Every organization has people who are by job description leaders, but actually do very little leading. Their days are filled with meetings, appointments with other leaders, and a lot of other “stuff” that has nothing to do with leading. Does this sound familiar with any place you have ever worked? I had an assignment a few years back where I was a General Manager of a contract manufacturing facility with locations in Texas and California. The CEO of this company decided that I would spend every other week at each location. Even though I was being paid to be the leader of both organizations I was only at each location 26 weeks of the year and was not actually leading either for much of the time.
Even though I was absent from both of the organizations half of the time they still flourished. They experienced remarkable growth and it was not because my leadership skills were so great. The reality is that every organization has silent leaders. That is to say there are leaders in every organization getting things done behind the scenes. I know you have seen these people in your organizations, and you might even be the silent leader for your group.
In 2003 Ken Johnson wrote The Role of Leadership in Organizational Integrity and Five Models of Ethical Leadership for the Ethics and Policy Integration Centre. In this article he discussed five different modes of ethical leadership and two of those modes, Inspiration and Facilitation, are essential to developing silent leaders in your organization. Ken describes Inspiration as “setting the example so that other committed members will contribute their fullest capabilities to achieve organizational purposes.” He describes Facilitation as “supporting other committed members, and guiding them where necessary, so they are able to contribute their capabilities as fully as possible.”
Are you doing everything you can as a leader to inspire and facilitate the people you lead? I would like to hear of some of the things you are doing in this area, and if you feel you could use a little help doing this better I hope you take some time in the next few weeks to see where you can improve. I know I have a lot of work to do in my journey to be a better leader.
Have a great week!
