MANAGERIAL LEADERSHIP
It can be argued that senior executives need to manage also, certainly at or below the
general manager level it is imperative that organizations have people who are capable as
both managers and leaders. The focus of this book is on the leadership side of
managerial leadership. Without diminishing the importance of good management, the
critical need today is to enhance managers’ leadership behaviours. It is difficult to
unlearn bad habits, it takes a huge amount of emotional energy to change leadership
behaviors. Virtually all of today’s leadership gurus agree that what distinguishes
successful managers and executives from the masses are their leadership capabilities.
LOOKING OUT, BEFORE LOOKING IN:As you begin analysing your leadership effectiveness, start by looking at your
environment before you examine your internal leadership style. Only by reviewing the
situation you are in-incorporating the work environment, followers, and industry
challenges-can you best determine the leadership behaviors that would make you the
most effective.
Understanding Your Followers:
A critical part of your external analysis is to consider the dynamics of the people you will
be leading. After all, there is no leadership without followers. Their capabilities,
aspirations, personalities, and interactions with each other have direct bearing on how
they need to be led. In trying to better understand your followers, consider the following
characteristics of the individuals and the group as a whole:
• Experience in the industry.
• Experience in the organization.
• The way they were managed in the past.
• The impact of the “demographic” diversity in the group (e.g. age, gender, race and
ethnicity).
• The influence of the “psychographic” diversity in the group (e.g., lifestyles,
personality traits and family dynamics).
• Major recent life experiences.
The time invested in understanding the influence of these factors among your associates
will be well worth it as you consider your leadership options. In determining what
practices and behaviors were common among those effective managerial leaders,
Kouzes and Posner zeroed in on five competencies:
• Challenging the process.
• Inspiring a shared vision.
• Enabling others to act.
• Modeling the way.
• Encouraging the heart.
THE FORCES OF CHANGE:
I cannot think of a period in business when “change” hasn’t been an important concern.
So why is it such a hot topic in boardrooms, executive suites and management
development programmes today? Most managers describe the pace and scope of
change as the key reasons. Change today is constant. There is no stopping it and there
is no standing still. In this way, change is a relentlessly powerful force pounding on
organizations. For change, first, you had to “unfreeze” from the current status quo, move
through a short-term (orchestrated) transition period, and “refreeze” once you reached
the desired state, where you would lock in the new status quo. An analysis of the major
forces of change that are driving business today will provide a richer understanding of
how and why they impact your organization. The four principal forces include:
Ø Intense competition
Ø Demanding customers
Ø Technology
Ø Demanding shareholdersORGANIZATIONS THAT THRIVE IN CHAOS:
Most companies are struggling to cope with the barrage of constant change. Just when
the situation seems to be settling down a bit, the next wave hits and the organization
must react and make a new series of adjustments. While it seems to the associates that
their company is uniquely facing these challenges, the reality is that virtually all
organizations are caught up in this constantly reactive state.
“The question that faces the strategic decision-maker is not ’what his organization
should do tomorrow.’ It is, ‘what do we have to do today to be ready for an
uncertain tomorrow’?”
- Peter Drucker
Only those companies can thrive amidst the chaos of “change management”, who are:
v Flexible.
v Fast.
v Empowered.
v Open in its communications.
v Innovative
v Learning-oriented.
v Development-focused.
v Lean.
v Energized.
v Team-oriented.
v Performance-based.
v Value-driven.
OVERCOMING RESISTANCE:
When is the last time you experienced a major change in your personal life? Think about
what you went through emotionally during that period. Personal experience is analogous
to what happens to many people in their work environments. It is important to
understand both why people resist change and what is the likely range of behavioral
consequences of that resistance. Here is the list of reasons why resistance to change is
so prevalent in the workplace:
ü Fear of the unknown.
ü Fear of failure.
ü Not understanding the need for change.
ü Disagreement with the need for change.
ü Losing something of value.
