It is common thinking that leaders are the bold risk takers or in other words they are heroes. Although such figures are admirable, Joseph Badaracco argues that their larger-than-life achievements are not what make the world work. He says, is the sum of millions of small yet significant decisions that individuals working far from the others make every day. Badaracco calls them "quiet leaders", people who choose conscientious, behind-the-scenes action over public heroism to resolve tough leadership challenges. Quiet leaders don't fit the stereotype of the bold leader, and they don't want to be. What they want is to do the "right thing" for people, organizations, their colleagues, and themselves, but inconspicuously and without casualties. Drawing from extensive research, Badaracco have described eight practical yet counter-intuitive guidelines for situations in which right and wrong seem like moving targets. Compelling stories illustrate how these "nonheroes" succeed by managing their political capital, buying themselves time, bending the rules, and more. Leading Quietly shows how patient, everyday efforts can add up to a better society and a better company.
This book is the culmination of a four year study of leadership exhibited by modest individuals who are probably more concerned with doing the right things than doing things right. The author suggests that most of us look at people in terms of a pyramid. At the top of the pyramid are the great leaders who act boldly, set examples for us, and considerably influence other people. At the base of the pyramid are cowards, who inspire no one and change nothing. The vast majority of managers fall into the middle. They are simply ordinary people who collectively make a monumental impact on society. They don't tackle strategic or critical situations. Rather, they solve every day, practical problems that appear relatively routine and ordinary. This book provides countless examples of these low-profile managers who take care of business while taking care of themselves and their colleagues.
The first chapter, for example, urges people facing difficult problems to recognize they may have little control over the situation. The next chapter explains why, in difficult situations, managers should expect their motives to be mixed. Subsequent chapters follow pragmatic guidance. For instance, the author suggests that managers count their political capital and spent it wisely. Likewise, managers are advised to "buy time" before making decisions that could get them in trouble. In other words, they are urged to examine the political scenario and search effectively for creative ways to solve problems. Bending the rules, the author contends, may be appropriate. Rather than moving aggressively to solve a problem, managers should nudge, or escalate incrementally. Finally, the author suggests that managers seek compromise solutions to problems. The advice offered to managers in this book is indeed unorthodox. Conventional wisdom urges managers to tackle difficult problems quickly and forcefully, to avoid compromise if it leads to wrong decisions, and to avoid the playing of politics. Nevertheless, "Leading Quietly" offers food for thought.
Don’t Kid Yourself
The main four guiding principles in this chapter is to help manager that they maintain a realistic view of the world, specially themselves;
● You don't know everything.
● You will be surprised.
● Keep an eye on the insiders.
● Trust, but cut the cards
Quiet leaders are realists; they see the world as it is, and, in the process, tend to have similar ways of viewing their professional environment. They identify that anything can happen and, in doing business, people and events can surprise, dismay and astonish. Things can turn out to be better or worse than expected, requiring leaders to move carefully and seize opportunities while they can. Quiet leaders view the world as a kaleidoscope, rather than a fixed target or a well-organized environment; self-interest, shortsightedness often stumbles together with loyalty, commitment and integrity. The churning is continuous, driven by forces as far-reaching as the global economy, or as personal as human nature.
Buy a Little Time
When faced with a challenge, effective leaders rarely rush forward with “The Answer”; instead, they often look for ways to beg, borrow and steal a little time.
They recognize the positive effects time can have on a difficult situation:
● It lets turbulent waters settle and clarify, giving people the opportunity to discuss their situations with others and think things through on their own.
● It gives people a chance to assess their real obligations, giving sound instincts a chance to emerge.
● It gives people the opportunity to observe and learn, understand the subtleties of interaction and look for patters and opportunities in the flow of events. The dynamic, unpredictable nature of our times often makes it impossible to instantly design answers for fluid, multi-faceted problems. You don’t want to miss the options, nuances, contingencies, ripple effects or pitfalls that might have greater effect on you further down the line; buying time gives you the chance to see all those things, by creating a zone before you make a decision or take action.
How to Buy Time
Buying time sometimes means playing some basic organizational games, taking steps to delay action, dissipate pressure, or divert the attention of superiors who might be breathing down your neck. No one views these games as the ideal ways to deal with problems; at best, they are a second or third option. But responsible managers recognize the need, on occasion, to play these games to buy the time required to make the right decision.
