Running head: GETTING IT DONE QUIETLY
Subtle Leadership: Getting It Done Quietly
Jeffrey B. Romanczuk
Sevier County School System
Introduction
While the glib, charismatic leader grabs attention and headlines, the quiet, subtle leader gets the job done just as well, often better. A few authors have addressed subtle leadership, and still more have written of the idea without labeling it “subtle leadership.” This article encourages greater use of subtle leadership by clarifying the traits called for the valuable niche available to the subtle leader. Specific examples of subtle leadership are given, first in the military and business settings, then in the school setting. Subtle leadership in school administration is covered more fully, followed by advice on how to become a subtle leader.
Subtle Leadership Traits
Kuck (1997) summarizes his servant-leadership article by saying that “an effective leader quietly, consistently, lovingly works long hours behind the scenes to make the school the best it can be” (p. 45). Although it feels counterintuitive to think of the leader working behind the scenes, one of Kuck’s points is that the work no one witnesses is what makes the visible tasks seem easy and effortless (to disinterested observers, at least!). Kuck’s article is largely an exposition of how Bogue’s Enemies of Leadership dovetails with the tenants of servant leadership. The “working behind the scenes” comment is rendered during Kuck’s discussion of Bogue’s call for a “sensitive use of authority” (Kuck, p. 45). Such a use involves the leader’s serving and inspiring rather than seeking to be served. A related trait of subtle leaders that Bogue (as cited in Kuck) attributes to servant leaders is curbing the ego. A related trait of subtle leaders that is even more useful and used is the capacity to absorb hostility without exacting revenge.
Revenge does not even occur to the subtle leader because he knows “leadership is a relationship” (Kouzes & Posner, 2002, p. 20). Horowitz (1997) notes that a successful leader’s primary ability is communicating well. As with any good leader, the subtle leader uses communication to motivate, but he also talks less and favors listening and analyzing more than most leaders do. As Drath and Palus (1994) pose it, the leader’s quandary should not be so much “How can I take charge. . .? How can I influence these people” (p. 1) as it should be, “What is the most effective process of leadership for this group [and] [h]ow can I. . .participate productively in this process of leadership?” (p. 2).
Subtle leaders also know when to look outside their group. Kouzes and Posner (2002) acknowledge that fresh ideas are often external, so “outsight” can be as important and insight (p. 192), though much more difficult to get at. Analysis is usually internal. Covey (1990) admits as much in stating that his four levels of principle-centered leadership—personal, interpersonal, managerial, and organizational—are “practiced from the inside out” (p. 31). Petrie, Lindauer, and Tountasakis (2000) assert that leaders’ deepest curiosity should be about themselves, what they do not know and especially what they would rather not know. This leads to what Emerson (1929) calls “the first secret of success” (p. 709), namely self-trust. Bolman and Deal (1995) offer that “leadership is a gift of oneself” (p. 146). Barton (2003) adds that authority, like love, is useless unless and until it is given away. Unlike Kanter’s belief (1979, as cited in Shafritz & Ott, 2001) that power grows for all when it is shared, Barton’s point is that all team members can get to the place where they know what help is needed and offer it before it is asked of them.
Ignoring that even this much is more than most working groups are able to muster, Barton (2003) goes a step beyond, claiming that the magnet school staff she researched had a spiritual assistance that enhanced the group’s cohesiveness, motivation, and determination. She notes that the principal “inspirits” rather than merely “inspires” (p. 10) because he knows and practices the subtle difference between the two. Looking for divine inspiration goes even further than Kouzes and Posner (2002) mean in suggesting that the leader should “look outward for fresh ideas” (p. 191). Their point is that innovations can be inspired by anything, anywhere in the environment, not just in a firm’s research and development operation. Parker Palmer’s “Leading from Within” (1994) does a beautiful job of blending this internal/external work of leadership with the spiritual dimension. His overall thesis is that leadership as it is taught and in practice tends to be more overt, external than it has to be, or should be. Palmer also cautions: “Spirituality, like leadership, is a very hard word to pin down” (p. 9).
