At the time of this writing, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter is receiving hospice care at his home in Plains, Georgia. The 98-year-old is the nation’s 39th president and the oldest living president in U.S. history. For many, Carter is better known for his humanitarian work post-presidency than his actual time in office. His extensive volunteer activities with Habitat for Humanity show his dedication to helping people improve their lives. As a leader, President Carter was an individual who helped facilitate, guide, and be the representative voice of the United States. He was head of the government, a formal organization comprising structured and bureaucratic systems regulated by clearly stated norms and rules. There are other categories of leaders worth considering. Let’s take a few minutes to examine alternative forms of leadership and the issues associated with leadership more broadly.
Formal organizations aren’t the only groups that have leaders. Leaders can also be found in informal organizations, a system of the personal contacts and relationships of groupings of people. These informal groups focus on a network of social and personal relationships. Examples include groups like book clubs and intermural sports teams. Whether formal or informal, organizations usually have a leader whose traits align with the group’s needs. While an authoritarian leader, with a leadership style that is based on orders and directives, may make sense in the military, it wouldn’t make sense for a book club. On the other hand, a laissez-faire leader, that takes a hands-off approach to leadership makes sense for a collective of artists; it might be less effective for a college football team.
Group conformity, aligning attitudes and behaviors with group norms, is critical to the success of any organizational leader. A student coming to class, opening their laptops, and waiting to take notes is an example of group conformity because this behavior is part of classroom learning norms. On the other hand, standing in line at the grocery store and waiting your turn to check out is also group conformity. Group conformity is important to leadership, because if the group members choose not to conform, the leader will have a more challenging time leading.
What happens to leadership when group members conform too much? Arguably, groupthink, the tendency of group members to yield to the desire of consensus rather than expressing individual or alternative ideas, is another threat to successful leadership. If members of the group are unwilling or afraid to speak up, the uncritical acceptance of the views set forth by the group can lead to disaster. One of the most notable examples of groupthink was The Challenger Space Shuttle Disaster of 1986. This event highlighted what happens when the decision-making process of a group is compromised by assumptions of invulnerability, censorship and the illusion of unanimity. Another example is the Kendall Jenner Pepsi advertisement of 2017 which effectively trivialized the Black Lives Matter movement by imagining that police violence could be settled if everyone shared a soda.
Group conformity and groupthink aren’t the only issues that affect leadership. The Peter Principle, the notion that workers in a bureaucratic organization will continue to be promoted until they reach their level of incompetence, forces us to look at whether a leader is qualified to do their job. The tenure of Federal Emergency Management Association (FEMA) leader Mike Brown during Hurricane Katrina in 2005 is a cautionary tale. Simply put, Brown, the former head of the Arabian Horse Association, had reached his level of incompetence when he took the job to head FEMA, the nation’s disaster relief organization.
Jimmy Carter was a one-term president; some would even say that he was a failed president. His approval rating upon leaving office in 1980 was only 34 percent. This is compared to Ronald Reagan at 63 percent, Bill Clinton at 66 percent, and Barack Obama at 59 percent. On the other hand, Carter’s favorability rating after years of Carter Work Project volunteerism was 73 percent. Could it be that his failure as president was just an indication that he was leading the wrong organization at the wrong time? In the end, successful leadership hinges on the leader’s personality, the group they are working with, and the times they lead.
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