An interview with John Adair - Emerald Management First

An interview with John Adair Interview by Sarah Powell

John Adair is an internationally acclaimed writer, teacher and consultant. In 1978 he was appointed the world's first Professor of Leadership Studies at the University of Surrey and he is currently Visiting Professor at the University of Exeter where he has introduced the world's first university diploma and master's degree in Leadership Studies. John Adair has had a varied and colourful career including work as a hospital orderly in an operating theatre, as a deckhand on an Icelandic trawler and as adjutant of a Bedouin regiment in the Arab Legion. He was Senior Lecturer in Military History and Adviser in Leadership Training at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst and the action-centred leadership approach that he pioneered underpins the leadership training of Britain's uniformed services. Adair has worked as a consultant to a wide range of organizations in the UK and overseas, including Shell, Exxon Chemicals, Mercedes-Benz and Unilever. Working over a period of almost a decade with ICI, he helped the company develop the "manager-leader" concept that supported ICI in becoming the first British company to make £1 billion profit in 1986.

Leadership, you have said, differs from management in that managers primarily require skills in control and administration whereas leaders need to be able to communicate with and "inspire" others. You have stressed that this is different from "motivating" others. How crucial is the difference? John Adair: I see a spectrum of motivation. At one end it exists at low levels, i.e. people are motivated through the carrot and stick approach, on which there is often over-reliance. At the other end of the spectrum there is this ability to "inspire" which is very closely linked with leadership. The problem here is that the word itself can be rather daunting, implying a requirement for some kind of special charisma. In fact, there are elements such as enthusiasm, setting an example and professional commitment and integrity that are in themselves almost inspirational. This, linked with the ability to communicate positive feelings and emotions and not just facts, can be extremely inspiring. I would add that the inspiration is in the situation, in the leader, and that the key thing is to identify and seize the inspirational moment that is already there. You have stated that "leadership is about teamwork, creating teams". Does the concept of teamworking not conflict with ideas of individual

autonomy and creativity? Also, do you envisage teamworking extending to collaboration in leadership, i.e. co-leaders? John Adair: To answer the first part of your question, I think that people often imagine groups and organizations on the machine model, tending to see individuals as becoming cogs in the machine. But I don't think that this is the only model or image and it is certainly not the most appropriate one today. I believe that you should go back to the core model, my three overlapping circles of task, team and individual. There is a balance but also a tension between these circles. In creative groups there is a reconciliation, a harmonization, between being a member of a team and also being a creative individual in your own right. I would balance the machine model with its cogs against the orchestra or jazz band model, where you are part of a team but also an outstanding and creative individual. The conductor is a key image for today's leaders simply because this reconciles and harmonizes the individual and the team. Turning to the second part of the question – yes, I do think there is teamwork in leadership now. The idea that all that was needed was one great figure at the head of an organization is obsolete. What we now need in organizations is a strategic leadership team and also teamwork between different levels of leadership in large organizations. The individual is still important,

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but we are talking about much more of a team approach to leadership with more and more people owning or taking responsibility for the three circles.

work expectations and aspirations and how does this impact on leadership?

I think there is a need to be able to work with people as equals. The concept of leadership often implies that leaders create followers. I don't think that is true. I see leaders as creating partners and it is the ability to work with partners, perhaps primus inter pares, first among equals, that is now required of a leader. But crucially, you can be appointed as manager, you can be put in charge of anything, or any group, but you are not a leader until your appointment is ratified in the hearts and minds of those who work for you. This goes to the heart of much of my work which has been about explaining to leaders what has to happen for that ratification to take place.

It is true that the action-centred leadership philosophy is a competent one. It includes four or five models: the three circles which lie at the core of it and the Herzberg and Maslow models were all part of that original package. But it is also true that both Herzberg and Maslow were Americans and that some of their assumptions were particularly American or western. For example the concept of self-actualization – the idea that individual self-fulfilment is the ultimate and supreme value. That is very much a culture-based idea.

You have demonstrated that people can be trained for leadership, i.e. that leadership is a transferable skill rather than an inborn quality. Are there any factors, whether deriving from personality, upbringing, culture, philosophy/ethics, vision etc that may nevertheless predispose a particular individual to become a good leader? John Adair: I believe that people vary in their potential for leadership and that there are three areas of potential. First, do they actually have or potentially have any of the key generic qualities of leadership, i.e. qualities such as enthusiasm, energy, robustness, courage? Then do they have the capability to acquire the necessary knowledge required in any field in order to lead, i.e. the practical intelligence that the Greeks saw as essential in a leader? Third, do they have the potential for the three circles, i.e. are they the kind of people who, put in a situation, will naturally help a group to achieve its task and to hold it together as a team, encouraging and supporting individuals? We accept that people vary in all these abilities and we can improve performance but what we can't do is change somebody who falls very low on the scale, i.e. transforming someone with 5 per cent ability into somebody with 95 per cent ability. Your action-centred leadership teaching recognizes theories on individual human needs developed by Abraham Maslow and Fredrick Herzberg. Both Maslow and Herzberg derived many of their ideas from the immediate postwar years when conditions and experiences must have fostered a particular climate and outlook. To what extent have the last 50+ years of social, economic and political development changed

