Intuitively, we all know that leadership is important. But there are two reasons that leadership is important that we need to understand so that we understand the impact on our agencies.
Generals Win Battles but Sergeants Win Wars
A couple of years back, the Gallup Organization completed a study of productivity and worker satisfaction in organizations. Here's what they found.
A person's immediate supervisor is the single most important influence on worker satisfaction and productivity. It's more important than money, more important the working conditions, more important than anything.
Let me put that another way. If your agency doesn’t have good bosses in the supervisory role at all levels you’re missing the most important thing you can do to make your agency better.
A military historian put it in a different, but more memorable, way. “Generals win battles,” he said, “but sergeants win wars.” Supervisory leadership at every level is critical. But that doesn’t mean the leader way up there at the top isn’t important.
The MacArthur Principle
In his book, “Goodbye, Darkness,” author and Marine veteran William Manchester tells the story about a day when General Douglas MacArthur was standing outside his bunker during an air raid. Aides called from the bunker and begged him to get under cover and out of danger.
MacArthur refused. He thought his show of personal courage was important because, as he put it, “If I do it, the generals do it. And if the generals do it the colonels do it. If the colonels do it the captains do it …”
One of my commanding officers in the Marines, Captain James W. Ayers, put it this way, “There is no leadership except leadership by example.” The person at the top of a group or a department or the entire agency sets the tone and example for everyone else.
There may be no leadership except leadership by example, but you can be pretty sure that quality leadership won’t happen automatically in your agency. Someone will have to pay attention to training and development.
