The Tongue always Outpaces the Understanding

Most of the people who talk the most about “leadership” don’t know what they’re talking about.

This is not because they are not capable. It is simply because they don’t have to. A buzz-word allows you to talk about things you may know nothing about. If you do know something about it, then you can’t talk about it the way the buzzers do.

There is a difference between a thoughtful response to the question, “What does that mean to you?” and a response that might follow the lines of, “Well, you know, whatever it means to all of the other people who are talking about it.”

This is a fascinating thing about “peopling.” You don’t have to know what you are talking about if you can fall into communication with someone who also doesn’t know. Or, who doesn’t care.

It’s not critical to know what you are talking about. It is only necessary that others not know the difference. The victim is the concept. In this case "leadership.”

If every supervisor who has one subordinate is a “leader,” then it ceases to mean much. If every kid who calls the play in little league is a “leader,” then we’ve mangled its potential meaning. If we assume we are lost without someone to “lead” us, then we are indeed lost.

Short of any real leadership, ignorance and indifference will always win, as history attests. To provide that real leadership, people have to know  what they’re talking about.

How do we recapture a concept that may or may not bear upon human destinies?

Comments

[Jim Stroup]

Hello Lee,

You've touched on a real problem - one that is widespread. Unfortunately, many of the people who toss buzzwords around to establish phony credibility also bemoan the phenomenon - if they notice others complaining about it. What matters is form, not substance, to this type: they're hoping they can use form to conceal a lack of substance.

Thanks for a frank presentation of this issue.

One other thing: you've been tagged! (Please visit here for what that means: http://managingleadership.com/blog/2007/08/06/random-day-1-social-engineering-and-genius/)

[Lee Thayer]

Jim, thanks for your comment. Sorry to be so late in my reply...but, buzzwords function a bit like viruses. If you let one into your thinking, or especially into your communication, you become a carrier, infecting others, and so on.

It seems to me that most people don't know what they're talking about. Talk is cheap. Understanding isn't. Thus, the unconscious choice. The concept of leadership is so mangled, it may no longer be useful for anything except being in fashion linguistically.

Is there any way to salvage it? Or has it become necessary to move to a different concept? My own work is in helping those few CEOs who might be capable of doing so, make high-performance organizations. That requires something beyond "management."

What shall it be called?

[Mary Schmidt]

And, here's the really hard cold truth - some people simply do not have the ability (or intelligence) to be true leaders. I'd like to see more about how to be good followers (that's not the same, however, as "how to be a good doormat.")

Thank you for an excellent, thought-provoking "non-buzzy" post. Now, I really do need to find the time to read your leadership book!