I recently came across a very interesting question: Is leadership morally neutral? In other words, can we regard dictators or “heads” of fascist countries as leaders?

From the LSmarts perspective, here’s an answer:
One of the five intelligences in the LSmarts framework is called “Ethical LSmarts.” This intelligence reflects the person’s ability to recognize and act upon the ethical dimensions of an issue. It is not about the ethical beliefs of a leader or how ethical you perceive the leader to be. It is also not about doing “good work” (as in “the ethical mind” that Howard Gardner of Harvard has proposed.) Rather, this aspect of intelligence reflects how capable the leader is of recognizing and understanding the ethical implications of a new situation. Ethical LSmarts bestow upon the leader a capacity to understand the ethical standpoints of people who may not share his or her personal ethics. This aspect of leadership intelligence makes the difference between why somebody like Mahatma Gandhi or Abraham Lincoln is called a great leader and why somebody like Hitler is called a demagogue.

To answer the question then, leadership is definitely not morally neutral—great leaders display the ability to lift the question of ethics from that of the personal and transform it into the ethics of all of humanity. For a demonstration of this, watch Richard Attenborough’s movie, Gandhi. Toward the close, there is a scene that depicts Calcutta (now Kolkata) in the immediate aftermath of Hindu-Muslim religious riots that followed the partition of India. Gandhi went on a fast-unto-death if the riots did not end. The scene that I mention shows that the riots have stopped, and rioters are going by the house in which Gandhi lies. They are throwing down the arms they used in the riots in front of Gandhi who lies on a cot. Suddenly a Hindu man rushes toward Gandhi’s bed, throws a piece of bread at Gandhi, and orders him to eat it; the man then breaks down and tells Gandhi of how he killed a small Muslim boy because the Muslims killed his young son. Gandhi’s answer: “Adopt a Muslim boy the same age as your son, and bring him up as a Muslim.”

So , Starbucks will close for 3 hours today for Barista training. With fast food chains poised to steam into the espresso world, Starbucks had better do something to pick itself up. I’ve always admired the genius of the understated Howard Schultz. This is one step in the long process of recovery. But Starbucks should recognize that what will differentiate it from the competition is that it is in the service industry. As Schultz has obviously recognized, stores such as the one in LaGuardia airport offer anything but a “third place.” As far as I am concerned, that is the last place I want to be.

As I have argued in my many years of studying the service industry, customer service folks (in Starbucks’ case, the baristas) are the ones who need to be tremendously innovative and display everyday leadership: customer requests are as varied as they come and operational crises happen all the time. Some want room for milk, some what whipped cream. Some want it hot, some want it “ready to gulp.” The milk spoiled in the fridge, a kid spilled hot chocolate on another customer.

Baristas have to demonstrate everyday leadership. What does that mean? It means that the baristas must be able to handle unexpected circumstances with aplomb. They must make winning situations of what could be store-shutting crises. How can they do it? They must be trained to identify, develop, and apply the five leadership intelligences of the LSmarts framework–the analytical, operational, inventive, communicative, and ethical leadership intelligences.

What is the barista training doing today? Schultz says:

He wants baristas to share their passion for making espresso, or as he says, “to pull the perfect shot, steam milk to order and customize their favorite beverage.”

In other words, he wants them to be trained in”operational intelligence” (the key word is “customize”–customization cannot happen without intelligence).

But I hope Schultz is paying heed to training Starbucks employees in all the five leadership intelligences–such training will definitely perk Starbucks up.

Presidential Elections and “Change”

The 2008 Presidential election is all about change. As the candidates profess change and each claims to be “a change-agent”, we are left with the question of how to assess which candidate will be most able to achieve change. We’d like to invite you to rate the candidates (see link at bottom) but before that, let me give you a short introduction to a new framework.

At Vivékin Group, through a decade of research at the Wharton School, Purdue University, and the University of Minnesota, we have developed the LSmarts framework. This framework, which draws on theories of multiple intelligences, allows us to rank the Presidential candidates on their ability to handle and bring change on the basis of 5 leadership intelligences.

