Most books about leadership
and organizational effectiveness don't offer much that's new, but
they do offer some of the same nonsense over and over again. Here
are a few of the things I keep reading that really pull my chain.
"We've got to make our workers happy so they'll be productive."
I've searched for years and I can't find evidence to support that.
I can find evidence for the statement that: "Productive workers
are more likely to be happy workers"
In other words, concentrate on doing the things that make folks
productive and they're more likely to be happy at work. As it
turns out, we know how to do that. Gallup's research and my own
years of consulting and training convince me that your immediate
boss has the biggest impact on whether you're productive and satisfied
at work.
Now for another one: "We need more leaders." Another version
of this is: "We need more leaders and less managers."
Nonsense. We've got plenty of leaders.
If you're in a job where you're responsible for the performance
of a group, then you're a leader because the folks who work for
you treat you that way. They listen to what you say. They watch
what you do. And what you say and what you do influences what
the folks who work for you do and say.
You don't have a choice about this. The only choice you have
is whether you're going to be a good leader or not. You also don't
have a choice about whether you'll be a manager and a supervisor.
When you become responsible for the performance of a group you
get all three jobs. Supervision work involves individuals and
tasks. Management work involves groups and achieving assigned
priorities. Leadership work involves purpose and direction.
You can be the CEO of the largest corporation on the planet and
you'll still have people to supervise. At that level we call them
"direct reports." You can be the most junior first line supervisor
on the factory floor and you still have to provide purpose and
direction for your people.
Here's another statement about leadership that makes me crazy.
"Great leaders make great organizations." It's true that great
leaders can have a hand in making an organization great, but they
don't do it alone and they've got to be around a long time to
really have any permanent impact.
What I'm sure is true is that great organizations produce great
leaders. Think of the US Marines. Think of General Electric (GE).
Jack Welch had an impact on that organization for sure, but he
was CEO for more than twenty years.
What's more impressive is the impact GE had on Jack Welch. In
his career he got guidance and challenges, opportunities and support.
Would Welch have been successful somewhere else? Probably. Would
Welch have been as successful elsewhere as he was at GE? I doubt
it.
Finally there's that perennial favorite: "We want to convince
our people to take risks." The argument for this bit of nonsense
seems to be that if folks take more risks by trying new things,
then organizations will be more productive and prosperity will
reign. That's wrongheaded.
Only a small part of the population is willing to take risks
and they're probably going to take them no matter what kind of
organization they work for. They'll go right on trying new things.
To get the great mass of the folks who work for you to try new
things, you have to remove the risk of doing so. If people can
try something that doesn't work and not get zapped, they'll keep
trying. But if they know that there's a possibility of getting
zapped, or if they see others getting zapped when their ideas
don't work, lots of folks won't try anything new at all.
You won't find a lot of this in the latest business books. It's
far easier to talk about seeking the magic stone of worker satisfaction
than it is to create a great working environment.
It's far easier to bemoan a lack of leaders than it is to hold
the leaders already in your organization accountable for their
leadership and give them the support they need to perform as effective
leaders, managers and supervisors.
It's far easier to search for the magic CEO to transform the
organization instead of doing the hard work of creating an organization
that grows great leaders.
And it's certainly far easier to try to come up with a communications
program that will attempt to persuade people to take risks than
it is to take the risk out of trying new things.
Top of page
I believe that
leadership is, in part, an apprentice trade. We learn to lead by
watching how great leaders do things. Fortunately, we're not limited
to our own experience. Books of history and biography can show us
examples and teach us lessons. Here's a selection of books that
I think are especially good.
While all of these resources are good, I've marked with an asterisk
(*) the ones I think are must reading.
Leaders:
Strategies for Taking Charge by Warren G. Bennis and Burt Nanus
Geeks
and Geezers by Warren G. Bennis and Robert J. Thomas
Leading
Minds: An Anatomy Of Leadership by Howard Gardner
At
Ease: Stories I Tell to Friends by Dwight D. Eisenhower
*Nineteen
Stars: A Study in Military Character and Leadership by Edgar Puryear
*Emotional
Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ by Daniel Goleman
The
Art of Managing People by Tony Alessandra
Grant
by Jean Edward Smith
Leadership
by Rudolph W. Giuliani
*The
Leadership Challenge by James Kouzes and Barry Posner
*Good
to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't
by Jim Collins
If you'd like to dig more into my thinking on leadership, you'll
find a list of leadership articles on my Web site. http://www.bockinfo.com/artleadership.htm
26 October 2004
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