COLUMBA 1400
Community and International Leadership Centre
Staffin, Isle of Skye, Scotland
Formal Opening by the Princess Royal
3 June 2000
by
Sir John Daniel
Vice-Chancellor
The Open University
(Notes for a session with the first group of delegates to Columba 1400 held before the inaugural ceremony)
For related material see:
www.open.ac.uk/vcs-speeches/
Introduction
You are the very first group of young people to come together as delegates at Columba 1400 and it is a privilege to talk to you on this historic day when Her Royal Highness the Princess Royal officially opens the Centre.
I have followed the building of this Centre and the planning of the Columba 1400 programme with interest and admiration. When I was your age I had the privilege of being involved in a somewhat similar project, the Brathay Exploration Group that is based in the English Lake District. I went on several expeditions in the Lake District and on one expedition to Corsica. It was fun working with new people, camping in beautiful locations, and carrying out the tasks of exploration that were part of each expedition. Being here reminds me of those days.
I’ve been asked to talk with you about making leadership decisions from my own experience. For the last ten years I’ve had the outstandingly interesting job of being Vice-Chancellor of the Open University. The Chancellor of the Open University is Betty Boothroyd, Speaker of the House of Commons. Her day job is keeping our politicians at Westminster in order so her role as Chancellor of the Open University is unpaid and ceremonial. It’s the Vice-Chancellor, namely me, who has the task of leading the University.
It’s an exciting job for many reasons. First, because the OU has the important and noble mission of opening up higher education to people of all ages and in all situations of life. Our mission is to be open to people, open to places, open to methods and open to ideas. Each of those four ‘opens’ is an exciting challenge.
The second reason that mine is such an absorbing job is that the OU is a big organisation. There are over 200,000 people studying with us this year and the University’s full-time and part-time staff number more than 12,000. We’re the largest educational institution in Britain. That’s what being open to people means.
Being open to places is a third source of interest. As well as students in just about every postcode in the UK there are also 30,000 people taking OU courses outside the UK and they are located all over the world. For instance, we have thousands of people studying OU management courses in Russia and Central Europe and doing it in their own languages: Russian, Hungarian, Bulgarian, Slovak, Czech and Romanian. I visit them from time to time, just as I do our students in Ethiopia, where the Prime Minister is an Open University graduate, and those in Singapore, where next month I shall present degrees to hundreds of new graduates.
Then we are open to methods. Since we teach people wherever they are we are always looking for new technologies that can help us communicate. Thirty years ago the OU was the first university to use broadcast television on a large scale. Today we lead the world in the use of the Internet, with some 130,000 people studying with us on line. They include 60,000 schoolteachers – maybe some of yours. So we have to keep up with all the developments in technology and figure out which are going to be important.
Finally, being open to ideas is a constant source of stimulation. We have some brilliant people working at the Open University on some fascinating research. For example, we have a group that will send a lander to Mars in 2003 to answer the old question of whether there is life there or not. The OU team has miniaturised all the instruments necessary to dig in the ground on Mars, perform various analyses on the samples right there on the red planet, and radio the results back to earth. Then there’s another OU team that is the world centre for studying amphibians and trying to find out why the population of frogs and toads seems to be declining all over the world. Another group is studying how popular culture is changing around Britain.
That’s what’s great about working in the UK’s biggest university. You’re surrounded by people who are world leaders in what they do. They keep me on my toes in my own leadership role.
Administration, management and leadership
I expect you’ve talked and thought about leadership this week so let’s try and pull things together. First, what is leadership and how is it different from, say, administration and management? In a big organisation like the Open University you need all three, leadership, management and administration. Millions of different events have to happen, every day, all over the world. The right people, the right materials and the right information have to be in the right place at the right time. It’s a big organisational challenge.
People tend to mix up the terms leadership, management and administration and, of course, there is a lot of overlap. But let’s try to separate them out, starting with administration and management.
A line I find easy to remember is that administration is doing the thing right, whereas management is doing the right thing. That’s a bit simple but it’s a useful guide. In administration you assume that the basic framework for the activity is set and you have to make things happen properly within that framework.
