On a chilly Thursday evening Professor Rune Todnem explained in a public lecture held as part of Staffordshire University’s popular ‘Profs in the Pav' series how everything we think we know about leadership is wrong.
Todnem is an academic from the funkier end of the spectrum, a balding Norwegian with a hipster beard and a taste for waistcoats and red Doc Martens. Throughout the forty-five-minute lecture he works the room with the easy charm of an alternative comedian.
This trendiness shouldn’t distract from his academic credentials, he holds professorial posts at Staffordshire and Stavanger universities and is the co-editor of a respected journal. More to the point he has something genuinely important to say.
What we think about leadership is, Todnem argues, limited by stereotypes and an attachment to the idea that it is an activity practiced by a special elite cadre. The ‘great man’ is still on his throne even though his legitimacy has been in question for decades while the rest of us grumble away in the language of ‘us’ and ‘them’.
We need, he says, a more modern and humane conception of what leadership means, one that encourages us to moan less and ask more questions instead. To emphasise the ‘ship’ in leadership, seeing it as an enterprise involving collaboration.
This requires ‘decoupling’ leadership from power, since the latter is all too often politicised or misused. Ending our obsession with targets would be a good idea too, music to the ears of anyone who has been involved with business, or worse yet politics and knows just how many things get done just because they’re what we always do.
Leadership on both an individual and organisational level needs to be more linked to purpose, this has to go beyond just making a profit and add real value to the community. What counts, Todnem argues is how much of a difference our actions make, this releases energy and creativity that gets lasting results.
For all his quirky image and a delivery style peppered with self- deprecating humour Rune Tundem has a serious point to make. Leadership is in crisis in almost every field, the people, usually men, who get to the top lack conviction in every area apart from their own entitlement.
Change is certainly needed; quite how likely it is to come any time soon isn’t at all clear. Leaders of the old school are remarkably tenacious when it comes to clinging on to power.
Those of us lower down on the hierarchical totem pole are often complicit in helping them to do so. Complaining about the people who lead us is easier than taking on the collective responsibility necessitated by this new style of leadership.
Keep a tight hold of nurse for fear of finding something worse, is an old saying that neatly encapsulates our modern curse. We all feel that something should be done, we just don’t want to take the risks involved in doing it.
Rune Todnem is an important thinker and he has suggested a better and more rewarding way of leading ourselves to a better future.
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