• Home
  • Episodes
  • Books for Leaders
  • About Us
    • Our Team
    • Contact Us
  • Our Sponsors
  • Blog
  • Our Newsletter
The Leadership Podcast

The Leadership Podcast

We Study Leaders

February 15, 2023

TLP346: The Over-Reliance on Authority

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/theleadershippodcast/TLP_346.mp3
Play in New Window Download

Ed O’Malley is the Founder of the Kansas Leadership Center, President and CEO of the Kansas Health Foundation, and the author of four books, including his latest, “When Everyone Leads.” Ed discusses how leadership differs from authority, and that authority is required to lead. He explores the disruptive aspects and the risks of leadership. Ed explains the type of problems authority solves and the challenges that require unleashing the leadership of the whole team to move forward. Listen in for how to move forward when faced with daunting challenges.

Key Takeaways

[3:25] In Ed’s book, When Everyone Leads, the key is getting people to separate leadership from authority. In some situations, the reliance on authority gets in the way of progress. We need people to know that even if you’re not the captain of the team or boss, the toughest challenges require your leadership, also. The book is about how you unleash that in everybody.

[4:45] Ed talks about over-reliance on authority. Authority is necessary, but it’s not sufficient for making progress on our biggest problems. Challenges between people need to be resolved by the people involved.

[6:14] On our toughest challenges, none of us know exactly the way forward. Trust that the collective is stronger than one person’s idea. If we unleash the leadership of others, so they feel empowered to exercise that leadership, then we start making more progress.

[6:49] If we assume that we have the answers and we know the best way forward, that conveys a lack of trust in the collective. The toughest challenges get solved by people working together.

[8:46] The book is about the toughest challenges. A prerequisite for unleashing leadership in more people is to help people break apart the idea of leadership from the idea of authority. They are different things and people know this intuitively. Ed uses the example of Rosa Parks showing leadership by choosing her seat on the bus.

[10:20] Ed wants people to be conscious of the differences between authority, leadership, people holding positions of authority, and people exercising leadership. Sometimes people in authority exercise leadership. Sometimes People not in authority exercise leadership. Sometimes nobody does. If people see it separately, it opens up a conversation about what the exercise of leadership looks like for them.

[11:22] Jim cites Jim Detert, author of Choosing Courage, regarding the courage it takes to step up and face big problems.

[12:08] Julia McBride, Ed’s co-author on the book, would say it’s all about clarity of purpose. Those who exercise effective leadership are clear in their deep purpose, and clear on the purpose for the meeting they’re walking into and the role they play in that meeting. They’re clear on the purpose of the project they’re a part of.

[12:46] A lot of people’s purpose is to keep their boss happy. Our toughest challenges are usually about something a lot bigger than that. Leadership is motivating others to make progress on daunting challenges and it hardly ever happens.

[14:24] Ed cites the work of authors Ron Heifetz and Marty Linsky who pioneered the concept of the Zone of Productivity, where there is enough conflict that people are uncomfortable enough to change the status quo, but there is not enough conflict to shut people down. If you don’t have enough conflict, nothing is changing. If you have a lot of heat at work, consider if progress is being made in the work.

[15:32] If the conflict or heat from the top is not leading to progress, then it’s time to ask questions and intervene in the lack of progress.

[16:52] An executive team needs a common language to talk about the dynamics of productivity.

[17:30] Leadership is always about disrupting things. Ed quotes Marty Linsky, “Leadership is disappointing your own people at a rate they can absorb.” When you’re intervening up, you can’t anger the boss too much; you might be out! But If you’re just keeping the boss 100% happy, you might not be doing anything that looks like leadership.

[18:02] Jan recalls Jeffrey Pfeffer’s 7 Rules of Power. It’s evidence-based, controversial, and makes people very uncomfortable. Two of the rules are “Break the rules,” and “Show up in a powerful way.” These are hard to do. You’ve got to know how far you can push a boss before you’re damaging yourself.