Take the example of a bus company. The company has buses and drivers. It has published a timetable telling people where and when its buses go. Making all this happen requires good administration. The buses have to be kept clean and topped up with fuel. They need to be serviced regularly to keep them in good running order and to satisfy safety requirements. Schedules have to be made for the drivers which must allow them to have holidays and days off. There have to be alternative arrangements ready in case a bus breaks down or a driver is sick. So there is a plenty of organisation and administration needed to keep the bus company running well and the passengers safe. That’s what I mean by doing things right.
But the company can do things right according to its timetable and still not make money or provide the service its customers really want. Managing the bus company, as distinct from administering it, means doing the right thing. This implies, for example, checking that the bus routes go where people really want to go, ensuring that the timetable makes it convenient for passengers who have to change to another bus or train or who have to get to and from work at particular hours. The manager will try new things from time to time, such as new ways of selling tickets, maybe with a discount if you buy several at once, or through shops near the bus routes.
You can think of your own examples of the difference between management and administration. Both are important and both must be done well. There’s no point in thinking up new bus routes if no-one is bothering to keep the buses in running order and to pay the drivers on time.
What is leadership?
Now what about leadership? How is that different from management? There are various definitions of leadership. I like one given by Dwight Eisenhower, who was a general in the Second World War and later President of the United States. He said that leadership is the art of getting someone to do something you want done because he wants to do it.
Think about that. The art of getting someone to do something you want done. We all want to do that. We all want to influence other people and to control events. Leaders are people who are successful at influencing others.
But notice the second part of Eisenhower’s definition. The art of getting someone to do something you want done because he wants to do it. Because he wants to do it. The implication is that the individual probably didn’t want to do whatever it was before the leader came along. Eisenhower was an army general and military leadership has a lot to do with getting people to do things they wouldn’t normally do, like charging towards an enemy position under fire or defusing a terrorist bomb that could kill you at any moment.
How do you relate to this definition of leadership? You are not often in situations where you are asked to put your lives at risk. But you are all in situations where you are influenced by other people or where you influence them. At school there must be people in your class that you admire and allow to influence you. I’m sure you also try to influence your classmates in various ways. You feel good if they listen to you and get your message. You don’t like it if they ignore you or dismiss your point of view.
The difference between leadership and management has a lot to do with attitude. When you are among your classmates at school you can’t really talk about administration and management because, unlike your teachers, you’re not in an employment situation with bosses and workers. But you often see some members of your class persuade other members to do things. Maybe not always things that they didn’t want to do, but often things they hadn’t thought of doing. That persuasion is leadership.
When people are in employment there is a relationship of boss and worker but there is still a difference between leadership and management. If you’re working in a supermarket and the supervisor tells you to go and restock the soft drinks shelf you do it whether you want to or not because they are the boss and the supermarket company is paying you. That’s management.
But you may sometimes come across a supervisor who makes the work fun, who involves you in planning it and who makes you feel that you really wanted to restock the soft drinks shelves because it’s fun.
What is the difference between these two cases, between the manager and the leader? What gives the leader the power to get you to do something you would not otherwise do? I shall look first at what motivates those make good leaders and then ask what kinds of power they use in being leaders. While I’m talking about this I want you to think about a leader you know. Someone in your school or in your circle of friends, or maybe someone you’ve met this week. Someone who might be able to get you do something you wouldn’t otherwise do and maybe didn’t want to do.
Why do you admire that person? Why do you take notice of them? Maybe it’s because you think that person is ‘cool’. What do we mean by being ‘cool’? Ask yourself whether the qualities of being ‘cool’ are similar to the qualities of leadership that I’m going to mention.
What motivates leaders?
What motivates leaders? What motivates you to try and influence others? You may do it because you want to be liked, to be popular. You might want to be a leader because it would make you look successful. It’s nice to be the captain of the team and an important position. You can put it in your CV when you apply for a job. Then again, you might want to lead a group of people in order to achieve something and make an impact. For example, to get the group up to the top of a mountain and back safely, or to raise money for a school trip.
What does the evidence tell us about leaders and their motivation? Research involving the behaviour of people doesn’t always produce clear results but in this case it does. I listed three reasons for leadership, namely: 1) being liked, 2) personal success, and 3) making an impact. The research shows that those whose prime motivation is making an impact make more successful leaders than those who do it because they want to be popular or because it makes them feel personally successful.
