By Kyle Smith, International Development Department
School of Government, University of Birmingham
Being a leader is a special thing. People often look up to you for advice, guidance, perspective, experience and expertise, and they hold you to account if you don’t get it right. That all sounds a little complicated for me (and quite high pressured) – so what’s in it for the leaders? Do they do it all for success, because it makes them feel good, or because they want to do the ‘right’ thing for their followers?
There are lots of training programmes available for leaders and non-leaders to access, but is everyone a leader? I don’t think so, but everyone does have an opportunity to lead themselves and the choices they make.
We know that leaders come in all shapes and sizes with their own values and ideas about how society should work. The ESRC festival, hosted by the University of Birmingham, will explore the future of our society through the month of November. But I would like to find out, is there such a thing as an ideal leader? Or do we judge a leader based on our own personal values and opinions? A recent study conducted by the Developmental Leadership Program (DLP) in Indonesia proved that when individual followers were more aligned to the identity of their leader, they were more likely to vote for them and to support them in their leadership activity when compared with if the leaders and followers had contrasting identities.
You might ask, what if the leader wasn’t very good or made poor choices, especially when those choices were not in the interests of the people – their followership? I was surprised to find out the success or failure of a leader didn’t have a significant impact on the support they received from their followers. Essentially, you could be a poor leader who is aligned with the identity of your followers, and you would still receive support. Identity trumps ability.
So does this change the way we see our local leaders here in the UK? Maybe it does. I was thinking about the leaders who I have looked up to and what made them stand out to me. Was it because of their experience, gender, race, background, leadership style, presentation skills, etc.?
The leaders I looked up to the most were the individuals who had similar experiences or values to me. I had made subconscious and sometimes conscious choices to align myself and be inspired by someone who had walked a path I wanted to walk. This made me think about how many of these individuals were local, how many were ‘celebrities’ and how many of them I had followed for a long time.
Overall, the leaders I followed changed as I changed. I had been inspired by Jess Phillips MP knocking on my door to inform me of the local policy that she wanted to change, which to me demonstrated a commitment to doing the best for her community. I had been inspired by Michelle Farmer at the Prince’s Trust for role modelling collective leadership in a large organisation, and many years ago I had been inspired by my drama teachers for putting in the hours to make sure we had enough rehearsal time. My values and identity over time have changed, and so did the leaders I wanted to support.
In DLP’s Build-A-Leader workshop on 7th November, we are planning to test out this theory in a local context. Using Birmingham citizens of all ages and across the Birmingham demographic, we are going to look at values and identity, and construct the vision of our idea of a local Birmingham leader. To make sure we stay true to the leadership landscape in Birmingham, we have three experienced leaders who will share their perspective of leadership.
Who do you envision when you think of your local leaders? What’s the image that comes into your mind? Would you change it? Come and join us on 7th November 2019 at The Prince’s Trust, Birmingham to build your own leader.
This event is supported by the Economic and Social Research Council.