What kind of leader are you?

By Wisdom Kwame Nuworkpor FCCA, ICA, MBA

A young executive was recently promoted into a supervisory role and he was so excited that he “had been made” a leader.  His exact words were: “thank you for making me a leader”.  What he didn’t know was that, he had in fact gotten himself a position which begins his leadership journey. 

Leadership is a journey and so taking up a supervisory role does not automatically make you a leader.  John Maxwell¹ refers to this kind of leadership as the basic stage of the leadership journey.  This is true because any person can be given a position. Does that make him a leader? Certainly not.  In fact, it is the worst kind of leadership level anyone should remain at.   

In his book “5 levels of leadership”, John Maxwell describes the 5 stages of leadership.  These are Position, Permission, Production, People Development and Pinnacle. The chart below represents the 5 levels of leadership.

Over the next few weeks, we shall be looking at each of the 5 levels of leadership.  In view of this, for today, let us take a look at the very first and basic level of leadership

Level 1 – Position

Position leadership is the lowest level on the leadership hierarchy.  Here, people follow you because they ought to and not because they want to. It is a right assigned to the role.  This kind of leader does not have a team.  Instead, he has subordinates and the relationship here is thus boss-subordinate. 

Position leaders have no influence (except that provided by the authority that comes with the role).  As such, position leaders use the authority vested in them by the position to get the job done.   This kind of leadership depends on regulations, policies, rules, organisational charts and operates within strict boundaries.  There is therefore no motivation for subordinates to go the extra mile. 

It is very easy to identify a team led by a position leader.  Some common habits usually exhibited are:

1. Subordinates are mostly average performers.  They eagerly check the clock waiting for the hour hand to tick at the top of the hour (say 5:00pm) and voila, they are on their way home.
2. The leader hardly appreciates the feelings of the subordinates and so you hear comments from subordinates such as; “my boss doesn’t care about my feelings”.
3. The number one reason for people leaving such organisations is; the leader.

Clearly the position leadership stage should not be the preferred destination of any leader.  It is therefore very important to aim at moving up the ladder to the next level of the leadership hierarchy.  John Maxwell refers to this stage as Permission.  This is the stage at which people follow you because they really want to do so.  We shall be looking at this stage in my next article. 

Please keep your feedback coming through for they are important to me.

References: 

¹ John C. Maxwell (2011), 5 levels of Leadership