Leadership as Core Competency
by Miki Saxon
It is said, “Cut off the head, and the body will wither.” During World War II, the Germans made every effort to kill off enemy officers, assuming that without their leadership Allied troops would crumble. But a funny thing happened: Every time a leader was put out of commission, someone else stepped up and assumed the role—whether or not he held rank.
The impromptu replacements didn’t think about it, discuss it, or worry about whether they could successfully do it; in the chaos of battle, they took the initiative, did what was necessary, and became “leaders in the instance.”
Leaders aren’t born, nor are they promoted, appointed, or anointed. Leaders develop by doing; they develop with assistance from their managers and company, without it, and, sometimes, in spite of it.
Once in a management role, they have no choice, because today’s workplace requires an enlightened, demanding, and independent workforce that has no problem voting with its feet when unhappy.
Decades ago, a major disservice was done to business when the idea that managers and leaders were separate and that leaders were “better” than managers was introduced. Sadly, that attitude is still in force today, but look carefully at these distinctions, from Warren Bennis’s On Becoming a Leader, and ask yourself how well any manager or leader can perform in the twenty-first-century workplace without both sets of skills.
- The manager maintains; the leader develops.
- The manager focuses on systems and structure; the leader focuses on people.
- The manager relies on control; the leader inspires trust.
- The manager accepts reality; the leader investigates it.
- The manager does things right; the leader does the right thing.
The difference between being labeled a good, mediocre, or bad manager is often the difference between how many of the so-called leadership traits the manager embraces. Leaders are said to have vision and the ability to communicate it to their people, but that is exactly what every manager, even the lowest-level team leader, must do, within the scope of their role, if they want their people to be productive and innovative.
It is good to remember that people do not join companies because of the CEO or a few top executives—they join for the culture and the people, specifically their team and manager.
These two areas are tightly interwoven; there is an overall company culture and a subculture perpetrated by the manager to whom they report, no matter how junior. And each subculture is influenced more by the person directly above than by the person in the corner office.
Therefore, disseminating these skills throughout the organization requires a concerted effort that starts with the CEO and extends across the executive ranks, because it is on the rocky shores of culture that this effort usually sinks.
To lead means to show initiative, which means taking risks and braving the possibility of failure.
In a culture where failure is cause for anything from private sarcasm to public belittling and even dismissal, who in their right mind will show initiative? If the messenger is killed, who will speak up when the news is bad?
In short, senior managers have no choice but to push leadership down through the ranks—just as responsibility was pushed down forty years ago, as organizations flattened and companies stripped away management levels.
Life and work are always about choices, and promoting leadership throughout your part of the organization is a matter of choice, whether or not those above you make the same choice.
This article was first published in the October 2009 issue of The Conference Board magazine.
Image credit: Free Images
October 15th, 2018 at 1:15 am
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