Leadership is central to the success of every organization, and yet the failure rate of senior leaders throughout the Western world is staggeringly high. Hardly a week passes without reports of some executive who has stepped down, or been removed, from a leadership position.

In addition, we notice that senior managers are frequently concerned that many of their first and mid-level managers are ineffective people leaders. The problem they describe is that many managers lack the necessary skills and mind-set to successfully lead their teams for high performance. This is reflected in the concern that HR Managers often have for fairly average results from employee engagement or climate surveys in their organizations.

Given that the subject of leadership has been studied and written about for hundreds of years, how can this be?

Your Motivation Type is ImportantThe reality is that some people are more cut out to be leaders than others. One person who’s had a significant impact on understanding the dynamics involved is psychologist David McClelland, whose work at Harvard University spanned 20 years.

Approximately half a century ago McClelland put forward his acquired-needs theory in which he proposed that a person’s specific motivations are acquired over time and are shaped by their life experiences. His work identified that most of these motivations can be classified as either achievement, affiliation or power needs. A person’s effectiveness in their job is influenced by which one of these three motivation types is dominant in them.

People with a high need for achievement seek to excel, and prefer work that has realistic goals and a moderate probability of success. They prefer to work alone or with other high achievers.

Those with a high affiliation motivation need friendly relationships with other people and need to feel accepted by people. They tend to conform to the norms of their work group and are team players. They prefer work that provides significant personal interaction.

People with a power motivation need to be influential, effective and able to make an impact. As it happens, a person’s need for power can be one of two types – personal and social. Those who need personal power want to direct others. People who need social power want to organize the efforts of others to further the goals of their organization.

All three motivation types are present in all of us. Nevertheless, depending on each person’s personality, one of them is dominant.

What You Need to Be an Effective LeaderObviously a high affiliation motivation undermines a manager’s objectivity, because of their need to be liked. This affects the decision-making capability of managers. While people with a high affiliation motivation might love the idea of running their own team, they will never do so effectively because of this need to be accepted by the team. To put them into a leadership role is a recipe for disaster.

Achievement motivated people can be the backbone of any organization. People with a high need for achievement get ahead because they get things done. However, in a leadership role their success depends not so much on their own work but on the work of others. Since they are highly job-orientated and work to their capacity, they tend to expect others to do the same. As a result, they sometimes lack the human skills and patience necessary for being an effective leader. Such people are frequently promoted, and then fail to perform to what was thought to be their potential. They are promoted because they’re good technicians. They get the work done exceptionally well. And so they expect great things of others. But when others don’t perform, instead of leading them effectively they can start to take over the work and do it themselves.

McClelland discovered that the dominant motivator of an effective or successful leader tends to be power. Contrary to what you might think, a good leader is not one who needs personal success or who is people orientated, but one who likes power. A strong power motive – the desire to have impact, to be strong and influential – is essential to good management and leadership.

The Source of PowerA strong power motivation produces a determined work ethic and commitment to the organization. But it can have a downside. High power motivation, without anything to counterbalance it, can generate high levels of aggression and competition. If this is focussed within the organization (rather than against competitors in the marketplace) it can be counter-productive. So ultimately it is a high power motivation, balanced with strong achievement motivation, which is most likely to win the day.

Whatever the balance, a real problem is that many leaders simply do not understand the source of their power. One reason for this is that power – wanting it, having it and using it – has a negative connotation. Most people associate power with the dark side of human nature; with autocratic and dictatorial personalities. So, either people avoid being power orientated or they act inappropriately.

The truth is, a person who believes that power is the ability to compel obedience has restricted ability to accomplish what’s required. A more appropriate definition of power is the capacity to produce an effect. It’s the effect that they have on their people that determines for leaders what level of power they have to accomplish great things.

While the leader exercises power, the source of that power resides with their people. Only when team members act at the leader’s request do you see power being welded. The failure of many competent people has come about because they believe that power flows in the opposite direction. Such leaders tell their people what to do and how do it, and then believe they are in control. This is not the way it really is.

The reality is that you cannot exercise power over someone who chooses not to work for you. So long as people in your team provide the same amount of effort as other team members, you have no way of forcing them to perform at higher levels. There are in fact legal constraints on your ability to force compliance. Further, the word compliance suggests minimal levels of effort. In the end, the frequent use of force exposes a significant deficiency in a leader.

This is true even in command and control structures such as the military. Military leaders who ignore the well-being, concerns and aspirations of their troops must spend enormous amounts of time and effort simply keeping them in combat. For example, in 2004 a survey of US Army soldiers in Iraq found that nearly 75% of troops reported that their battalion-level command leadership was poor and showed a lack of concern for their soldiers. As a result, unit cohesion was reported to be low, 52% of soldiers reported that their morale was low, and 70% said that the morale of their fellow soldiers was low or very low. The problems were most pronounced among lower-ranking troops – the guys who do the actual combat work.

Leadership is Not About YouThe real secret of success as a leader is getting your people to want to give their best. It’s all about them, not all about you. When you recognise and measure the effect of your actions on your people, you gain knowledge about what you must change so that you can have a different impact. By observing the behaviour and reaction of your people to your interaction with them, you can progressively develop your leadership skills.

For more information on how Brava's Effective Leadership expertise can help you and your organization, contact Blair Stevenson, CEO on +64 (0)9 623 3662