Do Leaders Need Experience?

B087923 Developing Skills for Business Leadership – Individual Essay Best Leaders do not need Experience The argument I will try to expose is, that the experience cannot be detached from the individual characteristics that are essential for one to become a great leader. Until today there is no agreement between the researchers of what makes someone a great leader. However same characteristics emerge on the literature. As Zaccaro (2007, p. 8) wrote “in line with most modern leader trait perspectives, the qualities that differentiate leaders from nonleaders are far ranging and include not only personality attributes but also motives, values, cognitive abilities, social and problem solving skills, and expertise”. Those can be group in three broad categories (a) cognitive skills, (b) social skills, (c) personality traits. When talking about cognitive skills we should think not only in general intelligence or problem solving skills, but also other types of cognitive skills. Common sense says, that since most of the issues a leader has to deal is related to problem solving, general intelligence should be the most important. Probably this is why most employers seek for intelligent workers. Is not known a job advert looking for a less intelligent person. Despite of the common sense the correlation between intelligence and leadership success is low with a value of .27 (Judge, Colbert, & Ilies, 2004). This could be due to several reasons but mainly, general intelligence does not explain all the effect because is needed to be include other cognitive skills, such as metacognition, emotional intelligence and creativity. One can score very high in general intelligence tests, but fail completely in their job or academic path. This is where the metacognitive skills are important since them are responsible for self-regulation, coping with stress and other setbacks, organize and plan actions, and a very powerful tool for self-improvement deriving from self-reflecting (Zimmerman, 2002), in short metacognition is the way someone think about thinking. The field of educational psychology studies this effects for long and found that students which scores high in metacognitive skills also perform better in their academic life and after on their professional jobs. This skills are becoming increasingly important on leadership research. 1 Other cognitive skill that has found to be critical for effective leadership is the emotional intelligence (Goleman, 2004). Although is related is not the same as metacognition. The metacognitive perspective is related only with the self, while the emotional intelligence is also related to the others. Emotional intelligence is self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, this is the equivalent to the metacognitive perspective, but is also the way someone is able to build networks, found base grounds, understand other’s emotions and treat them accordingly (Goleman, 2004). It is essential for any leader developing relationships with others therefore the social skills and empathy are keen abilities for any successful leader (Goleman, 2004). Finally creativity is also a very important cognitive skill for every successful leader (Harding, 2010; Sternberg & Vroom, 2002). Since most of the problems leaders nowadays face are those with ill-defined solutions, they must have the ability to devise innovative approaches to those adversities. These leaders not only think creatively but also nurture others to think and act creatively (Harding, 2010). As mentioned is not only cognitive capabilities that makes someone a great leader, the social identity theory helps us understand the leader effectiveness. A leader is someone that mobilize a group of people toward a common goal. Thus understanding and using the social identity theory is an important skill that every leader should possess (Ellemers, De Gilder, & Haslam, 2004). Different situations provide different social identities (e.g. when watching a football match the identity is our team, but when at the university it changes to be students from the same university). If a leader is able to build a group identity it will have a more cohesive team, which share goals and attitudes therefore they perform better than a less cohesive team (Ellemers, De Gilder, & Haslam, 2004). Relative to personality traits there are no conclusive answers. Researchers tried to find correlations between the five factors model and leader effectiveness and found significant associations between all five (Judge, Bono, Ilies, & Gerhardt, 2002). Even though extroversion has the strongest correlations followed by conscientiousness and openness to experience, cannot be drawn conclusions relative to personality traits correlated to leader effectiveness. Now lets address how experience can be an effective way of achieving the traits discussed earlier. First of all, we need to conceptualize what is experience. Experience is “practical contact with and observation of facts or events: […] the knowledge or skill acquired by such 2 means over a period of time, especially that gained in a particular profession by someone at work” (Pearsall, 2010). Or in other words, it is the occurrence of events in someone’s life that facilitate and promote the gain of skills that are useful to complete certain tasks. Therefore should here be addressed the developmental psychology perspective. The development of cognitive skills has been widely studied by developmental psychologists. They argue that what we are today is due to past events in our life, that our cognitive development is mediated by the context (Bronfenbrenner, 1994; Piaget, 1964; Piaget, 1966; Vygotsky, 1962; Vygotsky, 1978). Therefore even a 15 years old individual has 15 years of life experience, in those years for example them could had gain experience as a leader by being a leader of their group of friends. These past experiences are extremely powerful in shaping human behaviour but most times they are misinterpreted as another factor (e.g. inheritance). Galton (1892) in his book the “Hereditary Genius” found a high correlation between certain trades and families. Looking at that analysis is easy to draw the conclusion that to be an artist, a judge, military leader and some other professions someone had to have certain genes. Actually what happened was that because the child of an artist spent most of their childhood with other artists and in a context that nurtured the skills needed to become an artist, then was most likely they became one, like the father or mother. This is a clear case where is the past experience that create the man. However others examples are not so clear. We all know some stories of people that seems to have raised to the top of their fields without any experience. Despite this stories are anecdotic, therefore they cannot be seen as a standard also often in those stories only a small part of it is told. Most of those who are seen as outliers