The Leadership of John Adair

How do people who develop managers, develop themselves?

I 'do' management development and Leadership for a living, so I have a responsibility to keep up to date. However, in February I got the chance to look back at the way Leadership development has changed!

I went to an event to meet John Adair, organised by the Institute of Leadership and Management (ILM). Adair is something of a founding father of management development, and an advocate of 'Action Centred Leadership'. In 1979 John became the world’s first Professor of Leadership Studies at the University of Surrey. Today, at the age of 78 he is running Leadership programmes for the UN.

He told us that in 1968 there were no meaningful Leadership programmes anywhere in the world. Leadership was thought to be “in the genes”. It was “male, military and western”. By 2012 spend on Leadership in the UK stood at 1 billion pounds.

This shift was brought about by the level of change in the workplace and globalisation.  

Change requires leadership!

Adair posed an interesting question:

“Why is one person accepted by a group as a leader, rather than another?”

Part of the answer seems to be that Leadership is tribal!  In other words the Leader manifests the traits expected by the group.  For example in the military – courage.  In nursing – compassion.

This set me thinking! I've worked in some modern organisations where leaders do not necessarily represent the traits or qualities of the staff. One example is the NHS - leadership in the NHS is quite 'managerial'. Senior medics are very 'professional' and the staff are... well, perhaps that's another blog!

 Adair's ideas about leadership do still have relevance and some sectors (the military for example) still apply them enthusiastically. However, I came away wondering, if you're a modern organisation, subjected to ceaseless change, does being 'Action Centred' actually provide comprehensive answers?

Maybe not! I think I'll go away and re-read Beverly Alimo-Metcalf's stuff on Transformational Leadership...

~ John