Bob Sutton on Leadership vs Management

Having previously posted on the distinction between leadership and management, the recent discussion by Bob Sutton on his view of the differences between leadership and management in his post “Leadership vs. Management: An Accurate But Dangerous Distinction?” caught my eye. In the post Bob makes an important point concerning how the distinction between management and leadership affects the conduct and behavior of leaders…

“… although I think this distinction is more or less correct, and is useful to a degree (one emphasizes the focusing on the bigger picture and the other on the details of implementation), I also think that it has unintended negative effects on how some leaders view and do their work. Some leaders see their job as just coming up with big and vague ideas, and treat engaging in conversation about the details of those ideas or the details of implementation as mere management work that is ‘beneath’ them, as things for ‘the little people to do.’  Moreover, this distinction also seems to be used a reason for leaders to avoid the hard work of learning about the technologies their companies use and the people that they lead and to make decisions without considering the roadblocks and constraints that affect the cost and time line, and even if it is possible to implement their grand decisions and big ideas…. But one characteristic of the successful dreamers I think of — Francis Ford Coppola, Steve Jobs, folks at Pixar like Ed Catmull and Brad Bird — is that they also have remarkably deep understanding of the industry they work in and the people they lead, and they often are willing to get very deep into the weeds. This ability to go back and forth between the little details and the big picture is also evident in the behavior of some of the leaders I admire most who aren’t usually thought of as dreamers… am all for grand visions and strategies.  But the people who seem to make them come true usually seem to have deep understanding of the little details required to make them work — or if they don’t, they have the wisdom to surround themselves with people who can offset their weaknesses and who have the courage to argue with them when there is no clear path between their dreams and reality… I am not much rejecting the distinction between leadership and management, but I am saying that the best leaders do something that might be most properly called a mix of leadership and management (a great example is HP CEO Mark Hurd) , or at least, lead in a way that constantly takes into account the importance of management.  And some of the worst senior executives use the distinction between leadership and management as an excuse to avoid learning the details they need to understand the big picture and to select the right strategies.” 

I agree with Bob concerning the effect that the distinction between leadership and management has on the behaviour of leaders where “Some leaders see their job as just coming up with big and vague ideas, and treat engaging in conversation about the details of those ideas or the details of implementation as mere management work that is ‘beneath’ them, as things for ‘the little people to do.’”. I have also observer this behaviour in many organisations. It is also true that great leaders have a good grasp on the details of the industry and the job at hand, they need to understand an practice the word of leaders and the work of managers.

It is also true that many of the organisations today tend to be over managed and under led. This requires that a focus on developing a leadership practice. It does not mean we stop or reduce our management discipline. We need both to be effective.

I agree that the distinction between management and leadership is useful, as it help us become more self-aware, giving us insight into when we are behaving as leaders and when we are behaving as managers.

If you assess your behaviour over the past few months, what percentage of your time was spent on management (the details) and what percentage of your time was spend on leadership (the big picture)? What have been the results? Was this an effective use of your time?

Abraham Maslow’s 8 Ways to Self-Actualize

Derek Sivers has a great post on Abraham Maslow’s and his 8 Ways to Self-Actualize. Maslow defined as self actualisation follows:

"Self Actualization is the intrinsic growth of what is already in the organism, or more accurately, of what the organism is."

One of the interesting insights concerning Maslow from this article is that:

“Maslow studied healthy people, most psychologists study sick people.”

Rather than studying sick people and seeking to avoid the issues and challenges faced by these people. Maslow studied healthy people and identified what drove them to be healthy and successful. This approach resulted in some really interesting insights. Maslow came to the conclusion the man is basically good and that man has a natural drive to become the best person that he can be. Maslow also recognised the need for man to live a life that is an expression of himself and a life that is founded in moral and ethical behaviour. That man has a longing to live as a person of character. His research led him to articulate the following eight ways to self actualise:

1. Experience things fully, vividly, selflessly. Throw yourself into the experiencing of something: concentrate on it fully, let it totally absorb you
2. Life is an ongoing process of choosing between safety (out of fear and need for defense) and risk (for the sake of progress and growth): Make the growth choice a dozen times a day.
3. Let the self emerge. Try to shut out the external clues as to what you should think, feel, say, and so on, and let your experience enable you to say what you truly feel.
4. When in doubt, be honest. If you look into yourself and are honest, you will also take responsibility. Taking responsibility is self-actualizing.
5. Listen to your own tastes. Be prepared to be unpopular.
6. Use your intelligence, work to do well the things you want to do, no matter how insignificant they seem to be.
7. Make peak experiencing more likely: get rid of illusions and false notions. Learn what you are good at and what your potentialities are not.
8. Find out who you are, what you are, what you like and don’t like, what is good and what is bad for you, where you are going, what your mission is. Opening yourself up to yourself in this way means identifying defenses - and then finding the courage to give them up.

Executives are unhappy with their leadership development

Leadership development is the pressing need of organisations across the globe. Whilst there are organisations investing significant sums of money to develop leaders, according to recent research the results have been disappointing. Management-Issues discusses research by the Global Leadership Forecast 2008|2009, by consultants DDI, which sets out to examine why confidence in leaders is declining despite a heightened focus on developing leadership talent. The study surveyed almost 1,500 HR professionals and more than 12,000 leaders from 76 countries. The key findings of this research is as follows:

• Although three-quarters of the executives surveyed said that improving leadership talent was a top business priority, just four out of 10 were satisfied with what their organizations were actually doing to help them, a decline of 12 percentage points since the last Leadership Forecast was published two years ago.
  
• “… what emerges from the report is a clear message that while executives want more opportunities to learn on the job, such as special projects or moving to a new assignment, their senior management seldom takes responsibility for making this happen".”
  
• Almost six out of 10 executives said that they and their manager had not agreed on a formal written plan for their development.
  
• Only around a third of senior managers were held accountable for the success of leadership development programs.
  
• Just a quarter of organizations monitor their leadership development programs or formally measure their results. "Great leadership doesn’t happen by accident - organizations need to start listening to their leaders and make the right development investments if they want different results than they’re getting now," Wellins said.
  
• Only half of organizations globally have succession plans for their leadership team and US organizations even lower than the global sample. “But having succession plans isn’t the whole story - HR professionals indicated that one in three succession candidates fail.”
  

This research makes it clear that developing future leaders is not seen as a priority by today’s leaders. The sad thing is that one of the primary responsibilities of leaders is to grow and develop other leaders. It seems that we are failing in executing this responsibility. What actions can you take over the following week to start developing a programme to grow and develop future leaders in your teams and organisations?

Responsibility and it’s role in leadership

"Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space lies our freedom and power to choose our response. In those choices lie our growth and our happiness." - Stephen Covey, The 8th Habit

As leaders we can be given accountability and we can given authority, but we cannot be given responsibility. We have to take responsibility. Leadership is a choice we make. The attitude of responsibility, is a leadership mindset.  We do not become leaders because we have authority and are therefore accountable. We are leaders because of how we choose to respond. Leadership rests on our responsibility, not our authority.

Leaders take responsibility, whether or not they actually do have responsibility. Great leaders are not afraid to take responsibility for things that are out of their control. Leaders don’t wait for permission or for authority, before they take responsibility and act to make a difference. When a situation needs to be improved, leaders make the choice to take responsibility. They choose to make different choices, to take difference actions and change life’s situations. 

• Have you made the choice to take responsibility?
• Where can you take responsibility for changing?
• What are the first few steps that you can take?

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