Lighthouse Leadership Revisited

“Sometimes, amidst of all the wars,
All you need to become is
The lighthouse not the sword.”

— Akshay Vasuor

Early in my consulting career, I was introduced to the leadership study of Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner, authors of The Leadership Challenge – How to make extraordinary things happen in organizations. Their 5 competencies of exemplary leaders were the first framework for my practice. Kouzes and Posner maintained their passion for leadership and continued their research. The result of which is seven editions of their original book and the creation of many other books which delve more deeply into the 5 abilities. Their research explorations explain how to develop these abilities individually, in groups, and as an organization. Their focus is to create the capacity for leadership at all levels and within all individuals who chose to develop and assert leadership.

The work of Kouzes and Posner challenged many of the previously held tenants of leadership theory. Jim and Barry and their research discovered that leadership is a set of observable and learnable skills that anyone who has the desire can acquire. Leadership is not anointed or determined by your title — it is behavioral. Together, they codified a set of essential competencies and behaviors that contribute to exemplary leadership. I have been striving to live into those behaviors for my entire career and have worked to grow the same capacity in each of my client organizations and volunteer commitments.

I am passionate about leadership. I believe wholeheartedly that leadership is the most important — but not the only — ingredient in the recipe for creating a healthy, high-performing, sustainable, organizational culture.

When there is a lack of character and competent leadership, the risk is that something else will fill the void.

As we enter the fifth year of recovery from the pandemic, where the landscape of our workplaces is dramatically changed, a large chunk of the leadership within organizations has exited due to retirement and other factors. The result is that we are collectively challenged economically, environmentally, socially, politically, and organizationally at local, national, and international levels. I am feeling the need to revisit the tenants of Kouzes and Posner’s research to ground myself in the fundamentals of leadership behavior.

May I share them with you today?

Based on research, Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner codified a set of practices that contribute to individuals becoming their best selves and leaderlike. The five exemplary practices are:

Leaders Model the Way

Specifically, modeling the way includes choosing your response, acting clearly to your values, creating space for others to understand, act, and align values-based behavior, offering and receiving feedback, taking responsibility for your actions, being transparent in standards and expectations, fostering consensus and common ground, and following through on promises.

Leaders Inspire a Shared Vision

The important word in this practice is Shared. The power of co-creating aspirations for the future of an individual’ s role/contribution, team and organization serve as the inspiration to strive and persist past the hardships and challenges. When we develop and share the articulation of a vision for a brighter future, individuals move towards that horizon under their own motivations. Visioning is compelling. Facilitating it collectively unleashes energy into an organization. Keeping the vision front and center is essential. Celebrating advances the vision and maintains momentum.

Leaders Challenge the Process

Leadership is essential in good times and bad times. The absence of leadership might contribute to the benign neglect of human needs within the organizational system. When the situation challenges the livelihood of the organization, or if we have allowed it to drift or not attended to the need, it is time to Challenge the Process. Exemplary leaders assert the ability to communicate the need for change without dictating or scaring the workforce constituents but, instead productively challenge the status quo and communicate the need for action.

Leaders Enable Others to Act

Not everyone is visionary; or able to hold a big picture or understand the fullness of the system and complexity. Most of our workforce strive to do what is asked and shoulder their piece of the larger picture. Exemplary leaders cultivate talent. As in the work of Jim Collin’s research in his book Good to Great, leaders identify and put the right people in the right seats on the bus. Leaders break the big and sometime overwhelming initiatives into smaller segments and give responsibility to others to join in pulling the organization in the right direction. Enabling others to act is to find, develop, and position contributors in sharing the responsibility and joy of working a vision greater than themselves.

Leaders Encourage the Heart

This practice had been absent from most leadership theory in the beginning of my career. Leadership was dominated by male models of behavior. Society did not encourage men to source their feelings or express the power of love in their leadership. Kouzes and Posner challenged this and found in their research that fear, and love are powerful motivators. The first creates motion and movement yet undermines the foundation of trust and loyalty; yet, the use of force has been a managerial tool for ages. Love of one’s work, of the organization’s mission, of the contributions of the individual dedicated to the cause is not the love of romance but the deep, respectful, emotional source of caring that supports being able to do the right thing in the hardest situations and maintaining the health of the relationships involved. It requires that one understands what they are feeling and then the assertion of self-control in expressing those feelings effectively to all.

Daniel Goleman codified this in the framework of Emotional Intelligence that builds upon the behaviors that Kouzes and Posner discovered in their research. Leaders unafraid of having and expressing feelings can tap into the power of positive regard, recognition, and gratitude to build a climate where others want to always give their best. I am grateful that the research by Jim and Barry put a spotlight on the power of heart-felt expression contributing to a more human experience in the workplace.

• Which of these five practices is your strength and contribution?

• What does your team and/or organization need from you right now?

• What practice could you devote more time and energy to developing that would be in service of you, your role, and your organization?

• Could you use this framework to guide you through 2025 and coach others to be successful?

• What does this framework and conversation stir up in you?

On the snowy, cold, quiet Sunday morning when I started to write about the use of metaphors in creating and communicating change effectively, I was drawn back to the Leadership Challenge framework that put me on my career journey. I recognize its importance in my development and the need I have to return to it with greater intention.

I write blogs as a gift to each of you to spark some reflection that might help you through your week. This morning. the gift was given to me in the rediscovery of a roadmap that I need to navigate these times.

Writing is a ‘sense-making’ device for me that slows me down, fosters introspection, and discovers the common ground in most situations. Thank you for appreciating and supporting my writing and sharing your own stories and universal lessons with me.

I feel more prepared for the week having had this time to reflect and share.

May you find your path and your leadership ‘chops’ in all that you do. May you stand tall like a lighthouse shedding light in the darkness, aiding others in making safe passage.