Custom‐build Leadership: Three Critical Decisions Only You Can Take

Citation

Yergler, J.D. (2009), "Custom‐build Leadership: Three Critical Decisions Only You Can Take", Leadership & Organization Development Journal, Vol. 30 No. 8, pp. 782-784. https://doi.org/10.1108/01437730911003957

The target audience of Ryde's text appears to be mid‐ to senior‐level leaders who are on an upward career trajectory and for whom doors of opportunity are opening. Ryde's text, Custom‐build Leadership, begins with his philosophy which then permeates his writing: success as a leader depends on the critical decisions the leader makes about what success is to him or her and how that success will be achieved through key professional decisions. This text fundamentally addresses how a leader measures their own appetite for ambition and then strategically and tactically charts their journey toward achievement that is aligned with their ambitions. Eschewing traditional resources for helping to chart one's way forward, Ryde encourages the reader to engage in a high level of professional and personal introspection in order to answer three critical questions. My own reading of this text at the outset raised one particular concern, primarily, how a leader who defines their leadership based on measuring personal ambition and inner drive for success can actually set himself or herself up for professional difficulty. Ryde's approach to leadership, as many organizational leadership academicians and scholars have observed, may well posture a leader for organizational failure rather than success. Nonetheless, the issues raised by Ryde must be taken into strong consideration.

In Chapter One Ryde identifies the complexity of organizational leadership and a few of the more vexatious issues that leaders must confront. Though in no way a comprehensive list nor equally applicable to all leaders, the 12 areas identified, Ryde argues, exert a pull‐and‐tug on the way one leads within the organization. Some of the more compelling dilemmas Ryde identified include: permanently living within ambiguity, complexity and change, the loneliness of the leader, lack of visibility across the organization, and never being off duty. Of course just how many of these issues actually apply to the leader tends to be determined by three variables: the character (psychological make‐up) of the leader, the culture of the organization, and the lifecycle of the organization, none of which are mentioned by Ryde.

Chapter Two focuses on the first question the leader must ask, “How long have I got?” It is here that Ryde's philosophy on leadership becomes rather muddled and confusing, and perhaps, even misleading. At its core, Ryde argues that one's approach to leadership depends on how much time one has within a certain position of leadership and that this fact augments and shapes the manner in which one leads. The reality is that most leaders may have no idea how long they will exercise leadership in a particular organizational context. Furthermore, it may not be a question of any import earlier‐on in the process of leading. Ryde attempts to help the leader answer the question of “how long?” by looking at the characteristics of a shorter‐term and longer‐term ambition. It may be confusing to the reader in trying to understand what actually drives tenure. Ryde posits that personal ambition decides tenure (my strategy is to be here shorter‐term or longer‐term). The reader may easily miss the fact that organizational impact and transformation (productivity and effectiveness) is often the ultimate arbiter of tenure rather than one's personal ambition or predetermined plan. Though some of the minutia Ryde mentions are valuable in determining the impact of one's leadership (which can influence tenure) such as collaboration, resilience, personal commitment, organizational design, and self‐awareness, these cannot be sequestered only into the category of determining tenure. For the leader, these are consistently important practices, mind‐sets, and performance standards regardless of the length of time a leader intends to stay with any organization.

Chapter Three addresses the second question, “How grand is my plan?”. Here Ryde invites the leader to consider the scale and scope of their ambition within the organizational setting. Ryde explores the vision and perspective of the leader within the content of a particular organization and speaks to such areas as courage, strengths, vision, enhancing systems, consolidating change, and self‐care. I found this chapter to the most helpful, lucid, and practical within the book.

Chapter Four explores Ryde's third decision, “How broadly will I lead?”. He seems to make argument for establishing one's leadership reach. The breadth and expansiveness of one's leadership strategy should be carefully strategized and tactically arranged. Using the concept of systems thinking, Ryde posits that leaders should consider the entire system within which they are operating: the organization itself, suppliers, political figures, media relations, customer representation groups. His point seems to be that all these systems and their influence upon one another should be weighed carefully by the leader in terms of his or her involvement. Levels of involvement within the system will depend on whether or not the leader possesses a narrow or broad leadership ambition. If narrow, the leader should drill down by leveraging relationships, minimizing reach across the system, seeking to maximize impact and success within immediate organizational contexts and relationships. If broad, the leader builds relationships broadly across and well beyond the system. The focus here would be on leveraging one's impact, influence, networks, and channels for publicity.

In the brief Chapter Five, Ryde invites the leader to, as it were, pause for a moment of serious reflection and consider the implications of her answers to the three critical decisions. Noting the importance of these decisions, Ryde states that these key decisions “open up and provide entry to a place where your priorities, personal preferences and ambitions can be properly examined” (p. 156). This statement leads the reader to believe that as one considers these three key decisions, that they then illuminate additional related and vital decisions that impact one's exercise of leadership. This final chapter appears to communicate that as the leader gains clarity on the three issues raised by Ryde, that all other matters of leadership fall into place.

The book concludes with a very brief section of notes and an index.

Though Ryde's work has some value to the leader, I am more than a little concerned that an emerging leader who is about the business of charting the trajectory of his career path would read this book and feel inordinately compelled to measure the strength of their ambition and hunger for success. Nowhere in Ryde's text are the issues of personal ethics, moral core values, transformation of people and processes, serving and sacrifice addressed. Settling the former issues should be of ultimate importance for the leader whereas Ryde's critical decisions should, at best, be of penultimate concern. Finally, Ryde's constant use of the word ambition would seem rather dangerous. Unchecked ambition and an inordinate and insatiable hunger for success sets the table for leaders who can do great damage to people and organizations. Indeed, though the leader must design a strategy for making the most of their talent, career, and the opportunities with which they are afforded, there are other more consequent and profound decisions that represent the real “deal‐makers and deal‐breakers” of leadership which, it seems to this reviewer, lay well beyond any concern about ambition and success.