ü Inertia.
BEING IN THE MIDDLE:
One of the most critical challenges for a managerial leader is to learn how to be a change
agent in the midst of an organization that does not truly want to change. You didn’t
create the mess that the company is in, nor are you the one determining where to go
from here. However, you are held accountable for following the new plans, whether or not you agree with them. Just like a middle child in a family of three kids, you wind up
developing skills that neither the one above you nor the one below you have to develop.
You should start with flexibility. Can you look for ways to build in flexibility as you make
business decisions? It is certainly possible to do so regarding staffing decisions. Look
for ways that you can influence the speed at which your unit responds to its customers
and market opportunities. One level of analysis would be to review your decision-making
processes. Another level of analysis worth considering is to review your assumptions
about speed to market.
Speed and flexibility can’t happen without an empowered work force. One way to
increase the power of your colleagues is to publicly recognize them for their
accomplishments. It is critically important that you create an atmosphere of open
communications throughout your unit. Nothing breeds dissension and distrust more than
communication blockades. If your associates believe you are keeping information from
them, they will assume the information is bad news. If you make it difficult for
subordinates to bring you bad news, then you lose the opportunity to solve problems
since you won’t know they exist.
LEADERSHIP COMPETENCIES:
Enabling your associates to work at their very best is at the core of managerial
leadership. Note that selection of the word enabling is purposeful – “making able;
making it possible for” – as leadership today is so much more about creating
environments where people can succeed than it is about making decisions or getting
things done individually. The critical ingredients to consider are:
q Creating an environment where associates are encouraged to learn and grow.
q Identifying the most important competencies that associates must develop.
q Providing the mechanisms for associates to develop those competencies.
q Generating individual development plans for associates based on their unique
sets of skills and deficiencies.
q Integrating development into the day-to-day activities as much as possible.
COACHING:
Executive and managerial coaching has become a big business. A number of leading
companies, have made extensive use of outside coaches for their managers. The use of
outside coaches has some distinct advantages for companies, particularly if their internal
capacity for coaching is underdeveloped. But outside coaching should not be viewed as
a substitute for the coaching role that managers must play for their direct reports. When
thinking about coaching, the image that most naturally comes to mind is an athletic
coach. Consider a set of responsibilities for the coach of a basketball team, for
example. They include:
· Analyze the competition and determine strategies to defeat them.
· Recruit, retain, and develop talent.
· Build teamwork to create synergy and optimize performance.
· Help each team member to understand his or her role(s) to contribute to team
success.
· Make sure the team and the individual players, continually improves its
performance.This formula for coaching certainly works in the business context. One significant
difference between athletic coaching and managerial coaching is the level of attention
paid to it. In the business world, the importance of the coaching role of managers is a
relatively new phenomenon. It has always been needed, but only recently have
companies begun to understand its importance. Of course, other responsibilities have
not been taken away in order to make time for coaching. Therefore, an important
challenge you face as a manager is to find the time to be an effective coach. Your job is
to achieve business results by enabling your associates to perform to their fullest
potential both as individuals and as a unit. Intuitively, we know there is a strong
connection between employee motivation and performance. Much of the research in this
area has focused more on the relationship between satisfaction and motivation – the
hypothesis being that the more satisfied the employee, the higher his or her motivation.
TEACHING:
According to the dictionary, teaching means, “to impart knowledge or skill.” It is
interesting to contrast that definition with the one for training – “to make proficient by
instruction and practice.” From the perspective of outcomes, training implies learning
a specific task or set of activities, while teaching suggests broadening one’s
understanding or expanding one’s skill set. The qualities and behaviors that outstanding
teachers were reported to demonstrate include:
v Strong content knowledge – they know their subject well.
v Passion for teaching.
v Challenged students to do their best – demanding.
v Built students’ confidence that they could learn difficult material.
v Cared for each student.
v Had the ability to teach individual students in the way that best enabled the
students to learn – did not use a one-size-fits-all teaching style.
v Demonstrated a love for learning and helping others to learn.
