Jim Heskett of the Harvard Business School writes an occasional post under the rubric, "What do you think?" on Harvard's weekly newsletter from the B school. In his latest, he asked a question that generated a huge number of comments and a significant amount of disagreement.
The gist of the issue was in response to business guru, Warren Bennis' revision of his major book on leadership (a book I'd recommend to every professional). The issue was this: Are some leaders able to navigate a managerial life without being authentic to their organizations or to themselves? In fact, are there times when it is necessary to avoid being authentic?
After reading through others' comments, I found that my response was so outside of the box, that I thought I'd share it with my readers and ask for their comments. Here it is:
Bennis' comment that this is a difficult question with no easy answers is spot on. Gen-Yers and their elders often struggle with the issue in the workplace. Responding to widespread popular wisdom, most Gen-Yers place a heavy emphasis upon following their passion and finding their true, authentic selves, the self that Bill George writes about.
Yet the repertoire of possibilities within that view supports what some of us have long suspected: rather than a single underlying, authentic and true self, individuals are a collection of masks tied to particular social or work settings.
Stanford's Hazel Markus studied this dynamic, finding that the masks a person can wear vary from setting to setting, and provide a diverse set of possibilities of possibilities within a person's basic view of himself/herself as independent, successful or competent. That parallels such basic views as finding and aligning basic personal and organizational purpose.
What this makes possible are differing masks, based upon the demands of a situation. Chameleonlike is not necessarily evil.
In fact, Warren Bennis guest-articled for Jack Welch on Business Week, writing that theatricality, masking and taking on differing poses may well be a necessary leadership competency. As Bennis notes, masks were changed often by founding fathers such as George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, well as 20th century presidents like FDR and JFK.
Bennis' comment, hich I allude to in a post, makes a case for the use of masks and theatricality in effective leadership.
My original post is here.
In other words, if you want to be a good leader, there are times when you need to be a good actor.
Well, what do you think? I'm really interested in your responses.