[18:36] Ed goes back to being clear about purpose. If your purpose is to get along, be secure, and not rock the boat, you will not get close to exercising leadership. If your purpose is “I want the best value for my clients,” or “I’m a sales leader and I’m taking the organization from this level to that level higher,” then you’ll be willing to disrupt the norms. Leadership is always disruptive and risky.

[19:18] Ed says all of our research is showing if you get lots more people exercising leadership and intervening to create more progress it makes it more likely you’ll get the progress. It’s too tough for one or two people to do alone because it’s too disruptive.

[20:01] A chapter in the book explores the clash of values. Our toughest challenges are often about value clashes. You may have a value of gaining market share and a clashing value of playing it safe and not developing new products because you have a legacy product that has been winning for so long. Leadership is always about helping a system elevate one value over another. There is loss in that.

[21:31] Anyone can ask powerful questions. Ed explains that a powerful question comes from deep curiosity and it’s open-ended. A question that has an exact technical answer is not a powerful question, it’s a fact-based question. Powerful questions help everyone learn. “What’s our greatest aspiration for our organization?”, “What concerns us the most?”, “What makes progress so hard on those things?”

[22:56] Big open-ended questions are powerful and are often game-changing. Powerful questions often make us uncomfortable. They should force us to slow down a little bit and reflect differently.

[24:33] Ed interviewed a sage one time who told him, “Ed, that’s a great question! And it’s a great question because it doesn’t have any answers!” If there’s an easy answer, it might not be a good question.

[25:01] If what you’re working on isn’t a daunting challenge; if it’s run-of-the-mill stuff; if you’ve got a deadline and the work is technical, and you’ve got to meet it, you’re going to drive everybody crazy if you’re walking around asking big, open-ended questions all the time! It’s when you’re trying to focus people on the things that matter most that these powerful questions are so needed.

[26:10] Less senior people may be granted some grace in asking open-ended questions to reveal less knowledge of the organization’s purpose. More senior people may ask powerful questions that tend to shape expectations: “How will we respond to some inevitable failure in our attempts to do X?” This introduces the concept of being adaptive.

[28:49] The book discusses technical problems vs. daunting adaptive challenges. If you have the authority, say, “We’re solving this technical problem this way.” But it is a mistake to treat a daunting adaptive challenge as if it were technical. Those types of challenges where the problem is poorly defined and the answer is unknown cannot be solved by your authority alone. You won’t get progress.

[30:34] Jan tells about Bill Dean. They would be at a problem situation and Bill would say, “OK.” It meant he acknowledged, he understood, and they would step back and pause before trying to find out what the issue was. He said OK, and everybody knew it was going to be OK. Jan learned to step back when people are hitting the Panic button. Ed says, on the toughest challenges, help people to go slow.

[33:32] Have the awareness to discern when you’re facing something adaptive where you don’t know the way forward. In that situation, progress is about creating a system that can be iterative, that can be experimental, that can take smart risks, learn from them, and take bigger risks. If the situation doesn’t call for that and we bring it, we’re just going to create more problems.

[34:10] There are a lot of big ideas in the book. One is knowing the difference between the technical problems and the adaptive challenges. They require you to lead differently. Another idea is that your authority is a resource but it is not enough to solve adaptive challenges, so you unleash leadership for others in an iterative, learning environment where risk-taking is expected.

[36:25] There are expectations on those in authority. Ed repeats that leadership is disappointing your people at a rate they can absorb. People have expectations of those in authority and history is full of examples of what happens to people in authority if they disrupt those expectations too much. Live within the expectations, but push against them, as well.

[37:04] Ed explores how those in authority successfully used leadership during the pandemic to be firm and specific about the process they would use to solve the issue without going into what the outcome of the issue would be. They used authority to help people feel safe and that there is some order to things. They talked about the timeline for bringing the best people together to solve the problem.

[38:16] Jim compares how Jessica Chen from the previous podcast episode described the same situation of describing the process you are going through to arrive at an answer when dealing with ambiguity. Jim recommends listening to that episode, as this is a big and important concept. Ed agrees, it is important, but it is hard to practice. Go back to knowing whether it is an adaptive challenge or a technical problem.