Games Managers Play
The games that managers play fall into two categories: quick fixes and strategic stalling.
Quick fixes are the small things that enable you to delay something or someone. They involve few risks, and buy just a little time, but they can be effective. They might include the following:
● “The server has been losing my e-mails.”
● “Look, I’m late for another meeting.”
In most cases, these tactics also have the advantage of being true or close enough to the truth; most people are indeed busy, for example, and computers are notoriously unreliable. Strategic stalling involves tactics that buy large amounts of time — increasing the challenge and level of risk proportionally. In such cases, the rationale for a significant delay should be substantive and should look like and be something that an effective manager would do in a particular situation. Some typical strategic stalling techniques include the following:
● Get the Staff Involved. Ask for a meeting with a staff members outside your normal operations, human resources, e.g. to learn about the policies, procedures, or processes that must be addressed in order to proceed with a course of action.
● Dot I’s and Cross T’s. Once you understand the full set of requirements and procedures you must follow to complete a task, you should begin to comply with them, slowly, carefully, bureaucratically, asking questions along the way, just to ensure you’re getting things right.
● Scenario Planning. Make sure you’re considering all possible scenarios, evaluating all options, gathering all relevant data, putting contingency plans into place and getting the right people involved. Such planning tactics can add copious amounts of time to any effort.
● Communicate by Pony Express. Select slower means of communication, such as face-to-face meetings, using regular (“snail”) mail rather than voicemail, voicemail rather than e-mail. Make sure all steps you take in the process are documented, under the guise of protecting the company against further hassles, lawsuits and the like.
Invest Wisely
Before effective leaders get involved in risky or uncertain efforts, they check to see just how much political capital they have — an intangible entity consisting mainly of the person’s reputation and relationships at work, the perception others have of that person. When quiet leaders take action on a difficult problem, they pay close attention to how much of this intangible capital they are risking and the likely returns on their investment. Quiet leaders know that problems that seem simple and familiar are sometimes risky and complicated; hence, before they put their political capital at risk, they think about those risks and the possible rewards, considering what course of action would have the greatest possible impact with the least risk and cost. In the best case, doing what they feel is right will improve their reputations and relationships.
Three Key Questions
The risk-return approach involves asking and answering three questions:
● How much political capital do I have in the bank?
This question is not easily answered, because political capital is so intangible, and so often not connected with the quality of one’s work (how many merely adequate workers get advancements over better-qualified counterparts, simply because they have a stronger reputation?). Your reputation is enhanced by getting consistently excellent results, and by getting them the right way — by being a team player, “playing the game,” and avoiding moral grandstanding.
● How much political capital am I placing at risk?
Does the situation require that you stake your reputation on something, or risk losing face in front of your peers and/or superiors? Do others have their reputations or relationships on the line, or in some way connected to the decisions you make? The answers to these questions help leaders determine how much effort to inject into a course of action, or how loudly to speak against or in favor of something.
● What are the likely rewards, for others and myself?
This question asks people to think clearly and specifically about the returns they are seeking on their investment. This means one must make choices and set priorities, just as investors have to choose between short-term and long-term stocks, or between risky, high potential stocks and more stable, secure ones. This question is largely a matter of probabilities— how likely are you to achieve what you’re setting out to accomplish? How complicated are the motives and actions of others involved in the situation, and how likely are they to be amenable to your actions? Unfortunately, the complexities and obscurities of organizational life can sometimes make the answer to this question difficult.
Drill Down
Something important is missing from most stories of heroic leadership: the technological and bureaucratic complexity that pervades life and work today. The absence of this attribute simplifies the stories we hear, making them more vivid and powerful at the cost of realism and relevance. All around us, life and work are rapidly subdividing into ever more focused spheres of specialty. Because of these developments, people working in organizations face problems made more complex by technological, bureaucratic and legal issues. Under these conditions, stories of heroic endeavors are of little use to leaders; the basic need isn’t to call for courage, moral vision, or the corporate ideas but it is to understand what is really going on.
