Why judge leaders retrospectively?

Author: Iloka Benneth Chiemelie

Published: 10th of June 2014

Leadership is vastly discussed topic in both the area of social science and corporate life. However, a consensus have been established by both scientists and managers as what a leader is all about in their eager attempt to define what makes an effective leaders (Alon & Higgins, 2005; Barker 1997). Leaders are said to fulfill vital roles in an organization. The influence how their teams perform (Pirola-Merlo, Härtel, Mann & Hirst., 2002). It is expected of them to communicate a vision to their subordinates as well as ensure that their outputs are generated in line with such visions (Alon & Higgins, 2005). This implication is that leaders need to shape a culture that is built on realizing set corporate goals.

A retrospective leader on the same hand is one that has a primary responsibility of following the process, but could adopt the content. When process is meant, what is talked about is not sophisticated methodologies; instead process is used to define “actual management of activities, group dynamics and time” (Esther and Diana, 2010).

As such, one is right to judge leaders retrospectively because such involved measuring what they have done (activities), how they did it (process / dynamics) and the duration (time). For instance, is a company wants to generate 20% increase in profitability within a year by enhancing the creativity of its workforce, the leader needs to be judged by:

1.      Whether or not profitability as actually increased by 20% (outcome / activities);

2.      Whether or not such increase was as a result of subsequent increase in creativity of the system (group dynamics / process); and

3.      Whether or not such increase was achieved within the set duration of 1 year (time).

Thus, the best form of measuring effectiveness in leadership is by taking a retrospective view.

References

Alon, I., Higgins, J.M. (2005), Global leadership success through emotional and cultural intelligences. Business Horizons, 48, 501 – 512.

Barker, R.A. (1997), How can we train leaders if we do not know what leadership is? Human Relations, 50(4), 343- 362.

Pirola-Merlo, A., Härtel, C., Mann, L., Hirst, G. (2002), How leaders influence the impact of affective events on team climate and performance in R&D teams. The Leadership Quarterly, 13, 561 – 581.

Esther, D. and Diana, L. (2010), “Agile retrospectives: making good teams great team.” Available at: http://media.pragprog.com/titles/dlret/Leading.pdf [Accessed on: 10t of June 2014).