Kouzes & Posner's Five Practices
Exemplary Leadership Starts with Credibility
Authors James Kouzes and Barry Posner say, "Leadership is not about personality; it's about behavior". They prescribe five practices of exemplary leadership.
There are common behaviours that successful leaders display. After studying these systematically for 25 years, James Kouzes and Barry Posner have classified them into five main categories.
The Leadership Challenge Establishes a Leadership Framework
In The Leadership Challenge, authors Kouzes and Posner set out the principles and practices of leadership. Their book is uplifting and engaging as well as instructive. Using many brief stories from the real lives of managers around the world, Kouzes and Posner bring to life the practices they recommend for anyone who wants to develop themselves as a leader.
Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership
The five practices of exemplary leadership are deceptively simple-looking. This raises the question, does leadership have to be complicated? While the problems leaders face today might be challenging and complex, the practice of being a good leader doesn't have to be. In fact, it relies on some very clear ways of behaving.
The Leadership Challenge was preceded by Credibility: How Leaders Gain and Lose It, Why People Demand It. That original idea - credibility - is embedded in everything Kouzes and Posner have to say. To be a good leader, you must be credible.
The Latin root of the word "credible" means "to believe". A credible person is someone we believe in. Credibility is earned through consistency and doing what you say you will do.
With credibility as the essential ingredient of leadership, the five practices of what Kouzes and Posner call "exemplary leadership" are:
- Model the Way
- Inspire a Shared Vision
- Challenge the Process
- Enable Others to Act
- Encourage the Heart.
Ten Commitments to Put the Five Practices to Work
The Leadership Challenge explains and develops the five practices in depth, using evidence from the authors' ongoing research. There are two "commitments", similar to action items, but broader, for each of the five practices, and all of these are neatly set out in a little chart on page 26. If it were as simple as plugging in X action to get Y result there would be no need for further explanations. The lessons of The Leadership Challenge are significant and deep. After all, people are humans, not robots.
The book assumes that humans have the ability to treat each other with respect, and that the best outcomes happen when we do. This is not a text on day to day tactical topics like how to manage difficult people, or how to conduct a performance evaluation. It is about how to think and behave like a leader whom others will want to follow.
For those who seriously want to learn and practice exemplary leadership, a personal commitment to consistently practice the lessons of The Leadership Challenge should be a very effective form of training. The hitch is that the behaviour has to be sincere or the integrity - and therefore the credibility - will be missing.
