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Unnatural Leadership: Going Against Intuition and Experience to Develop Ten New Leadership Instincts by David L. Dotlich and Peter C. Cairo Rating: •• (Mildly Recommended)
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Buzz Things that don’t come naturally aren’t necessarily unnatural acts, but David Dotlich and Peter Cairo selected a catchy title for their new book: Unnatural Leadership. They selected the following ten behaviors based on what they think effective leaders actually do, and that are hard for managers to put into practice because they run against intuition and instinct: 1. Refuse to be a prisoner of experience 2. expose your vulnerabilities 3. acknowledge your shadow side 4. develop a right-versus-right decision-making mentality 5. create teams that create discomfort 6. trust others before they earn it 7. coach and teach rather than lead and inspire 8. connect instead of create 9. give up some control 10. challenge the conventional wisdom Throughout Unnatural Leadership, the authors present a dozen or so pages on each area, then end a chapter with worksheets to fill out, and suggestions for steps someone could take to develop further as an unnatural leader for that behavioral area. I found Unnatural Leadership long on the what, and short on the how. The buzzwords began to hum too loudly in my ears as I read on, and suggestions that came across as hallow began to gnaw on me. Here’s an excerpt (p.164) from the chapter “Trust Others Before They Earn It”: “Alliances Joint ventures and partnerships have become the preferred way to spread risk, share expertise, amortize future costs, and divide capital expenditures among competitors. In every industry, especially capital-intensive ones, market leaders have established global joint ventures. These new alliances often demand that people from very different cultures and with different philosophies trust each other. In some instances, these new allies were former competitors and have to overcome years of distrust. Leaders need to get past their tendency to divide the world into us-versus-them and start extending trust to partners who look, act, and lead differently. The Technological Remove In an increasingly virtual world, we are missing the nonverbal cues that we relied on as precursors to extending trust. Leaders would unconsciously absorb the voice tone, facial expression, appearance, and other cues to determine if someone really could be trusted. Leaders would express their judgment in simple terms: ‘He’s a good guy,’ or ‘She’s all right.’ Today, how can you trust someone without the reassurance offered by face-to-face interaction? The real question, however, is how can you not trust someone when so much work gets done virtually? Leaders must work to develop a comfort level with people they never see and communicate with primarily on-line. Without this trust, the free-flowing, rapid exchange of information and ideas will not occur on-line.” Assume for a moment that you agree with the authors and want to get past your “tendency to divide the world into us-versus-them and start extending trust to partners who look, act, and lead differently.” How would you do that? Beats me, and you won’t fund the answer in Unnatural Leadership. Assume again for a moment that you agree with the authors and decide you “must work to develop a comfort level with people they never see and communicate with primarily on-line.” How would you do that? Beats me again, and neither of us will find the answer on the pages of Unnatural Leadership. I awarded two stars to the book only because I like their emphasis on coaching, and agree with a lot of their ideas. Decide for yourself, but go into this book eyes open that you won’t learn much about how to achieve what you want to do differently. Steve Hopkins, October 30, 2002
ã 2002 Hopkins and Company, LLC The recommendation rating for this book appeared in the December 2002 issue of Executive Times For Reprint Permission, Contact: Hopkins & Company, LLC • 723 North Kenilworth Avenue • Oak Park, IL 60302 Phone: 708-466-4650 • Fax: 708-386-8687 E-mail: books@hopkinsandcompany.com www.hopkinsandcompany.com