Ask any group of managers if they view themselves
as an elite within their organization and you can be sure they will
deny it. You'll hear comments such as: "I have an open-door policy" and
"I take pride in always being accessible and approachable."
And
in most cases, these managers will really believe what they are saying.
What they don't realize, however, are the many invisible barriers -- the
"glass doors" -- they put in place.
Leaders remove these barriers and that is part of what separates them from managers.
Management
perks and privileges -- such as parking spaces or special offices --
create separations. Similarly, employees find it hard to get any sense
of collaboration when their bosses hold exclusive meetings or
conferences, hang out in management cliques, use condescending or
dehumanizing language, or withhold financial statements or other
"confidential" information.
Leaders put a real effort into
listening to and learning from people throughout their organization.
Listening is the clearest way we can show respect and build trust.
By contrast, managers don't listen to "their people" -- usually because they're too busy telling them what they need.
Managers
spend major amounts of time in their offices or in meetings with other
managers and specialists. They often control and command by e-mail
because they see it as a more efficient use of their time.
Occasionally, they might do an organizational survey or hold a meeting
or special event for "their people."
Strong leaders, on the other
hand, have their own kind of "closed-door" policy. They're not trying
to keep people out, it's just that most of the time you'll find their
office doors closed and the lights off -- because leaders are so rarely
satisfied with staying behind a desk.
Leaders know that an office
is a dangerous place from which to manage an organization.
Leaders also recognize that few of their front line people
are going to be assertive enough to break through the invisible
management barriers to come into their office and raise
an issue or even send an e-mail.
Studies
show that in many organizations, a majority of front line people are
afraid to speak up. That's why leaders spend huge amounts of time with
people throughout their organizations. They're busy listening at
breakfasts, lunches, barbecues, and town hall meetings. They're
conducting surveys, participating in cafeteria conversations, working
together with people on the front-lines, and attending celebration events.
It's
when times are toughest that true leadership becomes obvious. This is
when much-repeated claims such as "our people are our most important
assets" are proven true or shown to be just hollow rhetoric.
How
managers handle economic downturns and sudden cost-reduction pressures,
for example, speaks volumes about their leadership. If an organization
has strong leaders who truly care about people and want to build
long-term trust, layoffs are always a last, desperate step.
Leading
successfully in tough times calls for openness, a willingness to
outline the difficult situations clearly, as well as an ability to
express your own pain.
Leaders use all the methods at their
disposal - including surveys, meetings, e-mail exchanges, focus groups
and phone hot lines -- to brainstorm, get input, and set priorities.
Then,
they communicate, communicate, and communicate some more. Leaders know
it is almost impossible to tell people too much about what's going on
and why.
True leaders understand that there's no shortcut to
reaching their organization's preferred future. It takes clear vision,
a steady hand, and the discipline to avoid quick-fix solutions, however
tempting they may be.
There are no leadership formulas. But
managers keep searching for them anyway. So they buy the books, hire
the consultants, and set up the training programs -- whatever happens to
offer the latest steps, secrets, or systems that will transform mundane
Clark Kent managers into Superman leaders. Most of it is just a waste
of time and money.
After three decades of experience with
hundreds of management teams, I have found that many of the "latest"
management theories amount to little more than a rehash of what has
gone before.
That's why I find myself in vigorous agreement with
MIT's Sloan School of Management professor Edgar Schein, when he says:
"We go through cycles. Every few years we rediscover formal planning,
then we rediscover the importance of people, and then in another few
years we discover cost control. When you look over the last 40 or 50
years, there is nothing much that is genuinely new. It is a recycling
and elaboration of something that has been proposed as far back as
Plato."
The fact is that meaningful change happens only by
applying timeless leadership principles. The results probably won't be
instantaneous, but they will last.
Leadership is an inside job.
We change "them" by first changing "me." A growing mountain of
research, such as that on emotional intelligence, shows that leadership
begins "in here" and moves "out there". That calls for changing our
lifestyle. It means developing new habits.
Here are a few suggestions:
- Get
feedback on how your leadership is perceived by those you are leading.
Find out what they think you should keep doing, stop doing, and start
doing.
- Set aside a regular time for reflection and renewal to stay focused and review the progress of your personal improvement.
- Train, train, train. Take lots of development programs for the skills you need.
- Teach those skills to others. Teaching takes us to a much deeper level of understanding and mastery.
- Participate in personal growth retreats or workshops that help you focus on the inner dimension of leadership.
- Complete self-assessment tests that help you understand your leadership style
and how you relate with other styles -- especially those most opposite
to your own.
- Monitor your job happiness. What turns you
on? What turns you off? What are your greatest strengths? How much of
your job plays to your strengths? Are you in the right job?
- Find a mentor who can give you the benefit of his or her experience.
- Hire
a coach to assess your team's effectiveness and review your leadership.
Work with him or her to address key issues and make personal and/or
team improvements.
Thanks for reading
Bob 'Idea Man' Hooey would be pleased to be a part of your
success team and to work with you to help make your
conference, meeting, or training event a success. For more
information about customized keynotes, professional and
personal leadership training and coaching, or seminars/retreats,
please visit www.ideaman.net
or call our Creative Office at: (780) 736-0009
for availability.
Ask about a customized conference, coaching or training package to suit your specific career, company, or organizational needs.
Ask about our innovative leadership, career and business success, and/or sales leaders' motivational training programs.
*****
If you are new to our Ideas At Work! family, welcome aboard. We publish this monthly e-zine to share ideas and keep in touch with our friends, readers and audience members who wanted to remain in contact and share in the lessons we acquire along the way.
You are receiving this E-zine because someone (we hope you) subscribed. At any time, simply follow the To unsubscribe or change subscriber options visit: link at the end of this email. Please pass this issue along to anyone you think will gain some benefit from reading it. If you want to continue getting this on a monthly basis, simply do nothing.
If you have gotten this copy as a forward from one of your friends and want a copy of your own, simply follow this link and give us your email address. Our service - aweber - automatically does the rest. You will need to confirm your subscription though a link from aweber to activate your subscription.
Follow link for Privacy, Copyright and Policies