MENTORING:
Mentoring has become common as a term applied to an organizational context. Over the
past decade, many companies have developed formal mentoring programs to help junior
level managers learn from wise and experienced senior-level executives. One of the
major elements that impacts the mentor-protégé relationship is the degree of objectivity
the mentor brings to the interactions. By not being involved in the individual’s day-to-day
activities and lacking direct supervisory responsibilities, the mentor is unencumbered by
some key potential conflicts that would interfere with the ability to offer sound advice. An
effective mentor keeps the relationship focused solely on the needs of the protégé, not
on any of his or her own personal agendas. It is not easy to maintain a high level of
objectivity in discussing career development and organizational politics with a
subordinate. It is also difficult for the associate to feel secure in talking openly and
honestly with her manager, as she might with a mentor who was outside the work unit. A
less potentially contentious aspect of mentoring your staff members, as a managerial
leader, is to help them better understand the organization’s political landscape and how
to best navigate it. Remember, the point of mentoring is to provide advice and guidance
on career and other long-term development issues. Here are some ways in which you
can integrate mentoring into your activities:Ø Meet with your associates once or twice a year to discuss their career progress
and aspirations.
Ø Get to know your associates’ family situations and principal hobbies or community
activities.
Ø If one of your associates is struggling with a career or professional decision, let
the associate know you would be willing to offer your advice.
Ø Demonstrate empathy for the situations your associates are facing.
Ø Use storytelling from your past to describe how you learned to manage your own
career.
Ø Encourage your associates to continue to grow and develop meaningful careers
for themselves.
DEVELOPING SELF AND DEVELOPING OTHERS:
Unlearning is harder than learning, especially for adults. The behaviors people exhibit
are typically built from the experiences they have had over many years. It is quite a
challenge, first, to understand what we need to change in ourselves and, second, to do
something about it that makes a difference. Before you begin to work on helping your
associates change their leadership practices, you need to work on your own behaviors.
There is no substitute for “walking the talk” as a source of modeling and inspiration.
The important concept to recognize is that you cannot separate developing others from
developing yourself. Good coaches know they get better as a result of coaching their
players. Good teachers realize they learn as much from their students as their students
learn from them. By putting your attention into coaching, teaching and mentoring others,
you will also be developing yourself. If you find a unit that is performing well, with
motivated employees who work well together, the probability is high that a primary
reason for their success is that the unit’s manager is an effective leader.
GIVING AND RECEIVING FEEDBACK:
It is critically important that you provide the employees with open and candid feedback if
you are sincerely interested in helping them to become more successful. Most managers
have a very hard time giving constructive criticism. The problem seems to be more with
the constructive part than with the criticism. If you want to help someone develop, you
need to point out their shortcomings while providing them with a mechanism for
improvement. It is important to the entire organization that you overcome the discomfort
and provide candid feedback to your associates. The communication skills required for
doing so may seem basic but are really quite refined. In providing constructive feedback
you are truly helping associates have the opportunity to perform at a high level. It is good
for their development. It is good for the organization’s performance. It is also good for
your development and leadership effectiveness.
Here are some of the principal elements for giving comprehensive feedback to an
associate, especially if the feedback is in the form of constructive criticism.
§ Find a location to meet that is nonthreatening and conducive to an informal
discussion.
§ State the purpose of the meeting.
§ Begin by stressing the positive.
§ When you are getting into the areas of poor performance, be sure to separate the
person from the problem.§ Ask the associate to provide his or her perspective on the situation.
§ Be sure to listen well. You may learn something about the situation you did not
know.
§ Summarize what you have heard and then offer your perspective on the matter.
§ Specially address the behavior or competency area that you want to see
improved.
§ Set tangible milestones or accomplishments.
§ Create a mutually agreed-upon action plan.