John Adair:

Nevertheless both bring insights which are classic and timeless. Herzberg contributed the insight that the factors around a job have a limited power to motivate people, that there are intrinsic factors which motivate people in jobs, beyond what he called the hygiene factors – the money, the conditions and so on. That's a timeless insight. Maslow also had a timeless insight, namely that satisfied needs cease to motivate, that there are always new horizons opening up in front of us and that there is, to some extent, progression in human needs so that we are always looking at a moving target rather than a static one. Do you perceive major changes in or extensions to human motivators since the 1950s? I am thinking here perhaps in terms of relationships, individual recognition and empowerment, level of communication and sharing of information, etc. If this is the case, what impact has this had on style of leadership? John Adair: Earlier I mentioned the ability to be an individual contributor, i.e. to fulfil personal potential, while also being a member of the team. The current use of the word empowerment, which has become something of a cliché, relates to this idea. There are two aspects to empowerment: one involving people far more in the decisions which affect their working lives, the other giving or inviting them to take on ownership, as it were, of their own development. These two aspects of empowerment are reflections of the culture change we are experiencing. A combination of socio-cultural factors, affluence, inter-cultural exchanges, communication, and particularly education, has brought about a transformation in people's expectations. People now expect leadership at work, not just management or being told what to do. So, in some respects, it's a more difficult world in which to lead.


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If you take critical work recognition which is very central to the work of leaders, you can find people like Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar giving recognition and leading in that way long before modern times. I suspect good leaders have always given recognition, have always empowered people, have always made people partners with them. In fact, Montgomery once told me that his secret as a general was that he made his soldiers partners with him in the battle. So, I think that has always been part of the magic of leadership. Do you believe that the demands of multicultural operations entail specific leadership skills or approaches? John Adair: I would put the question in a slightly different way. I think every organization and every culture is unique and different. It always has a group personality or a distinctive culture of its own and you always have to take that into account when you are leading or managing within it, particularly in terms of making decisions in different cultures. But, having said all that, I stand for a universal approach. I think the notion of the three circles, for example, the task, team and individual, has now emerged as the first universal model of leadership, in that every culture can identify with the three circles and see them as a requirement for leadership. We are actually moving towards another consensus, a kind of universal law of aerodynamics as far as leadership is concerned, and that is going to be a very important breakthrough for organizations and companies that need to train a cross-cultural leadership team. We are now identifying common factors which everybody can buy into, whatever their cultural background. That has been the main thrust of my own work over the last ten years or so. You are currently working on a book entitled How to find your vocation. To whom is this addressed and what are the main issues discussed? John Adair: Serendipitously this covers several aspects of leadership. I set out to write a book about how people can find the work they love. I was thinking particularly in terms of individuals but my work on the book highlighted a few new aspects of leadership that I hadn't thought about. The first point is that it is often vocational people who become leaders; in other words, it is people who find the work they love, thereby finding their vocation, who then find a second vocation which is to become leaders within that field. This offers

a very important insight into leadership. Second, leaders tend to be people who help others to find their talents, release them and use them to the full, i.e. these leaders are interested in helping others to become more vocational in their approach. Another major idea that emerged is that organizations too can be vocational, not just individuals. In my book I have identified nine characteristics of vocational people and it is my belief that organizations can also have those attributes or characteristics. I believe that the future will be geared towards organizations that discover their unique vocation, and do it as a team. I didn't set out to write a "visionary" book, but the issues raised are important and I think the book has turned out to be visionary. It tackles the issue of balance between work and personal life. I explore the idea that we really have two vocations: our personal family life and our work life. Touching on what we said earlier, this marks a major change in global culture. We want a balance between these aspects and that creates challenges for leadership. That said, if we think in a vocational perspective or framework it is actually quite easy to work out reconciliations because we can discern a common element between these vocations.

"Inspiration is in the situation, in the leader, and the key thing is to identify and seize the inspirational moment that is already there." Ultimately, the book is relatively factual and is designed to help people to think through their own vocational path. It also has wider implications, beyond the individual. The idea of pursuing a vocation, and thinking in terms of seeking satisfaction in both professional and personal lives simultaneously, seems very much a modern day luxury. John Adair: This is true and of course we have to bear in mind that 80 per cent of the world's population is not in that position – they're having to struggle to live. But for the first time a critical group is in that position and this now also includes women as well as men. So this is an important issue. One problem is that we have been overshadowed by


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the view that really the end goal of working life is money and wealth and that you're not a success if you're not wealthy or famous and so on. To talk of a vocation is a way of introducing a word which has almost dropped out of the language, using it to try and establish a balance with a tradition of a different way of looking at life and work, and the idea of a social purpose and worthwhile value which goes beyond the self. □


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