Four Guidelines
Quiet leaders know that moral commitment and high principles are no substitute for immersion in the complexities of a particular situation — they recognize that a responsible effort to execute their duties as decision makers can only happen when they possess the specialized knowledge required to inform those efforts. They drill down into complex problems, using four basic guidelines:
● They remember their responsibilities. Complexities cannot obscure responsibilities; corporate and political history is rife with people who use complexities to hide their own nefarious actions. For people with sound ethics, complexity creates another problem: it can lead to fatigue and confusion. Sorting out complicated issues is draining work, and often places greater responsibilities on the ones who delve deeper into the issues (since they are likely the only ones who understand it in any great detail). Ironically, this responsibility often leads to further complexity. When a problem is complicated and technical, it is tempting to think that the solution lies somewhere in the details — if only you could find the right formula or read the fine print correctly all would be well. However, once you grasp the full realm of complex issues inherent to a situation, you must still make choices and/or commitments, then take action. Understanding alone does not relieve you of that responsibility.
● They work hard and continuously. Drilling down can be hard work. Understanding complexities in technological, bureaucratic or legal matters may require gaining valuable perspectives from experts in other areas. It may require taking your knowledge and your need to other, higher, layers of leadership in your company. It may require revisiting ideas or policies you already know, or reinterpreting them in new contexts. Drilling down can cause a leader to be obsessive, a trait that often enables people to bore deeply into complicated, intimidating problems and emerge with ways of seeing things that they never anticipated.
● They enlist the assistance of others. Effective leaders avoid the impulse to be a hero and resolve complex problems on their own. No amount of obsessive behavior can substitute for training, experience and expertise. People with training and experience simply know more about particular problems; they also tend to have a “feel” for problems, an intuitive sense of what is really happening and how to search for answers.
● They are not afraid to back off. Sometimes a problem is so complex that no amount of reflection, analysis, or consultation can provide a solid basis for action. In these cases, the responsible thing for leaders to do is to wait, buy more time and try to get the problem into the right hands. This is not another way of saying leaders should shirk their responsibilities; it is, quite simply, common sense. If you’re in over your head, do not be afraid to back off.
Are You Over Your Head?
Some signs that you might be in over your head include the following: * Consultation leads nowhere. When your experts can’t agree about what’s going on and what can be done, you must proceed with extreme caution. * Inability to simplify an issue. The odds of succeeding at almost anything are much lower if you cannot break a problem down into simple, easily understood issues or facts. * Conflicting instincts. When you are pulled one way and then another on an issue, barreling forward is the wrong thing to do. * The last piece doesn’t fit. If you have a detail that simply will not be resolved on its own, make sure you get it nailed down before proceeding.
Bend the Rules
Bending the rules isn’t something we associate with responsible leadership; real leaders, according to the conventional view, obey the law and play by the rules, because they see it as their duty and it sets the right example for others in their organization. Day-to-day life situations are, however, often more complicated, revealing cases in which strict adherence to the rules may do more harm than good.
Seize Opportunities
Because the world is ambiguous and uncertain, quiet leaders must respond in a particular way. They typically are reluctant to break the rules, but they don’t want to obey them mechanically and cause harm. In these instances, they look for imaginative or creative ways to bend the rules without breaking them. When they find a way to bend the rules, they seize the opportunity and use it to uphold their values and commitments. They all tend to follow a certain set of guidelines:
● They take rules very seriously. When quiet leaders find themselves in complex ethical dilemmas, they follow two modes of thought. One tells them to take the rules very seriously, and the other tells them to look for ways to follow the spirit of the rules while simultaneously bending them. While less ethical people cast rules aside, quiet leaders obey them because of their strong moral weight. They also know the consequences of violating rules, and avoid violations in order to protect their reputations, networks and career prospects.
● They look for “wiggle room.” Quiet leaders realize that following rules sometimes can have harmful results, so they try hard to find some room to maneuver, doing so within the boundaries set by the rules. Life seldom presents challenges and problems in the form of stark, either-or choices. Yet, rules also provide security, a needed commodity in certain stressful situations. In these cases, it takes courage and determination to find that “wiggle room” and do the right thing, even though it may mean bending a set policy or guideline.
