Myth: Everyone Can Be a Leader
By: Selali Onuoha
Tags: Inspiration, Women, Self Improvement, Politics, Leadership

Why the Dearth of Leadership?

In-congruent Beliefs

In the same way that awarding participation trophies-for-all kills initiative and devalues talent — the fallacy of universal leadership ability is terribly toxic.

A couple of disclaimers here to avoid confusion — yes, we all can and should be personal leaders and yes, we should be willing to step into finite leadership positions where we are deemed to be best qualified.

However the aim to nurture inspirational and world-changing leadership — which is sorely needed in these times — should not be sacrificed on the altar of maintaining homogeneity.

In similar vein, the belief that everyone has equal and equivalent propensity for leadership potential is false and ultimately does major harm to society.

Management versus Leadership

“Management consists of controlling a group or a set of entities to accomplish a goal. Leadership refers to an individual’s ability to influence, motivate, and enable others to contribute toward organisational success. Influence and inspiration separate leaders from managers, not power and control” -Harvard Business Review

I have spent the last fourteen years of my life working in corporate settings on three different continents across the world — Africa, Europe, North America. In that time I have made the following observations of the leadership pipelines for big business — I call it the least-effort trajectory:

High performers become managers

All managers are expected to be automatic leaders — in spite often having zero people skills and no training

Why is this a problem?

At its core leadership is about people. Unless you are supervising robots or disembodied beings, technical skill or a high IQ does not automatically translate into good leadership.

Likewise skill in managing a process or technical work-scope does not spontaneously generate the high EQ needed for effective people management.

Managers are great with assigning tasks and supervising towards completion. Leaders focus on consensus building and inspiring people towards a goal. The better we understand the distinctions, the sooner we can maximise the role of each.

The “accepted” face of leadership

Jair Bolsonaro, President of Brazil (Source)

Diversity & Inclusion has been a global buzz word for the last decade. With little tangible results to show for all the focused attention.

Donald J Trump, President of USA (Source)

It’s past time to stop skirting around the root causes of how the problem was created in the first place.

Let’s blow the roof off this echo chamber of reinforcing bigoted views shall we?

The way we end up with endless combinations of all male, pale and stale leadership — boards of directors, expert panels, event speakers — is by accepting this stereotype as a valid template of the ideal.

Only 50% of the world is male but closer to 90% of all leadership roles are occupied by men.

The reason for this is not down to any inherent genetic traits that make men better leaders — research has in fact shown the opposite to be true.

“If women ran every country in the world there would be a general improvement in living standards and outcomes” -Barrack Obama

By picking the majority of our leaders from this narrow sample set of the population, we are left to grapple with the three-fold consequences of our error: