Understanding the Leadership Deficiency of Natural Tunnel Vision Leadership of Archetype Propensity.
By David Joseph
In many ways, gaining a better understanding of the activities at play in individual psychological processing and the outcomes that prevails has unraveled numerous enigmas that I previously found to be complex that I simply had no explanation for as I honestly thought was illogical. Previously, I was puzzled by the fact that some leaders had such profoundly strong capacities in one way, yet they seemed to be deficient in other competencies that I found to be of equal or lesser ability, understanding, or required similar amounts of fortitude. I now know that not only is it possible that the single-dominant dimensional approach that these leaders applied to steering groups they had responsibility for was due to strong impulses of tendency calls psychodynamic approaches, explained by P. G. Northouse (2016) in his book, Leadership: Theory and Practice, to be the understanding of oneself and how one’s tendencies preemptively positions an individual to behave in a specific way when leading. Specifically, Northouse (2016) accounts one’s archetypes or leadership approach characterizations as the culprit when a leader falls into these tunnel-vision mindsets, that is frequently done unconscientiously, to become locked into a mode of reasoning that is one-dimensional and lacks a freedom to explore other approaches without an active effort to veer away from the ingrained habits that were developed to approach most dilemmas. Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries (2013) in his article The Eight Archetypes of Leadership, published in the Harvard Business Review, Leadership Section, explores the eight distinct archetypes discussed by Northouse (2016) where he distinguishes the relative applicability of knowing and appropriating them to specific leadership roles and the value leaders can gain in having an indebt understanding of them, both for personal modulation in executing decision-making and allocating individuals to specific responsibilities, when leading. From this understanding, I was able to see why some leaders’ judgment seemed to even appear clouded when they approach situations that greatly contrasted the characterization that became most natural to them. Like, why a leader whose tendency to tackle challenges involving mostly strategist archetype, that Kets de Vries (2013) describes as leaders with strong capacities to deal with developments in organizational environments, seem to fall apart when they are faced with demands to be good communicators, which he portrays as leaders that are great influencers that have considerable impact on their surroundings, even when it involves transcribing the very strategic outside-the-box thinking they ingeniously developed to traverse the difficulties an organization faces. Or why adept coach archetype leaders, Kets de Vries (2013) depicts as leaders who have the know-how to get the best out of subordinates, seem to have deficiencies meeting the demands to solve extremely difficulty new problems which are less of a challenge for leaders that fit the innovator archetype, which he describes as leaders that have strong creative impulses that they apply to bringing new dynamic solutions to problems that elevate the productivity, ease of adaptability, or brings greater understanding to users of a system that advances its application. After learning the significance of the eight leadership
archetypes, I was able to revisit personal leadership encounters, including mine, and process the immense amount of effort needed by a leader to additionally practice behaviors that are not in line with one’s prominent leadership archetype. I am now able to give reason for some leaders I have worked under, and my, stumbling blocks that may be in part due to the lack of knowledge of these subconscious propensities (archetypes).
My personal revelation, of this understanding, comes by way of shortcomings that stem from the fact that my strength of leadership archetype revolves around the proclivity to be of the archetype of an innovator and I, in the past, before knowing of my need to pivot to other modes of leadership, failed to approach subordinates in ways that would have generated the greatest productivity from them and strengthen my ability to connected better with them. As such, my focus, as a leader, was mostly dominated with futuristic creations to problem-solve and I lacked flexibility to modulate to other archetypes such as being a transactor which Kets de Vries (2013) details as having the ability to be good at deal-making, coaching that Kets de Vries (2013) explains to be leaders that empower subordinates and have great capacities to assemble high performance cultures within an organization, or of the archetype of a processor and brilliantly orchestrate the smooth running of an organization, according to Kets de Vries (2013). I was not able to see the importance of the collective strengths of each of the eight archetypes and appreciate the tremendous amount of deliberate intrapersonal effort required to effectuate actions to consistently alternate to other needed leadership archetypes. I learnt from Northouse (2016) that the dominate archetype that I adopted became prominent from a host of complex internal factors and external influences, and that my expressions that emerged from my archetype painted a strong picture, to subordinates and others that witnessed my leadership in actions, my inner personal emotions, likes and dislikes, and strengths and weaknesses that manifested into responses by subordinates to emulate my lead and attempt to perform in the same manner which was not always their strong point. Having this single-dimensioned mindset robbed both me and my subordinates of an opportunity to allow their strengths to blossom and serve as a diverse arsenal of strategies and capabilities to nimbly maneuver across any challenge we faced. After learning of the dynamics of archetype through Kets de Vries’ (2013) clear delineation of its principles in his article on archetypes of leadership, I finally saw the impact of my psyche in maintaining a stable personal approach to leading that I many times had very little conscious premeditated decision-making in choosing how I behaved as a leader and that I needed instead to invest more time in assessing leadership situations and try to identify which of the eight leadership archetypes that would work best in the situation that I was presented, engage the necessary weak ones that I had less of a likelihood to naturally choose when the situations demanded it, and not allow my default leadership archetype to dominate and control the progress that could be gained in using my weaker ones. I also saw the immense need to engage this new knowledge when allocating work to individuals with strong points in a specific archetype that matched his or her strong suit and conversely delegate subordinates to positions that did the same.
It was one thing to see this dynamic in action in myself, but I have found that there is even greater conviction to experience others encounter and manipulate leadership archetypes in situations where mismatch archetype hinders their maximum delivery of leading others. I have found that knowing and seeing this dynamic outside of one’s individual situations enrichens the appreciation they have for its applicability. Knowing others face and are challenges by these same dilemmas escalates the urgency of making better personal choices in engaging the most appropriate archetype as it becomes real that a problem exist and a solution can be achieved by simply identifying and selecting from a group of alternatives when new encounters arise. One situation in which I was able to see the dynamics of leadership archetype being misplaced was in a past job I held, as a subordinate, where the leader’s strengths, though highly effective in accomplishing organizational objectives was inadequate in leading the group as she, Angela (fictitious name), was unquestionably a processor archetype leader, in her leadership role, when in fact, the nature of the job called for a leader that was more of an innovator leadership archetype. Angela’s strength, as a processor, was that of an effective structural orchestrator; she had the ability of meeting the objectives of the organization with flawless efficiency and great attention to operational cohesiveness. Her high regard for rules and its execution unquestionably put her in command of knowing and orchestrating the day-to-day administrative aspects of the department. While these personal qualities were highly regarded in the execution of defined objectives, her position was one that demanded a very different approach. Commanding a research and development (R&D) laboratory called for a leader whose focus was directed at innovation and creativity much more that simply being good at abiding by regulations. Instead, Angela’s personal propensities were to seek order and accomplish objectives, almost exclusively. Her approach was in direct contrast to the expectations of her job. Even though Angela set out to meet organizational objectives, the single most prescribed directive of being innovative was outside of her default mode. Yes, she read her job description carefully and attempted to fulfil the responsibilities of her role, as she made them departmental missions that she broadcasted and frequently discussed, but her capacity to usurp creativity was perhaps outside of her understanding of what it meant to be creative. Instead, she resorted to her most comfortable mode of following instructions and leading subordinates under her to strictly do the same. It escaped her that we, as a department, failed to produce new developments, keep up with other research departments, and had not delivered a single new innovation in over a year. In spite of this, she tragically felt that she was an efficient leader because the depart was voted the cleanest and most organized, had a record of being ahead in the entire organization when it came to turning in our observations and data, and never failed an inspection of safety and accountability. Sadly, Angela was demoted from her position in the department due to a lack of output and we were given a new department head to lead our research. Examining this using Kets de Vries’ (2013) and Northouse’s (2016) illustration of the clinical paradigm or the ability to make sense of the psychodynamic leadership approach of leadership archetype tunnel vision, it’s obvious that Angela wasn’t aware of her mismatch approach towards her job, as head of a research department. It seemed that her convictions of being efficient was limited to keeping order when her objectives were quite different and instead should have been directed at exploring and being innovative. Looking back I can now appreciate the gravity of having this understanding and how much more productive a leader can be when equipped with this information.
