I commonly get asked how to teach "leaders" to be leaders. My answer is always the same. Don't. You can certainly hone and refine a person's leadership skills. But, if a person is responsible for leading others and doesn't already have basic leadership skills, it's too late.
Why do some many companies put unqualified people into leadership positions? After all, the number one job and competency of a leader is to lead. You wouldn't hire someone into your accountant department who didn't know how to do accounting. You wouldn't hire a lawyer who didn't understand the law. Yet, I see many organizations where people are promoted into leadership positions because they were good at something other than leading.
This creates several problems. The most obvious one is a poor performing workforce. In the work I do, a lot of performance, motivation, and engagement problems stem from poor leadership. Micromanagement, arrogance, poor communication, insecurity, lack of understanding about the business, inability to prioritize are all common issues that I uncover in my work. But if a leader isn't managing those things well, what is he or she doing? What value are they providing (as a leader)?
A second major problem is that a bad leaders produce more bad leaders. Recently, I was working with a group of managers on strategic thinking. We talked about the importance of getting out of the details to see the big picture. Several of the managers said that they wouldn't be able to do that. Their bosses (and even their bosses' bosses) always drove down into the details. Their bosses wouldn't even entertain a conversation about anything forward looking or strategic. Because those leaders couldn't hold a strategic conversation themselves, they forced others to their tactical level. The ripple effect was that these managers knew that, to be successful (at least with their boss) they had to be tactical. In turn, they forced their own people to provide tactical solutions and answers so that they could pass those up the line. This isn't an isolated case. The primary push back I get in most leadership training is that people won't be able to apply what they are learning because their boss "doesn't get it".
A leader has one job - to lead. As with any job, a person can always get better. However, all jobs have a baseline set of of skills, attitudes, and behaviors that must be present to even qualify. Leadership is no different. People who can't lead shouldn't be put into leadership roles. Period.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
You're not as unique as you think - phew!
I've noticed a pattern many of the organizations with whom I work. People tend to think that their industry/type of business is different than any other. Within their industry, they think that their business has its own set of unique challenge. And, within their business, they believe that their department somehow is different from the rest of the organization. Some people even take it further to the functional or team level. I'm not sure why it happens, but it does.
The reality is that organizations are less unique than the people within them think. It's true that at a certain level there are specific regulations, requirements, or issues that are unique to the organization. However, the broad issues that business face are the same. But why does that matter? It matters because I've seen three problems that leaders incur when they subscribe to the false belief that their organization is different:
Limited solutions
Face it, no matter what business you are in, most of the rest of the world isn't in that business. Therefore, if you limit yourself to thinking that your problems are only unique to your type of business or industry, you immediately exclude a lot of potential solutions. A lot of the conventional wisdom surrounding innovation tells people to purposely look outside of their industry to find solutions to their problems. So, the problem that you are having providing a consistent customer experience? It's the same issues for hospitals, call centers, retail stores, movie theaters, and even schools. Take advantage of their lessons learned.
Claiming false success
If you believe that your organization and its issues are unique, it becomes very easy to ignore external data when determining whether you are successful. For example, suppose that on average, companies in your industry score 9.3 (our of 10) on customer satisfaction surveys. A leader who firmly believes that his or her company is different might be satisfied with an 8.5. I've seen this happen. The leaders justify their decisions and actions arguing that if they used those other companies' models the scores would be even lower. But this kind of logic gets you in trouble. It allows you to believe that anything you do is right. Some leaders even take this to the next level and declare the work they do and their teams to be superior to the marketplace despite data to the contrary.
Diminishing opportunities to improve
If you believe that what you do is the best (given your unique circumstances), there is little incentive to change or improve. This is especially true of radical change. I worked with one leader who was convinced that his team's turn around time of two weeks for a report was about the best that could be done given the complexity of the report and information. He never looked for opportunities to improve. When I suggested that the turn around could be reduced to under a day, he laughed. He couldn't envision any way that the report could be done in less than four weeks. Of course, that's because he only envisioned scenarios that used his current process. When we rolled out a new version of the report that had a four hour turnaround he was stunned. Of course, he pointed to the fact that our report wasn't exactly the same as his. He was right though. Ours had more information and was be better tailored to the needs of each manager.
Go back to your HBR archives and pull a few leadership or marketing articles from the 70s or 80s. More often than not, if you changed the date (and possibly a few references to technology) those articles could have been written yesterday.
The truth is, in business and in leadership, there is a pretty large yet pretty common set of issues that people face. Generally speaking, when you pull back your company or industry's jargon, you'll find that your issues aren't really that much different from someone else's. If you don't, perhaps you don't really understand the issue or the nature of business as well as you should.
The reality is that organizations are less unique than the people within them think. It's true that at a certain level there are specific regulations, requirements, or issues that are unique to the organization. However, the broad issues that business face are the same. But why does that matter? It matters because I've seen three problems that leaders incur when they subscribe to the false belief that their organization is different:
Limited solutions
Face it, no matter what business you are in, most of the rest of the world isn't in that business. Therefore, if you limit yourself to thinking that your problems are only unique to your type of business or industry, you immediately exclude a lot of potential solutions. A lot of the conventional wisdom surrounding innovation tells people to purposely look outside of their industry to find solutions to their problems. So, the problem that you are having providing a consistent customer experience? It's the same issues for hospitals, call centers, retail stores, movie theaters, and even schools. Take advantage of their lessons learned.
Claiming false success
If you believe that your organization and its issues are unique, it becomes very easy to ignore external data when determining whether you are successful. For example, suppose that on average, companies in your industry score 9.3 (our of 10) on customer satisfaction surveys. A leader who firmly believes that his or her company is different might be satisfied with an 8.5. I've seen this happen. The leaders justify their decisions and actions arguing that if they used those other companies' models the scores would be even lower. But this kind of logic gets you in trouble. It allows you to believe that anything you do is right. Some leaders even take this to the next level and declare the work they do and their teams to be superior to the marketplace despite data to the contrary.
Diminishing opportunities to improve
If you believe that what you do is the best (given your unique circumstances), there is little incentive to change or improve. This is especially true of radical change. I worked with one leader who was convinced that his team's turn around time of two weeks for a report was about the best that could be done given the complexity of the report and information. He never looked for opportunities to improve. When I suggested that the turn around could be reduced to under a day, he laughed. He couldn't envision any way that the report could be done in less than four weeks. Of course, that's because he only envisioned scenarios that used his current process. When we rolled out a new version of the report that had a four hour turnaround he was stunned. Of course, he pointed to the fact that our report wasn't exactly the same as his. He was right though. Ours had more information and was be better tailored to the needs of each manager.
Go back to your HBR archives and pull a few leadership or marketing articles from the 70s or 80s. More often than not, if you changed the date (and possibly a few references to technology) those articles could have been written yesterday.
The truth is, in business and in leadership, there is a pretty large yet pretty common set of issues that people face. Generally speaking, when you pull back your company or industry's jargon, you'll find that your issues aren't really that much different from someone else's. If you don't, perhaps you don't really understand the issue or the nature of business as well as you should.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
