Many political attack ads focus on opposing candidates’ fitness for leadership roles and any potential faltering in their commitment to key values and policy objectives across time. David Rosch, a professor of agriculture education and an expert on leadership, spoke recently with News Bureau education editor Sharita Forrest about popular perceptions of good leadership and how those standards have changed.
What personal qualities lead us to perceive someone to be an effective leader? And do these traits accurately reflect whether a person will be successful in a leadership role?
We have these traditional views of leadership and the people who embody these qualities. In U.S. society, we think our leaders need to be really confident – to have a confident posture, speak clearly and self-assuredly, and be perceived as knowing what they’re doing and what needs to happen to solve the problems of their organization or community. And they need to be relatively resolute in their goals.
However, these qualities are really only a small part of what represents effective leadership. And while these are the things that most people point to, there are a number of other, more subtle qualities that we look for, too.
Among scholars, there’s relative consensus that successful leaders of private-sector organizations are good at developing relationships. Political candidates, however, face unique challenges in that regard because the majority of their constituents never interact with them personally.
Effective leaders also need to have a good sense of their core values – which should also align with the values of the organization or community they’re leading. They also need to be able to communicate how these values translate into goals that benefit the larger group.
Political leaders and heads of high-profile companies often are criticized if they seem to have changed their stance on key issues or solutions to problems. Is changing one’s mind or approach to a problem indicative of weak leadership?
Effective leaders must be adaptable to external stimuli. In most contexts, being adaptive – changing your mind – is not viewed as a weakness; it’s viewed as a strength. For example, if someone comes up with an idea that’s better than the leader’s, the rest of the group will be watching to see if their leader adapts and improves their approach.
Good leaders need to be able to communicate about the challenges that face their organization or community. In the current U.S. presidential election, for example, there are vast disagreements over which problems are worth solving. Effective leaders have to define problems as skillfully as they solve them.
When we don’t have a personal relationship with someone such as a public official, and all we know about that person is that a rival on TV has called them weak-minded for changing their stance on an issue, it taints our feelings about that person. If they had the opportunity to explain to us in a rational and believable way why they changed their perspective, we most likely would view that change as a strength.
Have societal perceptions of what constitutes effective leadership changed over time in the U.S.?
Very much so. A century ago, if you had asked 100 Americans to draw a picture of an effective leader, they would have drawn someone like Andrew Carnegie, J.D. Rockefeller or President William McKinley – rich white males who headed wildly successful organizations or businesses and were presumed to be good at telling other people what to do.
Even into the 1970s and 1980s, most of the leadership books focused on winning – on overcoming opposition or sticking to your guns. Most of the leadership books out today, however, even the ones written by the same authors who wrote those books 40 years ago, describe the language and behaviors of successful leaders in a vastly different way.
Most leadership scholars today say we need leaders who evolve. We need people who are good at getting to know other people and what their values and goals are, but still retain a sense of themselves and present themselves the same way regardless of the circumstances.
Good leaders are open-minded but also feel strongly about the way the world should work and what needs to be done to achieve that. They’re resolute in their thinking about what should happen, but at the same time they’re adaptive to changing circumstances, differing perspectives and personal experiences that enlighten them or provide new information.
Is being a leader easier or more difficult now than it was 100 years ago?
Leadership is difficult and complex. People who write about leadership say it’s harder now than ever before. We live in an age when we get to see our leaders in situations we would not have had widespread access to before. Anyone can take out a cellphone and start shooting video, for example. We’ve seen public officials and business leaders fall because they’re been shown to be less-than-truthful in their public moments, and we’re noticing more now when they mess up.
Editor’s note: To contact David Rosch, call 217-244-2134; email dmrosch@illinois.edu
