When I wrote the book The Mature Manager – Managing from the Inside Out the editor was irritated that I had not addressed the topic of leadership in the book, not to mind dedicating an entire chapter to it.  I responded by saying “Of course not, being a manager is very different to being a leader; for me the two roles are radically different.  What I would want to do is write a separate book on leadership.”

In my experience few managers are leaders and few leaders are managers.  That is not to say that the qualities for both roles cannot exist in one person, but the likelihood is low.  However there is a need for both managers and leaders in work organisations but they tend not to be comfortable bedfellows.  For example, leaders sometimes respond to mundane work as to an affliction.

I was recently requested to give a talk on ‘Are Leaders Born or Made.’  My immediate response was that leaders are neither born nor made!  If it is the case that leaders are born – that it is in our genes – then ‘God’ had been quite deficient in the leadership stakes, as mature leadership is a rare phenomenon!  In the political arena few leaders stand out – certainly, Mandela, De Klerk, Gandhi come to mind – but the reign of most leaders is brought down by their own personal vulnerabilities, not by defective genes.  To say that leaders are born deprives individuals of the ownership, credit and the responsibility for the qualities that have brought them into a leadership role.  Similarly, to say that leaders are made suggests that individuals can be moulded to be a certain way, but such conformity to the projections of others does not auger well for a mature leadership.

When China and Russia failed to endorse the United Nations’ sanctions against Zimbabwe, it reminded me of the blind eye that used to be turned against the violations Irish mothers and children experienced in homes and institutions.  China’s and Russia’s rationalisation was that what was happening in Zimbabwe did not affect international relationships!  Rationalisation is a subconscious Freudian defence mechanism that attempts to make what is irrational, rational.  Have we not yet come to a realisation that when any one person’s – not to mind millions of Zimbabweans – presence is violated that it puts the rest of us at risk.  There is an old African saying that ‘it takes a village to raise a child.’  I believe it is more accurate to say that ‘it takes a world to raise a child and, indeed, ‘it takes a world to ensure the valuing of each human being.’  Whatever the conscious or subconscious reasons for China and Russia ‘looking the other way’, it is vital that we as a nation, as a people and as individuals, do not subscribe to such international acts of neglect. 

We are living in an era and a Western culture which does not view conflict as the creative force it is meant to be.  At many levels, people are currently doing their utmost to avoid conflict – and in doing so block the emergence of emotional and social maturity.  Heraclites said that ‘war is the father of all things’ and anybody who understands this statement knows that it represents one of the most basic pieces of wisdom – for it is only challenges that provide the opportunities for the strength and fitness of our nature to emerge.  It follows that to repress or suppress conflict is to attack the very dynamic that makes for the consciousness of our power beyond measure to be realised.  However, when conflict goes unexpressed and unresolved, it does not disappear, but is transferred to the physical level, resulting in infection. 

Being effective is the ambition of those of us in educational, health and industrial professions.  However, what is often not appreciated, by men in particular, is that being affective is an essential aspect of being effective.  The mind without affect is not mind at all.  Equally, the practice of a profession is not practice at all without heart.  The word ‘affect’ means to influence and the word ‘effect’ means to cause, to get a result.  It appears to me that these two words are inextricably linked; they are bedfellows that when used together have the potential to bring about powerful and enduring change.

A professional approach that is not affective in nature in that it does not encompass concern for each individual manager and employee or teacher and student or health professional and client can act like a dark force in the lives of those exposed to it.