But Barton’s (2003) larger point is that the leader’s optimism that the organization will succeed gives him the courage to endure. Heischman (2002) also addresses the subtle, persistent courage of good leaders. He makes a distinction similar to Barton’s between courage shown in a brief, single act and the kind that allows one to continue doing day in and day out what they know to be their duty. Heischman’s point is that the patient and enduring workers are more heroic than the single-act heroes.
The Subtle Leader’s Role
A leader’s primary role is to help the organization not only adjust to change, but embrace it (Creasey, 2002). This is problematic for subtle leaders because most people tend to resist change and push back. An arrogant leader is at an advantage here (in the short-term, anyway) because the subtle leader takes an emotional beating in his push-pull battles as change agent. As Kuck (1997) puts it, they more often look like “sorrowful servants” than “stately leaders” (p. 44).
Where being the subtle servant leader helps more than it hurts is when followers come to the leader for guidance. A more overt leader’s tendency is to give direction, whereas a more subtle leader would prompt for testing alternatives and guide the follower to a solution likely to work better for that individual than one handed to them by their leader. Even Kouzes and Posner (2002), in their discussion of “practical problem solving” (p. 293), caution against giving constituents specific instructions. Just be sure they know what needs doing and do not prescribe how to do it. This jibes with Kouzes and Posner’s advice earlier to seize every opportunity to teach (not to do for them), and make every question a learning opportunity.
Laud (1998) acknowledges, however, that we all tend to revert to supervising as we have been supervised. She notes that not much has changed in classroom observation of teachers in the past fifty years. Sit in; jot stuff down for the record; meet later to tell them what they are doing wrong and right. Like Kuck (1997), Laud acknowledges that we would do better at getting teachers to come to self-correction by scripting out options together. Group members usually know their own strengths and weak areas; the leader’s job is not to repeatedly point out the obvious, but to get the group to trust its self-knowledge and come up with solutions to problems as they arise (or before).
Fiore (2000) acknowledges, though, that as the paperwork mounts, leadership becomes secondary to management. Then we fool ourselves into believing that we are being expedient in telling rather than leading. Horowitz (1997) cautions that “ ‘It’s your job’ can only go so far!” (p. 31). He means in a motivational (and exasperated) sense, but it is also true in the overly directive and micromanaging sense. Where being a leader is different from being a manager is that leaders know how to present the task at hand without over-presenting it, so that the group can share in the ownership of the work ahead. Subtle leaders have more skill in this than flamboyant leaders do, since the former does less talking and more listening and responding to questions, or as Barton (2003) puts it, being “everywhere at once” (p. 7).
However, Barton (2003) also observes of the magnet school principal she researched, “Knowing his position would never become autocratic or authoritarian, he chose to become the captain of a ship of leaders, guiding always from astern” (p. 7). She notes that the environmental science magnet school was full of teachers who were leaders in their own rights. The principal’s job in this situation is to provide momentum, not direction (Depree, 1989).
Examples of Subtle Leadership
My favorite World War II general is Omar Bradley largely because my fascination with subtle leadership started with him. He was the last to hold General of the Army (5-star rank), and the first Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (Omar Nelson Bradley online, 1992). His last command remains the largest body of American soldiers (1.3 million) to serve under one commander. This is more impressive considering that Bradley was one of the few World War II general officers who received no prior battle experience in World War I. Even so, “Self-effacing and quiet, Bradley showed a concern for the men he led that gave him the reputation as the ‘soldier’s general’ ” (online pamphlet, p. 2).
Collins (2001) gives three good examples of subtle leadership from the business world. He covers the three in a chapter on “level 5 leadership.” The “paradoxical blend of personal humility and professional will” (p. 20, 22) that level 5 entails aligns closely with my idea of subtle leadership. One of the three discussed is Darwin Smith, the “mild-mannered in-house lawyer” (p. 17) for Kimberly-Clark, who became its Chief Executive Officer (CEO) in 1971. Like Bradley (due to his lack of battle experience in World War I), in twenty years as CEO, Smith admits he “never stopped trying to become qualified for the job” (Collins, p. 20).
