Kouzes and Posner's Five Leadership Practices Common to Successful Leaders

Kouzes and Posner (2002) listed the five exemplary leadership practices as: (a) Challenging the Process, (b) Inspiring a Shared Vision, (c) Enabling Others to Act, (d) Modeling the Way, and (e) Encouraging the Heart. The thesis underpinning the book The Leadership Challenge is that all of these leadership practices can be found in the styles of successful leaders. The CEO must seize the opportunity to lead the organization to greater paths by executing a similar model of successful leadership.

Challenging the Process is first in the cycle of outstanding leadership practices. Leading effectively cannot mean standing still but moving the organization forward. The organization must be pushed, pulled, cajoled, kicked, and persuaded, etc. to move forward in a meaningful, substantive way – hopefully, leaders can pull the organization and not have to push, which is what the book is all about. Some change might come from within the organization, from the front lines or middle management, but ultimately it is the CEO’s job to lead the company toward success and profitability.

The most important leadership practice is Challenging the Process. Engaging in this practice starts the cycle of effective leadership. If the status quo is not challenged, then the organization continues in set patterns of operation. A leader must be an early adopter of innovation and without this passion for change, the organization may not move forward successfully. Leaders must ask what should be, instead of being satisfied with what is. Kouzes and Posner (2002) made a strong case for the primacy of challenging the way things are, “The leader’s primary contribution is in the recognition of good ideas, the support of those ideas, and the willingness to challenge the system in order to get new products, processes, services, and systems adopted” (p. 11).

After challenging the way things are done, the leader must motivate those who would follow by Inspiring a Shared Vision. It is not enough to tell others what must be done. The leader should package their vision of what must be done in a form that can be owned and executed by followers. Inspiring this shared vision requires enthusiasm and an understanding of how to tie the vision of what must be done into the dreams of others. For example, years ago I read in the Santa Clara University catalog that the purpose of the Leavey Business School was to train leaders in the Jesuit tradition – that is, produce business leaders capable of considering not only what is, but also capable of considering what should be. That vision of graduate business education has stuck with me all these years.

Beyond Inspiring a Shared Vision is Enabling Others to Act. In essence, leaders must develop a relationship with constituents that shares power in such a way that enables followers to move toward the direction of the vision. Leaders cannot move toward the dream alone; coordinated actions and ownership of the vision by followers are needed. I found it particularly interesting that Kouzes and Posner (2002) used the test of how often “we” was used in speech as an indication of growing leadership abilities – early in my career I reported to a manager who used the personal pronoun “I” often in company-wide communication and the effect was disenfranchising on his team. Consider how leaders can enable others to act through sharing power, “When people have more discretion, more authority, and more information, they’re much more likely to produce extraordinary results” (Kouzes and Posner, 2002, p. 12).

Modeling the Way is another important practice of leadership. Modeling the desired path requires articulating guiding principles and then operationally putting them into practice. When considering the importance of rolling up the sleeves and getting involved as a daily leadership regimen, I am reminded of the old religious axiom, “We’d rather see a sermon than hear one any day.” Nothing could be truer than acting out an example that builds motivation and commitment in those we are charged with leading. Leaders need to facilitate, educate, do, and be the behaviors that they are asking from followers in order to move effectively toward goals.

Encouraging the Heart is a leadership practice that is frequently overlooked. Most managers seem to believe that mature employees should just do their job without being coddled or spoon-fed. The need for encouragement is not a sign of immaturity but an important component of employee motivation. The point that Kouzes and Posner (2002) made is that employees (i.e., followers) will do an outstanding job of moving toward the organizational goal if encouragement is built into leadership practices. If encouragement must come from the constituents’ own grit and determination, then ultimately that needs to be refreshed or generated anew by the leader.

Reference

Kouzes, J.M., & Posner, B.Z. (2002). The leadership challenge (3rd ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.