[39:31] If it’s a technical problem and you are in authority, use your authority to solve the problem. For listeners who aren’t in authority, Ed reminds you to break apart authority and leadership. If you connect them, it lets everybody off the hook, and it’s the CEO’s job. That puts too much pressure on those in authority. They can’t deliver. The truth is, in the big tough challenges, we’ve all got a part in the mess.

[40:25] Jack Welch said, “You can’t scale complexity.” Ed’s book leads toward simplifying our approach. Jan recommends listeners read Ed’s book. It’s easy to read and laid out in a way that’s very pragmatic.

[42:06] Ed’s challenge to listeners: “I think we’ve got to get the bat off our shoulder and take some swings. … Learn how do you take those swings with confidence and skill so you can get a few more hits than you would otherwise.”

[44:12] Closing quote: Remember, “Unity is strength…  When there is teamwork and collaboration, wonderful things can be achieved.” — Mattie Stepanek


The Leadership Podcast is sponsored by W.S. Darley & Company.  

Founded in 1908, Darley remains a family owned and operated business, providing the highest quality equipment solutions to our country’s warfighters and firefighters.  

Learn more at darley.com and darleydefense.com


Quotable Quotes

“We need people to know that even if you’re not the captain of the team, the boss, the CEO of the company, or the mayor of the town, the toughest challenges require your leadership, also.” Click To Tweet “I think we have an over-reliance on authority. Authority is useful; it’s necessary, but it’s insufficient for making progress on our biggest challenges.” Click To Tweet "A prerequisite for unleashing leadership in more people is to help people break apart the idea of leadership from the idea of authority. We’ve got to get people to see them as two different things. They are totally separate. And I… Click To Tweet “Authority is a role; it’s a position, and leadership is an activity. And sometimes those in authority exercise it. But most of the time they don’t. And sometimes people not in authority exercise leadership. But a lot of times, they… Click To Tweet “The book is counter-cultural, in that regard. We’re trying to create a new norm for what leadership even is.” Click To Tweet “Leadership is always about disrupting things.” Click To Tweet “Leadership is so rare because it’s risky; … it’s disruptive, which is why all of our research is showing if you get lots more people exercising leadership; intervening to create more progress, it’s … more likely you’ll get the… Click To Tweet “Big open-ended questions are powerful and they’re often game-changing.” Click To Tweet “If what you’re working on isn’t a daunting challenge; if it’s run-of-the-mill stuff; if you’ve got a deadline and the work is technical, and you’ve got to meet it, you’re going to drive everybody crazy if you’re walking around… Click To Tweet “It’s when you’re trying to focus people on the things that matter most that these curiosity-based, open-ended, powerful questions are so needed.” Click To Tweet
Ed O’Malley

These are the books mentioned in our discussion with Ed.

7 Rules of Power: Surprising–but True–Advice on How to Get Things Done and Advance Your Career

Buy This Book Online
Buy from Amazon
7 Rules of Power: Surprising–but True–Advice on How to Get Things Done and Advance Your Career
Buy now!
7 Rules of Power: Surprising–but True–Advice on How to Get Things Done and Advance Your Career

When Everyone Leads: How The Toughest Challenges Get Seen And Solved

Buy This Book Online
Buy from Amazon
When Everyone Leads: How The Toughest Challenges Get Seen And Solved
Buy now!
When Everyone Leads: How The Toughest Challenges Get Seen And Solved

Choosing Courage: The Everyday Guide to Being Brave at Work

Buy This Book Online
Buy from Amazon
Choosing Courage: The Everyday Guide to Being Brave at Work
Buy now!
Choosing Courage: The Everyday Guide to Being Brave at Work

Resources Mentioned

  • Sponsored by: Darley.com
  • Rafti Advisors. LLC
  • Self-Reliant Leadership. LLC
  • Ed O’Malley
  • Kansas Leadership Center
  • Kansas Health Foundation
  • The Colorado Health Foundation
  • Todd Satterson
  • U.S. Navy SEALS
  • Jim Detert
  • Ron Heifetz
  • Marty Linsky
  • Jeffrey Pfeffer
  • Jessica Chen
  • Jack Welch