Another example of subtle leadership is the story of Rebecca Olsen’s first task as CEO of a hospital: dismissing a well-connected and powerful hospital administrator, Richard Millar, for apparent sexual harrassment (Badaracco, 2002). Badaracco’s point is that quiet leaders (as he calls them) are realists. “Realism” (p. 11) he makes clear is not the same as pessimism or cynicism. It is not optimism, either. Olsen weighs her options and works toward coercing Millar to resign quietly rather than having the case go public. This path deflected bad publicity for the hospital even though a negative impact from Millar’s allies would linger with Olsen.
O’Brien (as cited in Heischman, 2002) believes that the difference between courage and cowardice often lies not only in the big choices, but in the small, such as a sentry staying alert on guard duty in the middle of nowhere. Napoleon called this “two o’clock in the morning” courage (Heischman, p. 26).
But Heischman (2002) also supplies plenty of examples of subtle leadership in the school setting. Those parents who slowly and methodically work to change what is not right with the school are showing more subtle leadership and courage than those who storm the principal’s office at every disagreement. Heischman also holds up the “quiet courage” (p. 30) of a good student with a bad home life and that of a first year teacher in an overwhelming job.
Those new teachers who thrive become mentors for the young teachers starting a few years later. Tillman’s article (2000) highlights this mentoring relationship. Such mentoring is subtle leadership because it is both voluntary and informally created from a structure already in place. Out of necessity, new teachers have been coming to veterans of the classroom with issues and questions long before mentoring put some kind of structure on the process. Designated mentoring has only given the informal process more formality and the mentoring teacher an opportunity to demonstrate subtle leadership. Even so, Tillman remarks that both sides enter the relationship willingly and when it works best, it gradually shifts to a collegiality of equals over the years.
Subtle Leadership in School Administration
Laud’s (1998) article in Educational Leadership focuses on the need for the leader to change the way she or he communicates. She faults building-level administrators, not the teachers, when implementation of site-based management gets rocky. Her position is that teachers resist new initiatives and collaboration because administrators do not build up teacher empowerment prior to putting in place the shared leadership that site-based management calls for. To the teachers, it appears the administration is asking their advice, then telling them what to do anyway.
Of course, Laud (1998) is downplaying how widespread among teachers is the feeling that it is the administrator’s job to lead. A related point she does not make, but that I have heard from many teachers is that administrators are paid more to lead than the teachers are to teach. Even so, Laud’s advice that administrators concentrate more on listening and being supportive and less on being directive is sound. Teachers are more likely to execute a solution they had a voice in framing, and this is how site-based management succeeds.
Successful teachers in turn produce successful students (Barton, 2002). Creasey (2002) keeps circling back to student learning as the central ingredient of school leadership, seemingly desperate that we not forget this is the focus of education. Barton adds that in addition to successful teacher involvement, good parent relations and commitment are also required. She advocates a contract approach to foster this home/school team. Heischman (2002) is less ambitious and probably more realistic in offering as one of the purposes of schooling a relatively pressure-safe environment for children to learn how to make adult choices before they have to make these choices and endure whatever consequences result.
In a not-so-flattering corollary to this purpose of schooling, Heischman (2002) also observes that the administrator often plays adult to the teacher’s child. While he admits that there “is a part of us all that loves to shirk the role of adult and act as children” (p. 28), educators are at heart “people pleasers” (p. 26) who play by the rules. We stop to pick up a stray piece of trash in the hallway because we see it as a right, natural thing to do and way to be. What we have to guard against, Heischman warns, is a tendency to doubt or think our decisions are at fault purely based on others’ reactions to them. While Gronn (as cited in Creasey, 2002) admits that leadership cannot reside in any one person, distributed leadership is more about the division of labor than the division of decision making. The main difference between the direct leader and the subtle one is in how these decisions are informed prior to being made and in how much they put the organization’s survival above all else. In weathering any reactions that follow their decision, the subtle leader could well be indistinguishable from the tyrant. For example, Collins’ (2002) coverage of Colman Mockler, CEO of Gillette from 1975 to 1991, highlights his belief in two products in production as his reason for fending off a hostile take over from Revlon and an attempt by an investment group to seize control of the Gillette board so they could sell the company. In the latter case, Mockler stood to benefit personally from the sale, but weathered the doubts of even company insiders to ensure a future for Gillette. Like Olsen and Smith, Mockler kept the future of community being led foremost. Drath and Palus’ (1994) notion of “participative leadership” (p. 24) dovetails with this organizational focus. Their contention is that “leadership development must involve more than the individual; in fact, it probably should not be primarily concerned with the individual. Instead, it must involve development. . .of the whole community” (p. 21).
