Leaders Inspire...
… loyalty. Bosses inspire obedience.
A boss has the power to fire you if you
don’t do what they want. So has a
leader, but a leader makes you want to perform because you want to, not because you have
to.
Who gets better performance?
Some define leadership as “Getting
extraordinary results out of ordinary people.”
Being a leader is one of the most difficult “balancing acts” for
anyone. You need to strike the right
balance between being approachable and being “in charge”. You need to see the “big picture” as well as
the detail. You need to be able to give
good news and “bad” in a way that team members accept it. You need to be coach, mentor and friend.
I’ve been lucky enough to work for and with
people who achieved this balance and were inspiring and motivating to be
with. I’ve also seen the exact
opposite. Over my career, I’ve had 20
bosses. Out of them, I would say that I
really enjoyed working for (and worked hard for) seven (or 35%), meaning that
65% didn’t get the best out of me.
It taught me a lot about what I expect from
a leader and what others may expect of me as a leader (some of which may be
“unreasonable”). It’s a useful exercise
in self-examination. It made me ask
whether I’m displaying the traits I want displayed to me, or whether I reflect
the behaviour of the “poorer” leaders to my reports…
Being a “boss” can only be a very temporary
thing. Some indicators that someone may
be a boss are:
- Higher degrees of permitted absenteeism amongst staff (e.g. sick leave);
- Higher staff turnover than in other teams;
- Results just meet goals;
- Staff spend the bare minimum of time necessary in the office and with the team/department head*;
- Staff seem to develop at a slower pace than in other teams;
- Team/department functions in that team/department see minimal attendance;
- Only the head of the team/department ever seems to get the credit.
I’ve seen plenty of bosses who abuse their
position (or simply don’t know any other way).
Whatever the case, if you as a senior manager see this kind of
situation, you need to do something fast.
It may be a case of counselling the individual concerned, or more
comprehensive training. Toxic bosses
result in toxic staff, meaning toxic performance and unhappy customers.
In some cases, the individual may be aware
that there’s a problem, but not of the causes nor what to do about it. This awareness is the signal that something
can be done.
Working with others, particularly in our
increasingly multi-cultural world, is never easy. Different leaders (and different cultures)
have different styles, but as employees become better-educated and more
demanding, we all need to change to manage this.
* In some cultures, this may
not be a sign of a “boss” as people may commute long distances to work and the
culture is not to waste time or stay in the office once work is done.
I have spent more than half my life delivering change in different world markets from the most developed to “emerging” economies. With more than 20 years in the world financial services industry running different service, operations and lending businesses, I started my own Performance Management Consultancy to offer solutions for improving performance, productivity and risk management. I work with individuals, small businesses, charities, quoted companies and academic institutions across the world. An international speaker, trainer, author and fund-raiser, I can be contacted by email. My website provides a full picture of my portfolio of services. For strategic questions that you should be asking yourself, follow me at @wkm610.
Labels: Leadership, Productivity, Strategy
posted by William Martin @ 08:04
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