Filed Under: Podcast Tagged With: authority, culture, Curiosity, interview, leader, leadership, practitioner, questions

TLP345: Confidence and Executive Presence
TLP347: Validation is for Parking

Related Posts

  • TLP258: Why Touchy-Feely Connects People
  • TLP115: Are you building a life you don’t need a vacation from?
  • TLP233: Relax the Rules
  • TLP244: Not All Work is Teamwork
  • TLP010: Leadership and Followership at all Levels
iTunes
Spotify
Audible
Stitcher
SoundCloud
iHeartRADIO
Radio Public

Instagram Feed

westudyleaders

#leadership #leadershiptraining #leader #westudyleaders

The Leadership Podcast
TLP307: How to Transition from a ‘Knower’ Mind TLP307: How to Transition from a ‘Knower’ Mindset to a ‘Learner’ Mindset ⠀
Our latest episode with Joe Schurman  https://bit.ly/TLP-307?utm_campaign=coschedule&utm_source=instagram&utm_medium=westudyleaders&utm_content=TLP307%3A%20How%20to%20Transition%20from%20a%20%E2%80%98Knower%27%20Mindset%20to%20a%20%E2%80%98Learner%27%20Mindset ⠀
#learning #leadership
TLP209: The Art of Possible - Stepping Out of the TLP209: The Art of Possible - Stepping Out of the Present to See the Future ⠀
Our latest episode with Mark Johnson  https://theleadershippodcast.com/tlp209-the-art-of-possible-stepping-out-of-the-present-to-see-the-future/⠀
#leadership #podcast
TLP284: How to Thrive in a World of Relentless Cha TLP284: How to Thrive in a World of Relentless Change ⠀
Our latest episode with April Rinne  https://bit.ly/TLP-284?utm_campaign=coschedule&utm_source=instagram&utm_medium=westudyleaders&utm_content=TLP284%3A%20How%20to%20Thrive%20in%20a%20World%20of%20Relentless%20Change ⠀
#leadership #change
TLP205: Grandstanding - The Use and Abuse of Moral TLP205: Grandstanding - The Use and Abuse of Moral Talk ⠀
Our latest episode with Justin Tosi  https://theleadershippodcast.com/tlp205-grandstanding-the-use-and-abuse-of-moral-talk/⠀
#leadership #podcast
TLP278: Passive-Aggression is Toxic ⠀ Our latest TLP278: Passive-Aggression is Toxic ⠀
Our latest episode with Jim and Jan  https://bit.ly/TLP-278?utm_campaign=coschedule&utm_source=instagram&utm_medium=westudyleaders&utm_content=TLP278%3A%20Passive-Aggression%20is%20Toxic ⠀
#conflict #leadership #passiveaggressive
TLP256: Don’t Wait ⠀ Our latest episode with B TLP256: Don’t Wait ⠀
Our latest episode with Bo Brabo  https://bit.ly/TLP-256 ⠀
#leadership
TLP226: Balancing Career & Family Responsibilities TLP226: Balancing Career & Family Responsibilities - with General Lori Robinson ⠀
Our latest episode with Gen. Lori Robinson  http://bit.ly/TLP-226 ⠀
#leadership #career #family #work-life-balance
TLP216: Creating Organizations as Amazing as the P TLP216: Creating Organizations as Amazing as the People Inside Them with Gary Hamel ⠀
Our latest episode with Gary Hamel  https://theleadershippodcast.com/tlp216-creating-organizations-as-amazing-as-the-people-inside-them-with-gary-hamel/⠀
#leadership #podcast
TLP213: How to Combat Leadership Bullies ⠀ Our l TLP213: How to Combat Leadership Bullies ⠀
Our latest episode with Chris Kolenda  https://theleadershippodcast.com/tlp213-how-to-combat-leadership-bullies/⠀
#leadership #podcast
TLP253: New Thinking on Cultivating Talent ⠀ Our TLP253: New Thinking on Cultivating Talent ⠀
Our latest episode with Stephen Bailey  http://bit.ly/TLP-253 ⠀
