I have spent nearly 20 years of my life reading, observing as well as teaching leadership and teamwork. That’s all I know. Probably I paint a pretty pathetic picture in a social setting when everyone around me is discussing politics and I appear completely clueless. Give me a dysfunctional organization and I can probably give you a clear diagnostic of what’s wrong along with a blueprint of how to rectify the issues. But can the same skills be used on a macro level i.e. a dysfunctional nation?
Let’s start with the most basic of concepts in leadership – team dynamics and the responsibilities of a leader at various stages of team development.
Stage 1 – Formation or Pseudo Community
Observable Symptoms
- Over enthusiasm on part of the team members
- Focus on ‘niceties’ and being polite
- No goal is too big for them – they can touch the sky
- A picture of cooperation
Reason – the team at this stage is high on motivation but low on competence. They really don’t know what the goal achievement will entail. They are operating with limited information.
A Leader’s Responsibility
- Explain the goal and objectives at length
- Let people know what their role will be in achieving these objectives
- Chalk out the strategy and let the members know of the potential challenges ahead
Result – members start to understand the complexity of the task at hand and what kind of effort will be required on their part. This realization sets the stage for Stage 2.
Stage 2 – Storming or Chaos
Observable Symptoms
- Blaming each other for lack of results
- Passing the buck when it comes to responsibility
- Forming cliques amongst the team
- Talking in innuendos and having veiled discussions
- Blaming the leader for playing favourites
Reason – the team has come face-face with reality and are going through a phase of low motivation and low competence. On the surface it seems like a regression of the team, but this stage must come if the team has any chance of emerging as a strong cohesive unit at the other end.
A Leader’s Responsibility
- Holding the members accountable for their results – regardless of who cooperated or not the person responsible for the task is also accountable for it.
- Keeping the lines of communication open amongst team members – if 2 members have a problem with each other the leader’s job is to get both parties together to discuss and resolve the issue. The leader can mediate but should not devote his/her time to listening to complains from members about their team.
Result – if the leader manages to lead his/her team at this stage then the team moves forward to the next one.
Stage 3 – Norming or Resolution
Observable Symptoms
- The team members have learnt to work with each other and come to realize that they don’t have to ‘love’ their team members, just be able to work with them
- The team will have a tendency to draw attention of the tasks they have done well
- There will be an effort to draw the leader’s attention away from the areas in which they still haven’t been able to produce the desired results.
Reason – the team is currently going through a period of variable motivation and variable competence. They have started to get some success but there are still areas which are proving a challenge to them. Where they succeed their motivation goes up, where they struggle the motivation is still down.
A Leader’s Responsibility
To celebrate the team’s success but keep pushing them to take on further challenges. If the leader become complacent at this stage or lets the team rest on their laurels, the team will slip into a cycle of mediocrity. The leaders actions at this phase propel the teams into the fourth and final stage.
Stage 4 – Performing or Production
Observable Symptoms
- The leader becomes first amongst equals – a figure head who steps in only when the team goes into regression for any reason
- The team members are open and candid about issues
- Conflicts are taken as positively and resolved within the team
- The team has learnt to ‘think together’ i.e be able to arrive at decisions through consensus and candid debate
Reason- the team is now at a stage of high motivation and high competence. They know what to do and are confident of the outcome.
It doesn’t take a keen analytical mind to come to the conclusion that as a nation we are stuck in Stage 2 – Storming or Chaos and this stage is becoming more and more pronounced each day due to the complete lack of leadership. The term ‘political leadership’ has become an oxymoron in our country. We simply have politicians – available in all sizes, small, big, large, XL and XXL. Leadership on the other hand is completely absent in this mix.
In an organization even the worst leader is at the end of the day held accountable for his/her results. No matter how good they are at playing office politics at the end of the day it is their contribution to the organizational goals which leads to their success. The vehicle which drives this accountability is the Performance Appraisal System. Granted in many organizations it doesn’t always perform at its optimum, personal biases, pressure of conforming to the bell curve etc all lead to many disgruntled employees. However it is a tool that by far and large does serve the organization’s purpose when people are trained to use it effectively.
The appraisal system for the democratic government is of course the ballot. However this system seems to have one important column missing – Contribution To The National Goals. The few citizens that chose to use this system (and the numbers dwindle in each election) appraise the candidate on the basis of : a) which party do they hate the most, so its opposition gets the vote, b) which community do the candidates belong to. Most of us however stay at home in the comfort of the knowledge that our physical presence is not really needed, our vote will be cast.
It is no wonder that no political party has ever bothered to take a hard look at its leadership style and try to improve it. At the end of the day we never hold them accountable for their contribution to the nation’s goals and objectives. Perhaps because we really have no idea what our goals are?
We spend so much time in fire-fighting that we really have lost track of where we want to be as a nation in 5 or 10 years time. Any organization which has managed to turn itself around has done so by setting a very clear Vision for itself. This vision then gets translated into Key Performance Indicators which are then further distributed down the line as departmental and individual goals and targets. But does any one of us really have an answer to where we want to see Pakistan in 10 years time? We are great at slogans and rhetoric, but that does not and has not gotten us anywhere.
The day our government develops a vision even a myopic one, I would be happy. But right now it’s the blind leading the blind. The government has no vision, the opposition’s visions is just that – opposition. The people are too tied down with the effort of day-to-day living to be able to take a step back and assess their future.
Only a strong vision can set everything else in motion. It is the start of any good leadership initiative in the corporate sector, everything else stems from it. We as a nation need a unified and strong vision as well, because when people have something to look forward to they are willing to expend inordinate amounts of energy towards its achievement. Even the best of teams succumb to inertia and disintegrate in the absence of a goal.
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