The Milieu of Leadership

We ask a lot of leaders. They are guides, managers, problem solvers, and organizers. They are caretakers and decision makers. Leaders are also integral parts of several important organizational systems, and we ask them to make decisions and choices within the circumstances and contexts of those systems. Systems that are unique to each organization and behave in certain ways. Typically available, generalized leadership training may or may not add value if the systems that leaders belong to are not considered; or worse, are not fully understood.

According to Cambridge Dictionary online, a milieu encompasses the people, physical and social conditions, and events that provide the environment in which someone acts or lives. The leader’s milieu would necessarily include the way the organization recruits, trains, and seeks to retain people. This of course is what I refer to as the organization’s people development system or PDS. The leadership skills exercised in this particular system fall within these contexts – training, recruiting, onboarding, retention, performance management.

I’m most interested here in leadership at the frontline, in the trenches, and in the middle, not so much in the upper ranks. Although, they too work within a system that they should thoroughly understand. C Suite and upper management teams generally get most of the training and development though.

Obviously, a significant portion of what leaders do in front and middle operations is tied to their team’s performance. Meeting deadlines, producing results, and simply getting things done. Though much of this is managerial in nature, the way that leaders get things done requires that they use leadership skills like emotional intelligence and proper communication techniques.

There are many generic, widely taught leadership training courses available covering important subjects such as communication, emotional intelligence, delegation, etc. For these leaders-in-training an important consideration is, how are these matters generally handled in their current organizational systems?

Imagine that a newly promoted manager completes a workshop to improve their delegation skills. When, in fact, the people development system that they work within does not really focus on developing and training people. Nor does it have a well-defined and properly utilized performance management process. Delegating successfully in many regards becomes challenging in these system dynamics.

Perhaps the organization needs to expand its capabilities and wants to be more innovative. So, leaders are given some basic training and asked to lead the team in this new direction. Only, their PDS isn’t structured to promote a learning culture or foster creativity, so the training only frustrates the team.

What if the company’s leaders bring in a consultant to teach leaders how to be coaches, but the PDS doesn’t effectively facilitate relationship building? This would also be an important system consideration regarding more EQ training for leaders.

No doubt, leadership training is valuable. However, if these leaders do not understand the PDS they are a part of, or if this important system is not well run, the value that training could bring will be limited and will most likely fail to have the desired impact.

In conjunction with leadership training classes or workshops, the whole team should strive to understand how their internal workforce development efforts are designed and implemented.

What are the tools used across the PDS? What data is captured and analyzed to understand system performance? How well connected are the five functional areas of the PDS? How does communication across this system work? Among the most important considerations is how well each PDS stakeholder understands their role in the system.

The milieu of leadership is complex. And while training for leaders is important, it is also important to understand the system to which they and their team members belong. With this understanding they are more likely to be successful in all the important things that are asked of them.

Image by Daniel Roberts from Pixabay