Another situation where an account of leadership archetype was not best suited for a job that I encountered was when I worked at a fast-food restaurant during High School. The shift supervisor of the company, Nigel (fictitious name), was in many ways in the category of being a strategist leadership archetype. His focus was to provide vision; he developed numerous strategies, and he often came up with developmental solutions for the organization’s challenges, but he did not have much value for employee efficiency and smooth operations. The day-to-day challenges of his position were to ensure compliance by employees in their duties and provide for customers’ satisfaction and quick service. Nigel paid little attentions to these objectives and instead spent significant time coming up with forms and processes for his superiors to see that he had what it takes to be promoted into higher management. This backfired on him as he was frequently seen as being inefficient in accomplishing his supervisory duties by the fact that when he supervised, customers had the greatest complaints of quality and poorest turn-around-times for service on his watch. When this continued for several months, Nigel was fired and a replacement was brought in. Perhaps he should have given more attention to ensuring greater employee compliance and greater productivity. This approach would fall more in line with being a processor leadership archetype. Subscribing to this leadership archetype, Nigel would better accomplish the assigned objective of his position, as a processor archetype would perfectly match the needs of smoother operations, greater structural work-force utilization, and higher efficiency of all staff, according to Kets de Vries (2013).
A third scenario that I experienced that detailed inappropriate use of a leadership archetype by a leader was when I worked in a factory doing shift-work production on an assembly line where my supervisor, John (fictitious name), was of the leadership archetype of being a transactor while the position called for a coach or a communicator. John was a kind-spirited individual that had a difficult time giving orders but was good at negotiations and deal-making. His staff sensed his weakness and took advantage of him by always making agreements that they manipulated to reduce the work they were responsible for. John’s position really required someone to motivate subordinates and keep order. While his negotiations were always tactful and worthy of much commendations, it was not what would work best in the less that professional environment of a production line. He was often seen handing out memos he created, emailing employees about their problems and shortcomings, and he even got involved in negotiating agreements with employees in exchange for their improved productivity. John needed to be influential and lay out commands for optimal objective execution. Instead his approach only brought him grief as his followers lacked the motivation to keep the end of the bargain they agreed to and happily repeated making deals they knew they would not keep. In the end John was fired when his record for poor performance on his watch proved to be consistent. His superiors identified his subordinates as most likely to be disobedient, have the greatest incidences of tardiness and absenteeism, and were among the employees in the entire plant to engage in mischief and be involved in work related disputes. It seemed that they had little focus on the objectives of their tasks and instead spent most of their time being distracted by other activities going on in the plant. A strong commanding force, like that of a processor archetype, or an influential approach, like a coach would have provided a more appropriate allocation to his followers and deliver needed oversite for objective execution that John’s position needed.
Collectively, the lack of understanding that an individual’s propensity to be of a specific leadership archetype can have unintended consequences due to mismatches of approach needed for a particular job enlightens me of the need for leaders to becomes aware of both their acclivity to one or more leadership archetypes and that they learn of the need to consciously act in order to bring about behavioral responses that reflect other needed leadership archetypes, as suggested by Northouse (2016) and Kets de Vries (2013). Correctly matching leadership situations with the appropriate archetype means better assessing situations of leader-subordinate deliberations and engaging active and deliberate behaviors to identify the most appropriate archetype that would add to a specific situation in order to deliver the greatest motivation to subordinates, when they attempt to execute organizational objectives. Kets de Vries (2013) points to a direct correlation of mismatching leadership archetypes where tunnel-vision is to blame for high propensity use of a single archetype. Knowing and actively engaging the use of subordinates in appropriate situations that match their greatest adeptness of an archetype, performing the converse of pairing leaders, when delegating, to situations that will utilize their greatest strengths known from their established archetypes, and modulating one’s own behavior to drawn out actions that engage archetypes that are not of one’s default mode but match situations of specific tasks are sure ways to eliminate the casualties of mismatching inappropriate leadership to subordinates and tasks that would be served best with another mode of leadership (Northouse, 2016 & Kets De Vries, 2013).
.
Reference
Northouse, P. G. (2016). Leadership: Theory and Practice (7th ed.) Washington, DC: Sage.
Kets de Vries, M. F. R. (2013, Dec, 18) The eitht archetypes of leadership. Harbard Business Review. Retrieved from: https://hbr.org/2013/12/the-eight-archetypes-of-leadership/