“Leadership is an opportunity to serve. It is not a trumpet call to self-importance.” —J Donald Walters
When you look at leaders such as Genghis Khan, Attila the Hun, Napoleon Bonaparte, Adolf Hitler, Stalin, and Hosni Mubarak, to name a few, they are all autocratic leaders. There are also many autocratic leaders in business, including Jack Welch, Steve Jobs, and Leonard D. Schaeffer. Autocratic leaders make their own decisions without consulting others. This style can be applied when time is short to explain the reasons behind the actions and there is a need to maintain confidentiality. It often is adopted by military organizations and some of the manufacturing sectors where less skilled human power is involved. This style has both pros and cons. It is good if the nation has to grow and the autocratic leader has great intentions. It is bad if the autocratic leader has negative intentions, leading to corruption and persecution of opponents.
Leonard D. Schaeffer was CEO of Blue Cross of California in 1986. He remarked in his Harvard Business Review article titled “The Leadership Journey” (https://hbr.org/2002/10/the-leadership-journey): “When a business needs to change relatively quickly, it’s much more important to just make a decision and get people moving than it is to take the time to conduct a thorough analysis and attempt to influence others to come around to your way of thinking. Therefore, I would define the autocratic leader not as someone who bullies others needlessly but as the managerial equivalent of an emergency room surgeon, forced to do whatever it takes to save a patient’s life.”
Autocratic Leaders and Their Strategies
Do you know the leadership strategies of autocratic leaders? Do you know the games they play to ensure their survival? Do you know how they build their leadership brands globally? Do you know what makes them charismatic in the long run? Do you know what makes them ensure leadership longevity? Here are the answers to these questions.
Leaders adopt different leadership tools and techniques and styles and strategies from time to time to accomplish their organizational goals. Some leaders adopt different leadership tactics to ensure their survival and leadership longevity. However, autocratic leaders adopt unique leadership tactics to ensure their survival. They are a different breed with a unique mindset, skill set, and tool set.
They seldom disclose their strategies to their closest circles for fear of losing their leadership position to others. At times, they befriend their enemies and competitors but rarely show their cards. They don’t trust others easily. They are secretive by nature. They are impatient, aggressive, energetic, and enthusiastic with a passion to achieve their goals like any other leaders. But they rarely give credit to their subordinates, who may be superior to them in terms of intelligence, performance, and knowledge as they are scared of losing their position.
Like democratic, delegative, transformational, and transactional leaders, autocratic leaders also build strong teams. But they reshuffle their teams and advisors from time to time and don’t let ambitious leaders to grow.
Some autocratic leaders create a second rung of leaders ready in the leadership pipeline to avoid sabotage by overambitious followers in the first rung (just look at Julius Caesar, who was betrayed by his own friend, Brutus). Hence, autocratic leaders are more concerned about their survival, and are more suspicious about the motives of their ambitious followers. As such, they create a team around them to achieve their objectives and replace team members from time to time to ensure their survival.
Hovering Isn’t Helping
“A boss creates fear, a leader confidence. A boss fixes blame, a leader corrects mistakes. A boss knows all, a leader asks questions. A boss makes work drudgery, a leader makes it interesting.” ―Russell H. Ewing
Beverly Kaye said, “People don’t leave companies, they leave bad bosses.” Additionally, employees don’t appreciate working under “helicopter bosses.” Helicopter bosses are the superiors and supervisors who micromanage their employees and are control freaks. They often interfere in their employees’ tasks. They don’t trust their employees’ capabilities and competencies. They don’t encourage creativity and innovation. As a result, employee productivity and performance falls, as does morale. Their intentions may be good, but their actions are bad. They often suffer from stress and burnout.
When handling helicopter bosses, employees must be both diplomatic and assertive. They must stay ahead of the game and maintain a safe distance to avoid excessive interference. Other advice:
- Inform them that you lose concentration due to their constant presence.
- Avoid discussing your personal issues with them.