#leadership #talent
TLP250: Passion is Powerful & Blinding ⠀ Our lat TLP250: Passion is Powerful & Blinding ⠀
Our latest episode with Steve Smith  http://bit.ly/TLP-250 ⠀
#leadership #nonprofit #associations #passion
TLP275: Why We Want What We Want ⠀ Our latest ep TLP275: Why We Want What We Want ⠀
Our latest episode with Luke Burgis  https://bit.ly/TLP271 ⠀
#leadership
A Leader's Impact Persists #mlk #leadership #legac A Leader's Impact Persists #mlk #leadership #legacy
TLP211: Silence Says So Much ⠀ Our latest episod TLP211: Silence Says So Much ⠀
Our latest episode with Jim & Jan  https://theleadershippodcast.com/tlp211-silence-says-so-much/⠀
#leadership #podcast
TLP280: Fearless Negotiation Strategies for Everyd TLP280: Fearless Negotiation Strategies for Everyday Life ⠀
Our latest episode with Victoria Medvec  https://bit.ly/TLP-280?utm_campaign=coschedule&utm_source=instagram&utm_medium=westudyleaders&utm_content=TLP280%3A%20Fearless%20Negotiation%20Strategies%20for%20Everyday%20Life ⠀
#negotiation #leadership
TLP255: Love ‘em or Lose ‘em ⠀ Our latest ep TLP255: Love ‘em or Lose ‘em ⠀
Our latest episode with Dr. Beverly Kaye  http://bit.ly/TLP-255 ⠀
#leadership
TLP207: Finding Common Ground ⠀ Our latest episo TLP207: Finding Common Ground ⠀
Our latest episode with Brian Ahearn  https://theleadershippodcast.com/tlp207-finding-common-ground/⠀
#leadership #podcast
TLP257: The CEO Test ⠀ Our latest episode with A TLP257: The CEO Test ⠀
Our latest episode with Adam Bryant  http://bit.ly/TLP-257 ⠀
#CEO #leadership
TLP265: Ram Charan - Six New Rules for Leaders ⠀ TLP265: Ram Charan - Six New Rules for Leaders ⠀
Our latest episode with Ram Charan  https://bit.ly/TLP-265 ⠀
#leadership
TLP279: How to Attract Talent and Absolutely Win L TLP279: How to Attract Talent and Absolutely Win Lifelong Fans ⠀
Our latest episode with Jon Picoult  https://bit.ly/TLP-279?utm_campaign=coschedule&utm_source=instagram&utm_medium=westudyleaders&utm_content=TLP279%3A%20How%20to%20Attract%20Talent%20and%20Absolutely%20Win%20Lifelong%20Fans ⠀
#CX #customerexperience #leadership
Load More... Follow on Instagram

Recent Posts

  • TLP352: A World Where Change is Fun
  • TLP351: Coaching for Performance
  • TLP350: Naked at the Knife-Edge: Overcoming Ego
  • TLP349: Culture During Times of Change and Disruption
  • TLP348: Our Real Interview with Artificial Intelligence Sensation ChatGPT

Recent Comments

  • Anonymous on TLP351: Coaching for Performance
  • Anonymous on TLP351: Coaching for Performance
  • Anonymous on TLP175: Leadership at Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works
  • Anonymous on TLP175: Leadership at Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works
  • Anonymous on TLP207: Finding Common Ground

Tags

assumptions athletics business change coaching comedy communication corporate crucible culture Curiosity education entrepreneur entrepreneurial financial fitness healthcare hiring history humor innovation interview Jim & Jan leader leadership mentoring military neuroscience Patagonia philosophy podcaster practitioner productivity relationships sales science speaker sports stories team development teamwork thought leader time trust veterans

Copyright © 2023 Rafti Advisors, LLC & Self-Reliant Leadership, LLC - All Rights Reserved. | Privacy Policy