The Five Intelligences of Leadership
A true leader demonstrates the ability to chart a path in unmapped territory, and to lead a group, a community, a nation, or all of humankind itself, along this path toward progress. This ability of a leader becomes all the more critical when times are uncertain–the true leader demonstrates a flexibility to plan and take action in the face of unforeseen circumstances.

Leadership ability is thus reflected by that which marks us as quintessentially human: Intelligence—the ability to combine knowledge, experience, perception, and imagination to solve a problem. But, by intelligence we do not mean its popular conceptualization as IQ.

Building on recent advances in psychology research, we view leadership intelligence as more comprehensive and multi-faceted. A true leader for the future needs to possess five different kinds of leadership smarts (LSmarts): Analytical, Operational, Inventive, Communicative, & Ethical LSmarts.

1. Analytical LSmarts

A leader with Analytical LSmarts quickly defines or identifies problems and appropriate solutions. The leader is able to systematically acquire new knowledge and demonstrates an ability to learn both from successes and failures. Analytical LSmarts also allows the leader to monitor performance and take corrective action when necessary. For instance, one illustration of Analytical LSmarts will be when a candidate finds a smart–and yet, legal–way of getting around campaign finance laws.

2. Operational LSmarts

A leader with Operational LSmarts transforms ideas into action even when circumstances are not congenial. Such a leader is an agent of change, and is efficiency oriented.
Operational LSmarts can be seen when a candidate (or a campaign) is able to find ways of getting around factors such as bad weather or technology glitches that adversely affect operations, or during a hostage crisis.

An excellent example of a leader demonstrating Operational LSmarts is that of Jack Kennedy during the Cuban missile crisis.

3. Inventive LSmarts

A leader with Inventive LSmarts demonstrates imagination. Such a leader carries and conveys a vision, and inspires the public with new ways of solving both old and new problems.

4. Communicative LSmarts

A leader with Communicative LSmarts demonstrates a capacity to persuade audiences. Such an ability is clearly evident in the Presidential debates where an example is that of Ronald Reagan who in the 1984 Presidential debate with Democrat Walter Mondale intelligently remarked that he would not make his opponent’s “youth and inexperience” an issue in the campaign.

5. Ethical LSmarts

A leader displays Ethical LSmarts when faced with an ethical dilemma. Ethical LSmarts are not about the ethical beliefs of a leader or how ethical you perceive the leader to be. It is also not about doing “good work” (as in “the ethical mind” that Howard Gardner of Harvard has proposed.) Rather, this aspect of intelligence reflects how capable the leader is of recognizing and understanding the ethical implications of a new situation. Ethical LSmarts bestow upon the leader a capacity to understand the ethical standpoints of people who do not share his or her ethics. Good examples of leaders who demonstrated ethical LSmarts are Abraham Lincoln (especially, his Gettysburg address) and Mahatma Gandhi.

An Invitation to You

We invite you to participate in the first-ever public application of this framework to assess leadership. We have an survey that you can access online and provide your assessment on both the Republicans and Democrats who wish to become the next President of the USA.

If you wish to participate in this unique experiment, please access the survey here.
It will open in a new window.

In an article in today’s New York Times, Matt Bai makes an interesting point about leadership. Toward the end of the article, he asks,

At the risk of triangulating, I think you could make a case that it would be awfully nice to have a leader who is both practiced and intuitive. But this question of where leadership comes from is a worthy one for people to think about.

At Vivekin Group, through research that brings together psychology and management, we find that leadership is closely tied to intelligence. Recent work by Howard Gardner of Harvard (see his book Five Minds for the Future), although slightly different from our framework, corroborates it. We find that leadership smarts (LSmarts) are five-dimensional: Analytical, Operational, Inventive, Communicative, and Ethical. LSmarts reflect a leader’s ability to think flexibly along these five dimensions. The framework brings together both left-brained thinking (Analytical and Operational LSmarts) and right-brained thinking (Communicative and Inventive LSmarts), apart from addressing the ethical dimension.