"The majority of those classed as accidential leaders claim leadership was 'thrust upon them'. Their approach tends to be intellectual, rational; they plan and reflect. Their style is characterized by quiet determination. Tone is measured, calm." Henein, Morissette
Based on this description how would you see Accidential Leaders' motivation to leadership? How would they identify with leadership? What would the advantages and disadvantages be of an Accidential Leader type?
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7 comments:
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Kevin Burns
Attitude Speaker/Author of "Your Attitude Sucks - Fixing What's Wrong With Corporate America (Release 11/09).
Calgary, Canada Area
Industry
No one becomes a leader by accident. Leadership is not thrust upon anyone. Leadership is an attitude. It can not be thrust upon you. I can be woken up from laying dormant but no one has leadership thrust upon them.
What can be thrust are tests of one's capability to work through adversity. Maybe the tests are a surprise (but not accidental). One's ability to work through adversity might be a surprise (but not accidental). Discovering one's potential might be a surprise (but not accidental). How one might answer this question might be a surprise to some but certainly not accidental.
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Jill Burcham
JMB Consulting
Location
Greensboro/Winston-Salem, North Carolina Area
Management Consulting
I like Kevin's answer and have to agree that leadership is not an accident ever. I do not agree with the statement that the approach tends to be intellectual.
It has been my experience that people who are put into leadership unexpeditly for what ever circumstance, tend to lead with more heart and are more sensitive to the enviorment in which they are leading. Most of these leaders tend to remember their "roots" and tend to lead with a milder approach and a less self centered attitude.
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Lori Wieters, Ph.D
Owner, Purposeful Leadership Consulting
Phoenix, Arizona Area
Professional Training & Coaching
Accidental Leadership for me refers to those really good "widget workers' (the ones that are informal leaders or experts on their specific tasks) who gets promoted to people leader because they believe that leadership should be the next step for them or they are martyrs and are trying to help the company out. These types of leaders litter our organizations - especially if the organization experienced hypergrowth at any time. These newly promoted 'wideget workers' have no clue that their role is to get the work done through their people via influence and creating a vision for their team. They resort to the behaviors that made them successful - they start doing the job again of processing widgets 70-80% of the time, add on a little management of stuff - typically crisis management kind of things, which leaves very little time for leadership activities. Sadly, once in the role, they tend to fail as a leader or they use so much energy trying to be a leader, they burn out quickly, become resentful, and disengage. Thus, the notion of being 'forced into leadership'. They question becomes, did the organization do a disservice to the employee? The Leadership Pipeling by Ram Charam describes this as a clogged leadership pipeline. This is a great topic to continue to explore. Thanks for posting! Lori
Links:
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/The-Leadership-Pipeline/Ram-Charan/e/97807...
Clarification added 16 hours ago:
Okay - it looks like I got really tired at the end of this response...The spelling errors are terrible - here is what it should say: The question becomes, did the organization do a disservice to the employee? The Leadership Pipeline by Ram Charan describes...didn't see it until it posted. Lori
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Matthew Ziegler
Supervisor Maintenance Operations at US Postal Service
Daytona Beach, Florida Area
Accidental leadership falls into the same category as luck. There is no such thing.
It all comes down to an individual being prepared for an opportunity when it presents itself.
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Som Gollakota
Management Consultant at Mutex Systems
Greater Seattle Area
My $0.02.
There is no such thing as accidental leadership (already said by others). Leadership is not positional. Leadership cannot be forced upon. Now, someone can be forced to be in a position that requires leadership qualities. But leadership is a quality. Leadership is having awareness (of self, of others, and of surroundings), a clear vision of the goal, character that inspires confidence, ability to fire up excitement and rally up people who then choose to follow willingly - the leader. If no one is following, there is no leader. On the flip side, just because people are following doesn't make anyone a leader.
People want to, and willingly follow a true leader. Accidental, forced into the position, or otherwise, if one is a true leader, people will follow - willingly (whether one is in a leadership position or not).
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John Moffat
CEO at Smart-ISO and Founder of Smart-ISO
Southampton, United Kingdom
I think I struggle with the term "accidental" leadership. I'm presuming that something occurs and all of a sudden you're a "leader" and you are surprised by being given that "job/label". There are many who do not recognize or realize that they have "leadership" and do not accept that term for themselves because they do not consider what they do as extraordinary or anything anyone couldn't do. In fact, reading through the definition of an accidental leader I would say it was 180 out.
The best Leaders that I have come across are confident without arrogance, determined without agression, energetic but not frenetic, rational but lateral thinkers, intellectual but down to earth.... and hardly "accidental".
I also think that leadership is more fundamental than attitude - ie it goes much deeper into behaviour patterns and habits... However, habits and behaviours can ganerate a false and dangerous attitude that "I can lead!" and those are often characterized by the opposites of good leadership - irrational, not calm, little planning, no reflection and rarely silent....
In many cases it works by shear weight of personality.
So back to the beginning. I don't believe in "accident" - as was said Luck is "preparation met by opportunity" - creating leadership. I believe people rise to the occassion... however, there are likely many more who don't because they eitehr don't get the opportunity or do not see their talent as anything unusual... to them it isn't..
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Scott Messinger,
Oracle Application Analyst at Atmos Energy
Dallas/Fort Worth Area
I see accidental leaders as people who are driven by conscience. They see something that needs to be done, and no one else is around to get it done, so they take the task upon themselves.
They don’t want to lead, but they see the alternative as worse, so they step up.
Some of them find leadership skills they didn’t know they had, and find some satisfaction in the job. Others can’t wait for someone else better to come along so they can relinquish their control.
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