your
company rather than in you Alexander was
born a leader and he instinctively knew
how to do all of these things how to
make a leadership identity people could
follow a group identity they could share
and how to inspire and motivate people
and yet even he failed in the end
because he thought leadership was all
about him and he didn’t understand it’s
a group effort a joint enterprise in an
increasingly automated world successful
leaders will be those who understand
that people aren’t Human Resources
people are your partners in a success of
your business and they’re the ones that
will make your leadership happen thank
you [Applause]
contemplated his soldiers betrayal their
adoration had turned to sullen silence
angry shouts meetly how could this
happen
they’d loved him all his life followed
him because of that love and now they
just wanted to go home
the year was 327 BC the general was
Alexander king of Macedon known to
posterity as Alexander the Great and the
limitations of authoritarian and
charismatic leadership had just been
demonstrated on a truly epic scale
there’s still a myth that leaders are
born and not made it’s certainly true
that leadership comes more easily to
some people than others if you’re an
Alexander leadership probably being part
of your identity for as long as you can
remember but leadership isn’t just about
you it can’t be it has to be about your
followers too because by definition
psychology’s also looked mainly at the
leader themselves or personality traits
and behaviors my fields might lansky so
I’m more interested in how a leadership
identity affects a leader and their
followers if you can be confident and
motivated in your leadership persona and
if you can make those around you
confident and motivated you can be a
good leader regardless of whether or not
you were born with so-called leadership
traits twenty years of actual corporate
experience proves to me beyond a doubt
in building up the people around you you
build up your own leadership identity
and recently social psychologists
provided some academic bones to this
argument with the work of professors
Ryker hustling and plateau providing
that identity leadership can reach the
path that other methods cannot reach
being a really excellent leader requires
three things a group identity that
people can share and leadership identity
that they can follow and being able to
build people up to positively develop
their own identities seeing yourself as
a leader isn’t enough
I still see examples of the old
authoritarian leader who needs to
micromanage and can’t take any input I
think most us realized by now that that
doesn’t make for a comfortable
environment charismatic leadership
worked well for certain entrepreneurs
and yet you can only carry people on
charisma if they share your vision
transformational leadership has two
problems firstly people come in and
implement change for changes sake
there’s a lot of truth in the old adage
if it’s not broken don’t fix it change
makes people on easy it can be costly
and it doesn’t always deliver anything
better than was there in the first place
and it’s often implemented too quickly
and too sweepingly leading to a
disconnect between people and process I
think identities the key to
transformation if you want to
successfully lead a company a department
or a team you have to be seen as a
member of it not above or a part the
worst organizational breakdowns happen
where there’s a big disconnect between
leadership another staff back in the
seventies tosh Ville and Turner were
already showing with their social
identity theory that we humans like to
categorize people into groups and label
them in grief or out grief just seeing
someone is out grief can be enough to
cause miss chest and hostility if you
want people to follow you they have to
see you as in-group what’s more they
have to see you as an exemplar of angry
as demonstrating to a high degree the
values and the abilities of the group
that your rep
sensei and finally they have to see you
as acting for the benefit of the
in-group not for your own benefit or the
benefit of an out grave
Alexander found this out when his troops
meet the man they’d followed was the
king of Macedon a soldier a warrior who
dwell complain speaking from his man
Alexander ruler of the Persian Empire
surrounded by respectful acolytes and
expecting the same subservience from
them wasn’t the leader they knew he’d
become out-group he was still a leader
modern business has many parallels the
reason that pay gap between top and
bottom earners in a company has such an
effect on productivity is that it
accentuates the in-group out-group
divide the reason that teams become
disconnected from their managers is that
they’re seen as a mouthpiece of the
management rather than a member of the
team with shared goals and values the
reason that staff become disengaged is
they don’t understand their own part in
the vision and mission of the company
which should be getting communicated
down through the organization this
brings us to the second part of identity
leadership creating a shared group
identity I’ve said that a leader needs
to be an exemplar of the in-group but
that doesn’t mean that you have to take
the group identity as you find it part
of the job of the leader is creating the
group of identity with its shared goals
and values a really good leader will
create the group identity build the
vision and make their people a part of
Alexander built a vision around the
greatness of Macedon
traditionally the city-states of ancient
Greece had seen Macedonians as
uncivilized barbarians Alexander built a
vision of Macedon is respected and
powerful and successful but the Greek
identity fell apart when the beliefs and
values that made up the group changed
because he hadn’t sold a new vision or
taking his people with him into the new
group identity I see this happen when
international companies take over local
ones when big corporates buy out smaller
companies when hotshot executives come
into traditional industries or young
leaders into an old-fashioned company
what they have to offer could be hugely
positive but the existing self resists
it because they haven’t been sold the
vision or brought into the new group
identity so that brings us on to the
final point empowerment and motivation
some managers still tell me that money’s
people’s primary motivator that is a
fallacy money is just what hertzberg
called a hygiene factor source of
dissatisfaction when there’s not enough
of it but a very poor motivator what
motivates people is feeling good about
themselves feeling successful feeling as
if their skills are being used and
they’re appreciated so your job as a
leader is to make all of those things
happen how we see ourselves is called a
self representation and it’s made up of
multiple self aspects which are all the
different roles that we have in life one
of those self aspects will be self at
work and it will have multiple beliefs
associated with it some positive some
negative and all made up from
experiences that we’ve had that doesn’t
mean that they’re all at
so you may have an employee that thinks
they’re useless at something because
they once failed at it who thinks you
don’t like them because they’re really
bad at taking criticism or who thinks
they’re absolutely fabulous at something
that they really have no skill at at all
and your job as a leader is twofold
because they’ll have emotions associated
with all of these beliefs and they’ll
act accordingly firstly you need to
understand what those beliefs are and
then you need to work with them and
provide evidence for and against to
build them up and beliefs that are
realistic but also that are supportive
and helpful to them and then when they
understand and you understand where they
actually are now you need to work with
them to help them to develop so if they
need more responsibility and a chance to
shine then give it to them if they lack
confidence then support them and guide
them and let their confidence build up
and acknowledge their successes
reinforce everything positive that you
can because being a leader isn’t about
the leader as such it’s about being a
leader as a leader of followers and your
success as a leader shines out in them
and the results that they get for your
company rather than in you Alexander was
born a leader and he instinctively knew
how to do all of these things how to
make a leadership identity people could
follow a group identity they could share
and how to inspire and motivate people
and yet even he failed in the end
because he thought leadership was all
about him and he didn’t understand it’s
a group effort a joint enterprise in an
increasingly automated world successful
leaders will be those who understand
that people aren’t Human Resources
people are your partners in a success of
your business and they’re the ones that
will make your leadership happen thank
you [Applause]
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