How not to be an autocratic leader

The autocratic leaders tell people what to do, issue orders and expect to be obeyed. They say it is acceptable to use an autocratic style of leadership in some situations: in case of emergency, military service and when only the leader can make the decision. For example, only the leader can decide who to hire, fire and promote. If the alternative of being autocratic is participative leadership, then it is clear that employees in most organizations do not have a say in what they are paid or which of them is promoted.

Faced with reality, however, we must recognize that the autocratic leader is a dinosaur in modern organizations, particularly those that compete on the basis of rapid innovation. Here, the ability to develop new ideas is the most important source of power, not the old-style ability to dominate a group.

Many people aspire to leadership roles because it gives them the power to call the shots, to have the final say in important decisions. People who like to dominate others have strong autocratic tendencies. These leaders have been aware and have big egos. Making decisions and having them jump other gives a thrill. The problem is that the complexity of modern and rapidly evolving, but they have neutered the traditional leader of men. The conventional leader responsible for a group of highly skilled knowledge workers has become a kind of eunuch. For the sake of appearances, we have moved the goal posts, redefining leadership as a facilitator, coaching, recognizing that the leader is no longer possible to determine the direction.

Primitive Leadership

Once it was all over the autocratic leadership. When we were ruled by kings and emperors, saw themselves as having a "divine right" to tell everyone what to do, on pain of death. Even more primitive than that, all the higher animals organize themselves into hierarchies with a single dominant (usually male) at the top. There are people of lower level might challenge the supreme leader unless they were prepared to put their life on the line in a power struggle.

Paternalistic leadership

Even in modern organizations, our concept of the effective leader is very close to our image as a good father. We look up to leaders who have strong personalities, who know what they are doing and take care of us - all qualities that we associate with the parental figures. Research has shown that people's anxiety in groups where no one person is the leader or when the person who is not as strong and secure as we would like. So, we have not really left our primitive animal nature very far behind. We can put up with the technical or functional experts as a leader in high-tech activities, provided they know their stuff, but in the political field, we are still very old. We want our leaders to live up to our ideal of a perfect father. Even the leader of the female must have male qualities to be accepted by the followers of men.

Modern Leadership

Today, the leadership still has some primitive elements and paternalistic. Now expect that the people responsible of us to respect our views and to involve us in making important decisions. But we still tend to prefer one person to be in overall charge and we want the person to live up to certain ideals paternalistic. This form of leadership, however, is breaking down because there is a conflict between the desire for leaders who know what they are doing and the reality of the modern complex and rapidly evolving. The most common way to fudge this situation means that the leadership does not mean to call the shots, instead of saying that it means being a good facilitator and coach.

Thought Leadership

An emerging trend is to base the leadership is not in place, but on its ability to develop and promote new ideas for better products. This leadership is no longer to be the top dog, but is more like the creativity, breakthrough act. In this perspective, the person is primarily responsible for a manager not a leader. We still look to parental figures, we just need to stop calling their leaders.

Thought Leadership can be demonstrated by all employees. In a meeting, you can pass from one person to another and vice versa. Good ideas can not be monopolized, in difference to have a dominant personality, which is a relatively permanent. We need to see leadership as the ability to successfully promote a better way to challenge the status quo and get others on board to take a new direction.

Such leadership is not a position or a set of responsibility, unlike management that is very much a role. Managers who act as facilitators, mediators, catalysts and coaches are mostly working as managers, not leaders. This is a radical change of perspective, but is essential if we hope to deal with the complexity of modern and rapidly changing .......