How to Get Subtle
Laud (1998) would be the author most likely to support my contention that any leader can learn to be a subtle one. Her four steps toward changing an administrator’s communication style should put one well on the way to subtle leadership (p. 23):
1) Believe in the subtle but powerful role communication plays in school leadership
2) Believe that unconscious “scripts” interfere with teacher empowerment
3) Reflect on your own interactions, form new scripts, and test them
4) Keep working these new scripts until they become natural for you.
Laud very closely parallels Kouzes and Posner (2002) in her advice to administrators to lead by example, model the way, and change oneself to get others to change. She also urges administrators be gentle on themselves and the teachers early in this transformation. Feste (as cited in Heischman, 2002) also echoes Kouzes and Posner with her charge to leaders to ask questions not so much to receive answers, but insights that will challenge, inspire, and guide us and our organizations.
Although Kouzes and Posner (2002) never use the term, they offer some of the best advice on becoming a subtle leader. Their Commitment 1—find your voice by clarifying your personal values—is a solid place to start. They cite Robbins’ suggestion to set a regular schedule of prayer or contemplation as a step in this direction, and even go as far as recommending writing a personal credo. It is important that the leader be cognizant of his own values prioritization because a value is “an enduring belief” (Rokeach, as cited in Kouzes & Posner, p. 48). Values influence every aspect of our judgments, responses, and commitments. They impact every decision big or small. More importantly, we tend not to act on options that run counter to our values (Kouzes & Posner).
Changing the way we say things has an impact on how we think about them. Before I ever saw Kouzes and Posner’s (2002) advice to “always say ‘we’ ” (p. 270), I had already taken this to heart as good marital advice. Favoring the use of “we” over “I” really does work in subtle ways to foster group ownership of the present problems and their future solutions. In a similar vein, the authors also recommend being the first to trust, both because trust fosters a “positive interdependence” (Kouzes & Posner, p. 243) and simply because it pays off. It is true that, “Leadership is not a solo act” (Kouzes & Posner, p. 242) and even more so for subtle leadership. As Follett noted in her “Essentials of Leadership” almost eighty years ago, a foreman not bogged down with giving orders can concentrate better on more constructive work. This is part of what Emerson means in saying, “It is enough if you work in the right direction” (p. 709). What Follett and Emerson were evoking so long ago is the very idea I am now calling “subtle leadership.”
Conclusion
The nature of subtle leadership is such that it does not get the attention it merits as a leadership style that succeeds and is worth emulating. Too many aspire to be a Lee Iacocca or Stanley Gault—two take-charge leaders who Collins (2001) says road in from outside to save the company. These white knights tend to be more concerned about their own futures, however, than that of the company. In fact, in the twisted logic of ego-centrism, Collins notes that they often set up the organization for failure after their departure: “After all, what better testament to your own personal greatness than that the place falls apart after you leave?” (Collins, p. 26). Sometimes they will anoint successors who are not right for the role. More often, the informal chains of command and control they built up during their tenure collapse like houses of cards in the wind gusts from their exits. Collins notes that Iococca’s Chrysler was later bought out by Daimler-Benz and that Newell bought out the nearly bankrupted Rubbermaid that Gault left behind. These and any organization would have been better served by a Darwin Smith or Colman Mockler, self-effacing leaders with some history in the company. While I admit it is tough for anyone who aspires to leadership to do so without some personal ambition, the subtle leader’s drive for the organization to succeed will always and ever outweigh his own drive.
I tended to use the male pronoun in this essay instead of the he or she I usually use, or the female pronoun I favor when writing of K-12 teachers in general (since most are women). When writing of the subtle leader, though, in my head I was writing about me; sticking with the male pronoun was a not so subtle way of reminding myself of this. If I am not a subtle leader already, it is what I aspire to. I mean no offense to women readers, especially not to those who identify with the idea of subtle leadership. Forgive.
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