● They practice entrepreneurial ethics. Sometimes, following either guideline can present a leader with problems. Some people in leadership positions hide behind rules, evading responsibility by taking the rules too seriously. For quiet leaders, taking the rules seriously doesn’t mean treating them as a paint-by-numbers exercise. When things get complicated, quiet leaders take initiative, trust their creativity and work hard to create room to maneuver. They approach ethical problems as entrepreneurs, not clerks, enabling them to address the multiple levels and deep intricacies of many day-to-day problems.
Nudge, Test and Escalate Gradually
Despite their best, most careful efforts (such as drilling down or checking how much political capital they have), a leader’s commitment to solving a problem might lead them into situations in which the path ahead is far from clear, leaving them with no choice but to improvise to find a solution. This means finding ways to nudge, test and carefully escalate their efforts. Instead of trying to crack the case, they look for ways to work the problem.
Prudence and Modesty
There are several reasons quiet leaders take this approach. One of them is prudence — they would rather not risk their careers and reputations by betting all their political capital at once. Another reason is modesty — quiet leaders often do not believe they are smart enough to answer difficult questions solely by thinking about them, so they drill down, gather facts, perform analysis and look for creative ways to find room to maneuver. In fluid situations with many contingencies, the solutions to problems aren’t always readily apparent. In these cases, successful leadership depends on learning, and learning, in turn, involves taking the right small steps, getting a sense of the flow of events, hazards to be avoided and opportunities they can exploit. Testing and escalating gradually are often the best and fastest ways to make the world a better place. At some point, however, patient escalation must come to an end, and choices must be made. Even when the moment of choice arrives, quiet leaders continue to avoid taking strong stands, preferring instead to craft compromises that work.
Craft a Compromise
When principles are at stake, compromise is morally suspect; it smacks of mutual back scratching and the transactions of politicians and lobbyists in smoky rooms. People with strong values don’t wheel and deal on matters of principle and deep conviction. The ethical problem with compromise is that it seems to be basically a matter of splitting the difference, as a salesperson and a customer would in a negotiation over a product (each side has a starting offer, from which they negotiate a deal somewhere between the two points). When important principles are at stake, however, such an approach seems wrong; people should, in other words, do the right thing, not half of it. Quiet leaders accept this view of fundamental moral principles, but they don’t find it particularly useful in most situations. They know there are times when matters are clear-cut and a basic principle must be defended; in these cases, most men and women will draw lines they will not, under any circumstances, cross. Quiet leaders view these approaches as last resorts, because they view compromise in a different light. They regard them as challenges to their imagination and ingenuity and as occasions for hard, serious work. They believe that crafting a compromise is often a valuable opportunity to learn and exercise practical wisdom, and to defend and express important values in enduring, practical ways. The other guidelines that quiet leaders follow are all critical steps toward this final goal of developing workable, responsible ways to resolve everyday ethical problems. Crafting a compromise is often the best way to do this.
Four Critical Factors
There are four critical factors toward achieving compromise:
● Pragmatism.
The first guideline of quiet leadership — “Don’t Kid Yourself” — applies when forging a compromise. In any given situation, there might be a wide range of uncertainties, risks and interests between you and the party or parties at the other end of the compromise. Recognize these things and prepare to deal with them.
● Honesty about conflicting motives.
Responsible compromises begin with courageous honesty, and this honesty often reveals conflicts of feelings and interests within a person’s heart. These conflicts can create biases and preconceptions and, as a result, they must be addressed and overcome. Such conflicts can also help people understand, fully and realistically, the problems they confront. This knowledge keeps people from sweeping way the complexities of a problem and succumbing to an oversimplified, one-sided cure.
● Refusal to accept either-or choices.
Quiet leaders recognize the ethical stakes in the situations they face, but they move beyond thinking about their situations in purely ethical terms and see them in another light as challenges to their imagination, managerial skills and ability to navigate difficult.
● Rethinking, reimagining and recasting.
Compromises sometimes hinge on a leader’s ability to get involved parties to see the situation from a different angle, and to use that new line of vision as the basis for redefining the issue and achieving compromise. When Abraham Lincoln gave his famous Peoria speech against extending slavery to free territories in the United States, he recast the entire issue of slavery, moving it from the ethical plane to the economic one, opposing it as an unfair competitive practice rather than a morally wrong action. By recasting the issue and avoiding an either-or moral presentation of it, he achieved buy-in from a core economic constituency, thus enabling him to push toward winning the moral battle.