But that leads straight to the next question. If effective leaders are people who want to make an impact, why do they want to make an impact? You can all think of leaders who made an impact but whose motives were evil. Hitler was undoubtedly a powerful leader, who could get a whole nation to do things, like killing Jews by the thousand, that they would not otherwise have done. He had a very bad impact.
Saddam Hussein is another leader who can get people to follow him, but who leaves a trail of destruction. Three weeks ago we saw the arrest of Foday Sankoh, leader of the rebels in Sierra Leone. Again this was someone who had followers - but the things he got the followers to do, like hack off the arms of babies with machetes, were evil.
Leadership skills can be used for good or bad purposes. I urge you to use your leadership skills with integrity and with a notion of service. When you seek to make an impact on the world, try to advance the common good.
So let’s assume that you want to make an impact for good. You want to change the world for the better – or change a particular little corner of the world that interests you in a helpful way. What are the tools you can use? How do leaders have impact? How do they use power?
Five forms of power
I’m going to talk briefly about five types of power that you can use as leaders and comment on their usefulness. I shall list them in growing order of importance with the weakest first and the strongest last.
The first and weakest form of power is coercive power. This means making people do things by threat of punishment if they don’t. The leader of a drugs gang uses coercive power. He is getting kids to do something they wouldn’t otherwise do and which they know to be wrong, like push drugs at other kids. The gang leader is also in constant danger of being turned in to the police or being displaced by another gang leader. He tries to secure obedience by threats of punishment and by actual punishment. Drug gangs are violent.
But coercive power is weak form of power. Mature individuals and groups don’t respond to punishment and it doesn’t produce lasting change in people’s attitudes.
The second form of power is reward power. Reward is the opposite side of the coin from punishment but it is still not a strong source of power for a leader. The leader of a drugs gang will use rewards, either money or free drugs, as well as punishment, to keep the gang members in line. The trouble with reward power is that, like coercive power, it doesn’t really make you want to do what the leader asks. If the leader stops rewarding you with extra money you work less hard. If the leader keeps the big rewards for his close friends it creates jealousies in the group which make leadership less effective. Often the more effective types of reward are not money but intangible rewards like praising people or giving them added status with the group.
A moment ago I asked you to think of a leader you know and to ask yourself why that person was attractive or ‘cool’. I don’t expect that coercing and rewarding people was on your list of qualities. We need more useful forms of leadership power.
This brings us to what is called legitimate power. That is when an organisation appoints you to a position of authority. As Vice-Chancellor of the Open University, for example, I have legitimate power. People expect me to make certain types of decisions and if I make them sensibly and for the common good I can maintain that legitimacy. Indeed I can expect problems if I leave a vacuum by not using the power conferred on me. The legitimate power conferred on a leader is strongest in organisations with a clear sense of purpose and strong unifying bonds between its members. The Open University is such an organisation.
Legitimate power is an important basis for leadership but, obviously, it is something that has to be conferred by the organisation – like being made a prefect or captain of the school soccer team. The last two forms of power that a leader can employ depend more on you as leader than on the organisation that you are in.
The first is expert power. As the term implies, this means that the leader has the authority of an expert in the business that she or he is leading. Sometimes you already have expert knowledge before you come to a leadership position. For example, I was lucky to have worked in two open universities in Canada before I came to my present job. I’d also been president of a traditional campus university there, so I came to the OU with much of the expert knowledge needed.
But you can also acquire expert status on the job. I was reading last week about David Quarmby, who has just been appointed to chair the Millennium Dome company and sort out its problems. He believes in getting expert knowledge. Earlier, when he was managing director of London Transport buses, he spent a week driving a number 122 bus. Then when he became director of distribution for Sainsburys he drove a delivery lorry to supermarkets around the country for five days. Those experiences weren’t all he needed to be an expert in his job but at least he get to know what each business was like at the grass roots.
Expert power is helpful to a leader making decisions in two ways. First, the leader’s knowledge is likely to contribute to better decisions. Second, opponents of decisions have to work harder to argue the case for an alternative.
The final form of power is less tangible but most effective. That is charismatic power. Charisma is often what you mean when you say that someone is ‘cool’. It is a quality that generates trust and confidence in others. This trust and confidence is created by the style and perceived self-confidence of the leader. Furthermore, although this is less obvious, trust and confidence are better maintained if the leader keeps a degree of distance from those that she or he is leading.
