What leaders might really be for - the lesson of Sir Philip Dilley

I don't normally comment on current events, but the resignation of Sir Philip Dilley, the Chair of the Environment Agency who was on holiday in Barbados while half the country flooded out over Christmas, has prompted a thought around leadership.

Sir Philip has said in his statement that when he took the three-day-a-week position (that carries a six figure salary) he didn't realise he was going to need to be on call all the time. He has a point. The Environment Agency has a CEO and numerous directors (who are also presumably on substantial salaries) and quite what we would expect a sixty year-old to personally do in the face of such dreadful floods is unclear. The flak he got in the press for daring to take a holiday abroad with his family was unfair and I can see why he would be annoyed enough to quit. Who needs the hassle, when you've got a knighthood and presumably a decent pension from a career at the top in engineering?

But what Sir Philip illustrates is a tendency of public sector leadership that I've noticed in the part of the public sector where I work, namely healthcare. True, the Environment Agency is a little bit different to a large healthcare organisation, but the function he seems to be playing here is similar to what happens to many healthcare CEOs.

I've just completed an MSc module on the psychology of leadership, which has meant I've had to do some reading around the subject from a more scientific viewpoint rather than the usual 'inspirational' material that I normally think of when 'leadership' as a subject is mentioned. I was particularly interested in the idea that leaders emerge in a complex system and this often leads to conflict with leaders who are appointed to positions and given authority.

(Certainly, it's the case that when a person in a leadership position expresses a view in a meeting you will see people slyly look to the person who has emerged as a leader in the group to see what they think. You see this especially with clinicians listening to ideas from executives. They will look and see what Dr X or Nurse Z think about it.)

Healthcare is a complex system, or realistically, several complex systems that intersect and sometimes derail each other. Leaders often compete - for resources if nothing else. Competition is not necessarily to do with ego, just the natural outworking of trying to plan in unplanned systems.

Realistically, you look at some of the massive healthcare organisations out there and you quickly realise that no one person could ever lead such an operation. There is too much unknown and unknowable in the systems - and that's just the systems we know about, let alone the other things pulling strings that we have no real handle on.

So, what is the function of a leader in such a system? Well, on one level, it's to not lead. I have been immensely privileged to meet several healthcare CEOs and pretty much all of them sum up their leadership style as trying to get out of the way of the people who are doing the stuff, and maybe somehow helping to make life easier for them by smoothing down obstacles.

But there's another role for leaders as well. It's to be the person to blame if things go horribly wrong, as Philip Dilley has found out. Removing him does nothing to reverse the devastation of the floods or repair any of the damage, but we have found someone to 'blame'. He has now resigned and someone has paid for the calamity.

The same thing happens in healthcare. Since I started working in the healthcare sector every NHS Wales organisation has had at least one change of CEO. Some have had several.

I deeply respect the CEOs I've met, and have no reason to believe the ones I haven't met aren't just as good. I've known some leaders who have moved on under a cloud. But I think this is nothing to do with their competency or their attitudes. It's just a sad fact that the main role of a CEO is to take the blame if things go wrong and unfortunately the odds seem to be about 50/50 whether something beyond your control will go wrong on your watch. And if it does, it will be hard to stay on.

This might sound incredibly cynical. It's not meant to be. It could well be wrong, but it's just my perspective on leadership, as one of the led.

If you liked this you could read: The missing perspective on leadership

The missing perspective on leadership

I've been interested for a while on writing a book called Leadership by one of the Led. It’s a perspective that doesn't seem to be present in the massive industry that seems to surround leadership as a concept.

Leader Duck Photo: Pedro Ribeiro Simões on Flickr

A while ago I searched for ‘Leadership’ in the Books section of Amazon.com and got back 165,897 results.  So, it seems there is no shortage of information out there. Now admittedly, I didn't look at all 165,897 books. But in the first 20 or so pages, I noticed a couple of trends.

The first is to reveal the secrets of successful leaders. In addition to an opus on ‘Leadership’ written by former Mayor of New York, Rudolph Giuliani, there are books on ‘Dwight Eisenhower's Leadership Lessons’, ‘The Leadership of Muhammad’, ‘The Leadership Secrets of Genghis Khan’, and ‘The Fourfold Leadership of Jesus’.

What do Genghis Khan, Rudolph Giuliani, Dwight Eisenhower, Jesus and Muhammad all have in common? Apparently they had their own unique style of leadership that brought them success – and if you read the books, the subtle promise is that you could have the same sort of impact.

So, one trend is the idea that to be a leader, you have to copy other leaders.

The other trend is to invent a new ‘type’ of leadership, presumably at the suggestion of your publisher to differentiate yourself in the crowded marketplace of leadership books.

So within a few pages of Amazon listings you can learn about Courageous Leadership, Passive Leadership, Primal Leadership, Values-Based Leadership, Tribal Leadership, Fierce Leadership, Effective Leadership, Authentic Leadership, Adaptive Leadership, Liquid Leadership, Brand Leadership, Spiritual Leadership, Quiet Leadership, Resonant Leadership, Relational Leadership, Living Leadership, Servant Leadership, Transformational Leadership, Passionate Leadership, Strategic Leadership, and Turnaround Leadership.

With so many types out there, there must be one to suit just about anyone. The message here seems to be to find the right type for you. (Personally I like the idea of ‘Liquid Leadership’, which in my mind’s eye involves the phrase “Quick! To the bar!”)

And most of those types seem good. You wouldn't want spineless leadership when you can have courageous leadership, or hypocritical instead of authentic, or amoral leadership, or impotent leadership, or dead leadership.

But with all these viewpoints available, it’s fair to ask the question: What could possibly be missing given all that’s been written about leadership?

Well, maybe there is still something else left to say. What about the viewpoint of those who aren't already leaders or trying to become leaders?

It’s as if the ‘led’ have nothing to add to the discussion, even though being one of the led is the vantage point to best assess the success of any leader at the things which are supposed to matter in the world of leadership. It’s easy for leaders to be seen as successful, but hard to know how much of their success is genuinely down to their leadership and how much is down to just plain dumb luck. The led are the people who are most likely to know.

If you have any thoughts on this project I'd really like to hear them.