because of their achievements, are being rated as genetically more lucky. Despite the fact their success could be due to fortunately events is not because of gene lottery. For example the top Canadian hockey players were born in the first quarter of the year, this fortune event lead to those players being 20% older than the others, therefore they were physically and mentally more mature than their teammates (Gladwell, 2008). Because of this the coach pick them more often, consequently they play more times and turn out to be more experienced. Due to a cumulative process they became even better players, shadowing those who unfortunately born a few month later. The same effect was found in students from Canada and the United States, in this countries the youngest childes in each cohort are less likely to attend university (Bedard & Dhuey, 2006). Therefore, some 3 outcomes that one may relate to innate or inherited traits or skills is actually due to other fortunate events that through experiences promote the development of those personal characteristics. After this period of development where little choices can be made, is still possible for anyone improve themselves in all the key skills through training. There are several developmental programs that aim the development of employees’ skills. Mumford, Marks, Connelly, Zaccaro, and Reiter-Palmon (2000) found performance improvement through skill acquisition. However “the kind of experiences which promote skill development at one point in a leader’s career are different than those which may be beneficial later” (Mumford, Marks, Connelly, Zaccaro, & Reiter-Palmon, 2000, p. 90). This only means that is different kinds of experiences, but also that experience is keen to leader development and efficacy. Other important finding relating experience and expertise is that is need 10.000 hours of practice, roughly ten years, to achieve top performance (Ericsson, Krampe, & Tesch-Römer, 1993). Although this practice period must be mediated by deliberate effort to learn doing what one cannot do. “Not all practice makes perfect. You need a particular kind of practice— deliberate practice—to develop expertise. When most people practice, they focus on the things they already know how to do. Deliberate practice is different. It entails considerable, specific, and sustained efforts to do something you can’t do well—or even at all. Research across domains shows that it is only by working at what you can’t do that you turn into the expert you want to become” (Ericsson, Prietula, & Cokely, 2007, p. 3). Mukunda (2012) argue that leaders do not need experience, this conclusion is based in an analysis of past leaders that had been extraordinary. His main argument is that those leaders that excel did not pass through a filtration process, therefore they had no experience (Mukunda, 2012). My view is that he overlook the past experiences of them and all the effort they put after they became a leader in order to improve themselves. For example Churchill that became notable public speaker, improve himself with a passionate love for books and by studying the Bourke Cockran oratory (Oliver, 1987). This is just one example, of several that can be found, that prove that all extraordinary leaders had to make several efforts to improve themselves, before or after they achieve a leadership position. They could had no experience in that organization, or in that field, but certainly they acquired fundamental knowledge through experience. 4 Mukunda (2012) describe a great leader as someone that think differently. ”If you want to grow to dominance, you need an unfiltered leader, someone who will think differently and take risks” (Mukunda, 2012, p. 31). Actually he is looking for someone that have one of the characteristics described at the begin of this text – creativity. Despite the fact that relying in only one skill to judge leader effectiveness is scarce, this skill could be trained. Other question that arise is the importance for leaders’ effectiveness and development the context where they operate. Sternberg and Vroom (2002) exchange a few letter discussing this issue, they came to agree that although cognitive skills are important, the situation where the leader operate is also a powerful mediator for leader effectiveness. If leaders have to deal with new challenges that are different than those they are used to in an environment that accept some risk taking, this make them develop new expertise and improve themselves (Mumford, Marks, Connelly, Zaccaro, & Reiter-Palmon, 2000). This kind of context is important for nurturing creativity (Harding, 2010). It is common sense, among the sport fans, that you cannot compare the performance of top athletes from two completely different eras. “For instance, amateur marathon runners and high school swimmers today frequently better the times of Olympic gold medalists from the early twentieth century” (Ericsson, Prietula, & Cokely, 2007, p. 5). This is due to better training, education, alimentation, equipment and so on. A similar mental frame must be used for studying leaders’ effectiveness, since it is completely different being the CEO of a success IT in the twenty-first century from a president of a country involved in a civil war in mid ninetieth century. As a conclusion can be said that, since the most important skills to be a great leader are cognitive and social skills, and since the development of those skills derive from early childhood experience, but also can be developed later in live through training, therefore anyone that is a great leader must had gain those skills through experience and practice. At first glance this could be underestimated but with deeper analysis the experience will be found in the story of that great leader. This does not mean that is formal experience, such as previous job experiences, or academic background or others forms directly related. Nonetheless to be really outstanding in any field someone should have outstanding characteristics and skills developed through practice for several years. 5 As proposed from the start of this text I make my own the words of Mumford, Marks, Connelly, Zaccaro, and Reiter-Palmon (2000, p. 92), I “hope to show that leadership knowledge and skills increase as a function of experience”. However the question Mukunda (2012) raised – is the leaders filtration process effective for selecting the best leaders? – remains. Probably is not but at least prevent us from choosing a terrible one. However this is for other reflexion. 6 References Bedard, K., & Dhuey, E. (2006). The Persistence of early childhood maturity: Internatinal evidence of long-run age effects. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 1437-1472. Bronfenbrenner, U. (1994). Ecological models of human development. In International Encyclopedia of Education, Vol. 3, 2nd ed. (pp. 1643-1647). Oxford, England: Elsevier Sciences, Ltd. 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