It is not surprising that leadership is related to self-confidence. We all tend to be influenced more by people who are comfortable with themselves and straightforward with us. Self-confidence is not a quality you are born with. You develop it through life, partly by taking the advantage of experiences like Columba 1400 to work with others and expand your skills.
I also said that style is part of charisma. Style is a fuzzy concept but, rather like the quality of being ‘cool’ you know it when you see it. Some of the qualities included in style are intelligence, a sense of humour, boldness, persistence, sensitivity, stamina, fitness and being outward looking. These are qualities that we can also develop through experience.
Those are five types of power. Think of a successful leader and see how they fit. Take Prime Minister Tony Blair. He has the legitimate power of being appointed Prime Minister and the coercive and reward power with his Members of Parliament and Ministers that goes with the job. But it seems to me that his success as a national leader with the general public lies mostly in his charisma and his expert knowledge.
Looking at the elements of charisma he definitely has style and self-confidence and you notice how he keeps a degree of distance from people by being very strict about the privacy of his family life – even when he has a charismatic new baby. He also comes across as having expert knowledge, partly because he himself played a large role in defining the movements of New Labour and the Third Way on which his government is based.
That’s just one example. I encourage you to try others for yourselves to see how well these forms of power fit.
Decision-making, meaning and process
Let me end with a word on making leadership decisions, which is what Ian Chisholm asked me to talk about. I’m not going to go into detail about decisions at the Open University, first because I would have to give you lots of boring background to make sense of them and second because I believe that leading a large organisation is not mainly about handing out lots of decisions. My task as the leader of the Open University is much more to create frameworks of meaning and process to guide the decision-making which my many expert and able colleagues have to make in their own areas.
Those frameworks of meaning and process are very congruent with the six leadership themes you have been working with at Columba 1400. Let me go through them.
First, I’ve already talked about service. Leaders can pursue good and bad goals. In my case the basic mission of the Open University, to be open to people, places, methods and ideas, keeps me focused on noble aspirations and the common good.
Second, the theme of integrity. The Open University has a clear statement of values and philosophy to back up its mission statement. My role as leader is to keep the OU’s mission, values and philosophy at the centre of our decision making.
Third, the need for awareness. A large organisation can easily become inward looking and yet the Open University, perhaps more than any other, has to remain open to the influence of changes in society, be they political, economic or technological. I must have my antennae constantly switched on to scan the environment for change so that I can pass on to my colleagues the intelligence that I gather.
Fourth, the theme of focus. The main challenge facing the Open University is that it faces many opportunities to do new things and could probably do many of them successfully. My task is to help sift these opportunities in the light of our mission and values. The Canadian Prime Minister Mackenzie King once said that the real secret of political leadership is more in what is prevented than in what is accomplished. Nipping off some apparently exciting initiatives in the bud is part of the job.
Fifth, the need for creativity. People who work in universities tend to be bright, original and creative. They are also trained to be critical so you do have to watch that new ideas don’t get strangled at birth. I see my task as creating a climate of openness, excitement and mutual respect in which creativity can flourish.
Finally, there is the quality of perseverance. In this time of rapid change it’s easy to get knocked off course by passing fashions. During the dot.com frenzy, for example, people kept telling us the Open University could make a fortune by selling this or that part of its operation. We kept our heads and our notion of public service while at the same time pursuing our long term goal of being the world’s most effective large scale user of technology for university teaching. Today I’m glad we didn’t get seduced into the arms of the dot.coms.
Conclusion
Those are some brief reflections on leadership. For over twenty-five years I have held senior positions in five very different universities. I have greatly enjoyed my leadership roles and I encourage you to seek leadership opportunities too if you want to have an impact on this world we live in. I hope that this week at Columba 1400 has stimulated your thinking.
In future years, as Columba 1400 develops into a thriving international and community leadership centre, I know you will be proud to have been part of the very first group. It has been a privilege for me to address you and I wish Norman Drummond, Ian Chisholm and the staff of Columba 1400 every success. I leave them and you with a quote from Machiavelli:
There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous in conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things.
But I would add, from the experience of the Open University, which has successfully introduced a new order of things to higher education world-wide, that there is also nothing more exciting.