Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

I take a first attempt at explaining a different concept of leadership. The potential follower sees good in the life of another person. What are you doing that brings that? I want to do that as well.

There are many models, concepts, and explanations of leadership. A few are:

Leadership by Example: See what I am doing? Do as I do.

Leadership by Walking Around: I see what you are doing. I encourage what I see as good.

Now, let’s try this one. At this time I will call it Leadership by Observed Benefit.

I see another person experiencing a good life in one aspect or another. Perhaps they are joyously, not happily but joyously, married. That is the observed benefit. I ask the person what he does to have such a joyous marriage. The person tells me. I start practicing that. Hence, I am following the person’s practices. The person is practicing leadership.

This is different from attending a seminar where a person tells me all the things I should do to have a joyous marriage. During the day or hour of a seminar, I do not observe the joyous marriage of the person.

This is drastically different from a person chiding me with the precepts of a joyous marriage. “Do this or else…”

Here is one example of leadership from observed benefit from my life. For a few years I had the privilege of attending seminars and conferences held and attended by the late consultant and author Jerry Weinberg.

Weinberg was remarkably good at (among other things) analyzing a system, understanding it, and recommending improvements (the observed benefit). In one way or another over time, I asked him what he did that made him so good at that. One thing he practiced was journaling (google that word for a few million posts about how to do it and why it is a good practice). I had not heard of that practice. When I looked into it, I didn’t like it. Nevertheless, here was a person who could do something I wanted to do. That person practiced journaling and stated that it greatly helped him do what I wanted to do.

I wanted the observed benefit bad enough to swallow and do what the other person did.

I followed the other person’s walk to the benefit—leadership.

This example has worked for me. I may not be remarkably good at systems analysis, but I am remarkably better than I was.

Notice that Weinberg did not sit in front of a seminar and write in a journal (leadership by example). Weinberg did not walk around the room while attendees were attempting systems analysis and nod approval at those who were doing a form of journaling (leadership by walking around). Weinberg did not lecture on the benefits of journaling (if you pulled him aside and asked, he would give some examples). And Weinberg certainly did not chide or “guilt” others into journaling.

Also notice that journaling is not directly part of systems analysis. It is a practice that indirectly leads to better systems analysis. That is another key part of this concept. There are things, often hidden, that the leader practices to lead to the observed benefit.

I could give other examples of how I observed benefit in others, learned something they did, and practiced it myself. I could give many more examples of lecturing, chiding, and other things that chased persons from otherwise good practices. Too bad that the bad examples outnumber the good, but that has been my experience.

Perhaps as time passes this concept will take better form and description.