Making Sense of Leadership: Exploring the Five Key Roles Used by Effective Leaders

Citation

Baxter, B. (2011), "Making Sense of Leadership: Exploring the Five Key Roles Used by Effective Leaders", Journal of European Industrial Training, Vol. 35 No. 1, pp. 106-108. https://doi.org/10.1108/03090591111095763

1 Book synopsis

“This Book is a heartfelt attempt to encourage people who want to be better leaders to play a bit more” (p. ix). The book sets out to identify the different roles that Leaders will need to play in a changing environment. It attempts to encourage us to internalise play out these roles. The authors draw from Adair, Belbin, Berris Covey and others – the kind of thing that leaders do and the competencies they have. They then draw out “The things successful leaders pay attention to”. And from these, identify what they see as five key roles that leaders need to play in order to succeed.

Following the Introduction where the roles are identified the book is divided into four main parts:

1. 1.

   Understanding the five roles – where each role is examined in detail.

2. 2.

   The research – outlines various conclusions on the use of the roles drawn from some 83 questionnaires and also how these roles could be used in particular change scenarios.

3. 3.

   Expanding your role repertoire – a self‐help section which encourages the reader to do a self assessment and provides exercises to be carried out to improve your playing of a particular role.

4. 4.

   Resources for developing others – provides a few exercises for use in groups and some explanation of how the roles can be used by those in different positions within an organisation.

The epilogue encourages us all to “Consciously choose the nature of the role we play” (p. 199).

2 Evaluation

At first glance this book appeared to be just another take on the theme of the many books that attempt to provide managers a quick fix that will transform their ability to succeed. However, first impressions are not necessarily a good guide. In fact the authors use much of the good thinking and conclusions of others into discovering what good leaders do and to drawing out the necessary competencies to help develop a different approach. From this they draw out the areas that “Leaders pay attention to”: discomfort; but in; connectivity; projects and design. They then assign these to five quite specific roles:

1. 1.

   The edgy catalyst – Who asks difficult question and focuses on the discomfort that is essential to change.

2. 2.

   The visionary motivator who encourages us to “… move towards a brighter future” and focuses on buy in.

3. 3.

   The measured connector who calls us to “Get together and take time to focus on this” and focuses on connectivity.

4. 4.

   The tenacious implementor whose pet phrase is “Just follow the plan and we'll get this done” and who focuses on projects.

5. 5.

   The thoughtful architect who want to “explain the key concepts and frameworks and focuses on design.

“The ideas in this book may seem simple and obvious” (p. ix) however most good ideas seem that way after someone has spent a lot of effort working them out. The way the roles are defined is clear and helpful and from the start almost like a good novel sucks you into wanting to be like that. The idea that different situations and different people require a particular approach may be obvious but working out which approach to take has always been the hard part.

While the chapter on each of the roles is clear where this book excels is in its use of behavioural examples. The authors, like many others, use names which inspire, but are too distant to emulate, such as: Sugar; Branson; Gates and Dell from Business; Ghandi; Blair; Clinton; Brown; and Reagan from politics, and others from sport and public service. These, however, are to a large extent balanced by examples from anonymous managers, school teachers etc. who are more likely to provide clues for the senior and middle managers, and others who are faced with a leadership challenge for the first time. The balance is probably still to far towards the heavyweights but the intention is good.

This helpfulness is also increased in the section on research. While the first chapter left me cold, and to be honest a bit confused (probably more due to my statistical in‐expertise than the authors clarity), the second chapter provides a very helpful chart (p. 113) which advises on how the roles should be balanced in particular situations. The notes on each situation are also helpful although I did leave them wanting a little bit more meat.

The fourth part of the book on expanding your repertoire provides a whole series of exercises to assess and help the reader develop each of the roles they will need. While the self‐assessment does seem a bit laborious, the benefit of the effort would seem to be essential to beginning to develop the role later on. In each role there is an opportunity to further assess whether you are likely to perform well in the role. When I took the two lowest scores from the first exercise and redid them, in the more specific exercises I found that while one agreed with the overall assessment the other was totally the reverse. That said the advice on how to improve seems very helpful.

The chapter on roles in action, which aims to look “at how the five leadership roles can be used from a range of positions in the organizational hierarchy” was probably the most disappointing in the book, while the comments are again helpful, and the idea an excellent one, the detail and volume of help needed to encourage the theory into practice is, I think, a little lacking.

Would I recommend this book to others? Overall, the answer I think is yes, but I would want to be careful in those I choose, or if the person worked for me, find ways to discuss and mentor the implementation.

3 In the authors' own words

When Disney staff step into the park they step into the role they play, the role of entertainer. When employees from a mobile phone business step out of the stock room and into the shop, they are stepping into a role – professional, courteous, considerate. When you take on the role of leadership you are stepping into a role as well. The ethos of this book is that you need to consciously choose the nature of the role you play (p. 199).

We believe that discovering these roles offers an important guide to the new leader, who is then more able to shape his or her own leadership approach according to the situation and personality. It can also provide an interesting challenge to the existing leader who wants to refresh his or her stance in order to tackle new situations (p. 4).

A Reviewer's details

Bob Baxter has worked as a Manager and Management Consultant in a number of industry sectors, including: telecommunications; utility supply; insurance; and IT. Based in the UK, Bob currently advises Reed Consulting in Bangladesh, which is c corporate and social responsibility consulting practice.