Leading from the left, or right

The general premise is most organizations, by nature, are conservative. Even organizations identified as being left or right of the center; must balance the what goes in and what comes out.  Businesses and organizations which take in money and apply that money towards producing something (whether profit is the goal or not,) must be conservative. The need to husband resources to maximize results is not usually found in a liberal (except, perhaps in the wealthy elite.)

It is one thing to espouse philosophy over glasses of pinot gris and it is something else to make a practical application of said philosophy in the organizations community. So back to my premise; we can talk all we want about political conservatism and liberalism, but the center seems to claim most of us www.gallup.com*, to keep this going where my original thoughts were--can a leader in an organization lead from anywhere other than the center? I don't think so. Part of this premise is based on an inference; if the individual leans left or right leadership management methods and styles will be a reflection of those leanings. If the community is comprised of a large population of moderate thinkers then the leader who is not may be setting themselves up to fail. It is not a stretch to believe the organizations population is a sample.

Let's look at some specifics. We tend to stack behaviors under the labels of conservative and liberal. For example, we may put alternative life styles under liberal, and religious under conservative. Without going into the accuracy of that statement assume for the moment we can accept the truth of these gross generalizations. Since it is already established the largest percentage of our community are moderates, how do they respond to the manager/leader who falls under one of the other labels? Not well. The problem for the leader is credibility. (As I have written my blogs it should be clear, the comments are intended to create questions not provide a multitude of answers.) The liberal boss could be like the Prince mentioned in the last post (or not) and this same vice  versa with the conservative.

For an interesting view on the Prince follow this link to an HBR blog:  http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2013/09/your_nice_boss_may_be_kill.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+harvardbusiness+%28HBR.org%29&cm_ite=DailyAlert-090513+%281%29&cm_lm=sp%3Arobert1139%40comcast.net&cm_ven=Spop-Email

Leaning leaders left or right are not necessarily synonymous with the Prince or with a PRK. Leaning leaders will be challenged with creating credibility and respect from centrist or moderate followers. As I stated above we can argue what behaviors, beliefs, standards, mores, values, morals, etc. will fall under the label of moderates, left/liberal, right/conservative until the cows come home. At the end of the day we will find sufficient numbers of these measures in each category to accept the overall premise; and that is leaders who lean in either direction from center must take extra measures to be an effective leader of the center. If the leaning leader does not, the follower will without doubt question the integrity, character, and commitment of the leader to the overall goals of the organization.



 *Multiple surveys 10/18/12, 12/4/2012, 12/14/12, 5/24/2013