By Steve Athey
My freshman daughter plays varsity soccer for her high school team and her coach has been considering moving her to another position. At dinner the other night she told her mom and me, “I hope he doesn’t move me to the new position because that position needs a leader...and I am not a leader.” As a parent, any time you get a 14- year-old talking, you want to just listen because it is a rare event indeed. So I sat quietly and tried to understand what she was saying. I have always known my daughter is more of an observer and is rarely “out front” with her opinions and actions so I wasn’t completely surprised by her self-disclosure, but every parent still wants their child to be a leader, don’t they?
Thinking of all the debates about “leaders vs. managers” and whether leaders are “made or born,” I had to ask, “Why can’t you be a leader in that position?” She said to me, “Dad, I can’t take that lead role — I’m a freshman.” To her it was simple; she is not in the position to lead.
We have a little football team here in north Texas that draws a lot of attention. The fans of the Dallas Cowboys have been clamoring for answers about leadership since the team hasn’t won a playoff game in over a decade. The fans believe the quarterback Tony Romo should be that leader — because he is in a position to lead. But what if he can’t?
After another disappointing season last year, Tony Romo was interviewed recently and was asked about his leadership views. Any fan who heard that interview is now really concerned about his ability to lead even though Tony is in the leadership position for the team.
The interviewer asked Tony about the perception that he is “not a leader,” and Tony responded with, “It’s simple. It’s kinda dumb, really (people’s thoughts on leadership). Do you want to know why Michael Jordan was a great leader? Because he won six NBA championships. So then, all of a sudden, he is in people’s faces and he’s a great leader. A great leader is someone who wins.”
Saying Michael Jordon was a great leader because he won championships is like saying Bar Refaeli is a great looking model because she is on the cover of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition. Both thoughts are backwards. Jordon won six championships because of great skill and his leadership ability, and Bar Refaeli is on the cover of Sports Illustrated because she looks good in a bikini— not the other way around.
How do EMS organizations deal with the problem of either having people in a position of leadership that can’t lead or having potential leaders in the organization that aren’t in a position to do so? Once either of those problems becomes evident, it may be too late to do much about it, so it really comes down to identifying the leaders early.
There are those that believe leaders aren’t made or born but that leadership is a choice. How do you know if someone would choose to lead in your organization? Gary Hamel, management author and contributor to the Wall Street Journal and the Harvard Business Review, recently published an article where he confirms that identifying the “formal hierarchy” or those in charge in an organization is easy, but identifying the natural leaders in an organization is far more difficult. Gary offers a number of things you need to know to identify the natural leaders in your organization:
1. Whose advice is sought most often on any particular topic?
2. Who responds most promptly to requests from peers?
3. Whose responses are judged most helpful?
4. Who is most likely to reach across organizational boundaries to aid a colleague?
5. Whose opinions are most valued, internally and externally?
6. Who gets the most kudos from customers?
7. Who’s the most densely connected to other employees?
8. Who’s generating the most buzz outside the company?
9. Who consistently demonstrates real thought leadership?
10. Who seems truly critical to key decisions?
In reviewing this list, I am not sure I agree that all of them show leadership qualities or even leadership potential (who gets the most kudos from customers, for example), but clearly if you had an employee whose name kept coming up when these questions were asked, that would probably be a quality person and a potential leadership candidate. As is normally the case with these types of lists, they seem to be developed with an “office” or “sales organization” in mind. Even though they might work in a retail or manufacturing firm or with a group of employees who are already managers, can these type of guides help identify paramedics, EMTs, dispatchers, and others that may have leadership potential?
That is really an unanswered question, but as I studied this list I was struck by the seventh question — who’s the most densely connected to other employees? I liked the question and the concept and thought this could be an important indicator within the EMS field of leadership potential, as the ability to connect with others is an important criterion; after all, leaders need to have followers. I called a number of colleagues who are operating well-run EMS organizations and asked them, “Which of your employees is the most densely connected to other employees in your firm?” Most answered without a second thought, immediately identifying the person in their organization that was described by the question. I then asked them a series of questions designed to help them describe whether or not this person had any identifiable leadership traits or potential. This is clearly not a scientific study about whether or not question seven can predict leadership skill, but I found the results interesting, and will share them in the next column.
Throughout history, in this industry and others, people in positions to do so have used their “gut feelings” about who gets promoted into leadership positions. Some choices have worked and some have not. Contrasting views between using more scientific methods and continuing to “guess” about leadership choices are being published every day, with no clear answer. In the next column I will share the results of my non-scientific survey and offer a more scientific approach to choosing the right person for leadership roles.