- Strictly stick to professional relationships.
There are many advantages if bosses can get out of “helicopter” mode and excel as leaders. They don’t have to spoon-feed their employees. They can delegate tasks that encourage employees to unlock their potential to perform well. They can empower their employees to grow them as leaders. They also can encourage their employees to explore and experiment to earn their respect. Above all, they can build the leadership pipeline and next generation leaders.
Leaders as Partners
The reality is that today’s employees don’t like to work under bosses at all. They don’t even appreciate working under leaders. In contrast, they appreciate working with leaders who offer challenging opportunities to unlock their potential and creativity. As there are plenty of career opportunities everywhere for capable and hardworking employees, they prefer to work with partners who are leaders. Ken Blanchard noted, “In the past, a leader was a boss. Today’s leaders must be partners with their people…they no longer can lead solely based on positional power.”
The days of command-and-control are gone. Employees crave partnership rather than autocratic or transactional leadership. So leaders must reinvent themselves with the changing times and attitudes of employees and mold themselves accordingly to grow as great leaders. Robert Townsend rightly remarked, “True leadership must be for the benefit of the followers, not the enrichment of the leaders.”
Leadership is all about bringing a positive change and accomplishing goals and objectives. Although leaders adopt various leadership styles from time to time, they must ensure that the goals are accomplished effectively and the second rung of leaders are created in the leadership pipeline to ensure organizational excellence and effectiveness, and to encourage ambitious leaders to grow along with them. Remember, good leaders build leaders around them to ensure smooth succession to carry forward their leadership legacy. As Tom Peters remarked, “Leaders don’t create followers, they create more leaders.”
Professor M.S.Rao, Ph.D., is an international leadership guru and leadership educator, executive coach, speaker, and consultant. He has 34 years of experience and is the author of 30 books including 21 Success Sutras for Leaders (http://www.amazon.com/21-Success-Sutras-Leaders-ebook/dp/B00AK98ELI) that was ranked as one of the Top 10 Leadership Books of the Year – 2013 by San Diego University. His award-winning book “Success Tools for CEO Coaches: Be a Learner, Leader, and Ladder,” is the Community Award Winner for 2014 by Small Business Trends (http://bookawards.smallbiztrends.com/management-2014/success-tools-for-ceo-coaches-8/). His award-winning book, “Smart Leadership: Lessons for Leaders” (http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00D9S8SCW) has been published as a Spanish language e-book. His vision is to build 1 million students as global leaders by 2030 (http://professormsraovision2030.blogspot.in). He has been honored as an upcoming International Leadership Guru by Leadership Gurus International (http://www.globalgurus.org/leadership/upcoming.php) and listed as one of the leading achievers around the world in Marquis Who’s Who in the World in 2013. He serves as an advisor and judge for several international organizations, including Global Leadership Awards, Malaysia. He received the International Coach of the Year 2013 Award from Comprehensive Coaching U, Inc. http://www.terrilevine.com/coachoftheyear/winners.html Professor Rao coined an innovative teaching tool called Meka’s Method; a leadership teaching tool, 11E Leadership Grid; and a new leadership tool called Soft Leadership Grid, based on his new leadership style, “Soft Leadership” copyrighted with Jossey Bass. He led a Webinar on Soft leadership organized by International Leadership Association (http://www.ila-net.org/Webinars/Archive/Rao082012.html). A No.1 ranked speaker in India, reviews can be found at: http://speakerpedia.com/speakers/professor-msrao. Books can be found at: www.amazon.com/gp/pdp/profile/A16SKI0396UBRP. Most of his work is available free of charge in his four blogs http://professormsraovision2030.blogspot.in, http://profmsr.blogspot.com, http://professormsrao.blogspot.com and http://professormsraoguru.blogspot.com. You can e-mail him at msrlctrg@gmail.com and follow on Twitter at @professormsrao Contact him via e-mail at msrlctrg@gmail.com and follow him on Twitter at @professormsrao.
