Leaders and
Managers Have Nothing in Common
Manage
stuff. Lead people.
Managers are one of the
core business diseases of the Industrial
Age. They
are sacred cows who have been around only for a little over a century, but who should go away as quickly as possible. Few things
are as disruptive, unhelpful, and unproductive in the workplace as managers.
Solve and Decide, or Become
Less Important?
The manager's worst habits are
to a) solve things and b) decide things. No other actions are as debilitating
to others. When a manager solves and decides, the only thing left is to
delegate tasks to be executed--"put this nut on that bolt, at this
rate." But when we delegate tasks, people feel used. Managers who solve
and decide things are fundamental in the dehumanizing of the workplace, because
tasks are for machines.
Leaders do it quite
differently. They train others to solve problems and make decisions, and then
they get out of the way. If you're becoming less and less important in your
position, you're leading.
The Best Business Leader Makes
the Fewest Decisions
The art of traditional
management involves planning, organizing, staffing, controlling, and "manipulating human capital." In the awful assumption
of traditional management model, people are "capital" to be
manipulated and controlled.
In contrast, the art
of leadership is to know how few decisions the leader needs to make.
Ricardo Semler, the architect
behind Semco, an $800 million Brazilian Participation Age company (with 3,000
stakeholders, but no managers), just celebrated his 10th anniversary of not
making a decision. That is tremendous leadership, the kind we should all aspire
to by training others to "solve and decide" and then, by getting out
their way.
It works because Semler and
other Semco leaders have trained others to solve problems and make decisions.
Having gotten out of the way, the leaders are now free to stop solving and
deciding, and instead to ask questions and think about the future. If you're
making decisions for others, you're managing. If you're just asking questions,
you're leading.
What Are You Delegating; Tasks
or Responsibility?
We said earlier that when
managers delegate tasks ("put this nut on that bolt"), people feel
used, because tasks are for machines. But leaders delegate responsibility
("make a great product")--a much broader request that requires
thinking, solving, and deciding. When given responsibility, people take
ownership, and ownership is the most powerful motivator in business. Are you
delegating tasks, which simply require action, or delegating responsibility,
which requires the whole messy, creative person to show up?
Management Is Not Leadership;
Leadership Is Not Management
Management is a very recently
invented construct, but leadership has been around for centuries. We've
conflated the two. Here's a simple reference for pulling them back apart:
Manage Stuff. Lead People.
The traditional business model
we inherited from the factory system of the Industrial Age made the flawed
assumption that people need to be managed like stuff. They don't. They need to
be led, and the difference is not semantic, it is gigantic.
Stuff needs to be managed.
People don't. The factory system reinvented people as extensions of machines,
and when people are extensions of machines, they are "stuff" to be
managed. But if they are fully human, they require leadership, not management.
In our company, we only manage
stuff; computers, numbers, software, processes, systems, delivery of goods and
services, accounting, marketing, sales, etc. These are all "things"
to be managed, and everyone in our business manages stuff. But we don't need
someone with the title of "manager" to hover over any of us to ensure
the stuff will get managed. People manage the stuff, and we lead each other by
vision, guidance, training and support, and then, most important, by getting
out of the way.
The manager's quest is to be
as helpful as possible for as long as possible. The leader's quest is to
relentlessly train others to solve and decide, and become less necessary every
day.
It's important enough to say
twice: the art of leadership is to know how few decisions the leader
needs to make. Become a leader--stop solving and deciding, and focus
instead on asking questions. Everyone will be better off if you do.
BY CHUCK BLAKEMAN
http://www.inc.com/chuck-blakeman/leaders-and-managers-have-nothing-in-common.html?cid=em01014week31a
No comments:
Post a Comment