§ End the conversation on a positive, not punitive, note. If you are serious in your
desire to see improvement, you need to show confidence that the individual can,
in fact, make that improvement.
How feedback is received is as important as how it is given. There is another set of skills
associated with effectively receiving feedback. Industrial psychologists and
organizational development specialists will all tell you that “RECEIVING FEEDBACK IS
A GIFT, YOU SHOULD CHERISH IT.” Sometimes it sure doesn’t feel like much of a gift,
and since you don’t get a receipt, it’s hard to take it back to the store and exchange it for
something else. But you do need to find out how others perceive your behaviors or if you
are doing anything incorrectly without realizing it. In an ideal communications world, this
would not be an issue, as individuals within the organization would be giving and
receiving feedback constantly. However, there is no ideal communication world of which
I am aware. Most corporate cultures reflect a lack of candor and openness in
interpersonal interactions. Poor internal communications is among the most common
problems identified in employee surveys addressing morale and job satisfaction. As with
giving feedback, there are ways to enhance your ability to receive feedback effectively as
well. Remind yourself to:
ü Avoid getting defensive.
ü Listen carefully.
ü Ask questions for clarification, if needed, but avoid asking questions that would
attack the credibility of the source.
ü Thank the sender for giving you the feedback, even if you don’t like what was
said.
The way in which you receive feedback today will have a significant influence over the
frequency and type of feedback you get tomorrow. This is especially true for
subordinates. They will learn quickly how open you are to constructive criticism. If you
want to hear their opinions and perceptions, then you need to create an atmosphere in
the office that is conducive to their giving you feed-back.
MANAGING UP AND ACROSS:
Managerial leadership is inherently multidimensional. As a manager in the middle of an
organization, in addition to the obvious leadership challenges associated with managing
others, there are also challenges of interacting with the executives above and peers
across the company. Expressing the importance of establishing a positive working
relationship with your manager is not overstating the obvious. Here are some of the tips I
have learned from others as well as from my own experiences:
v Gain congruence over what you are to accomplish.
v Communicate, communicate, and communicate.
v Tailor your communication to suit your manager’s style.
v Learn how your manager is being managed.v Solicit informal feedback.
v Be sure to bring bad news to the boss.
v Bring a solution.
v Do not speak ill of your colleagues.
v Be positive.
v Be careful.
v Maintain your perspective.
Of all the managerial directions, the horizontal (or perhaps diagonal) linkages are the
ones that are most often ignored. You have to attend to managing your people (down),
and at some point you learn that you should try to manage the relationship with your boss
(up). So, with everything you must attend to, why should you worry about your
relationships across the enterprise at the peer or colleague level?
Answer: Because, increasingly, you have to build your internal network in order to be
effective in performing your responsibilities. And it is in the best interest of your
organization that these relationships and informal communication pathways get
developed.
MANAGING ACROSS BORDERS AND CULTURES:
It is not unusual for a manager who is southern, working with a company headquartered
in the northeast. If we have this level of difficulty domestically with regard to cross-cultural
interactions, imagine what challenges are present for companies that operate across
borders and continents. There are many ways to look at cultural differences in an
organizational context. The individual’s orientation to the world is an important
component in determining how that person will view other cultures. In my work with
transnational organizations, I have found other factors that are worth considering in
analyzing cultural differences. These include:
· People’s relationship with nature.
· Assumptions of humans being inherently good or evil.
· Temporal orientation: past, present and future.
· Personal and family relationships
· Spatial orientation: physical closeness and the need for privacy.
Cross-cultural sensitivity is a critical quality for managerial leadership today. There are
seven “mental disciplines” that are important in the development of geocentric
managers – those individuals who can work effectively across cultures in a global
context. These disciplines apply equally as well to managing diversity in domestic
settings:
Ø Observe without judgment.
Ø Tolerate ambiguity.
Ø Practice style shifting.
Ø Flip your perception.
Ø Reprogram your questions.
Ø Work interdependently.
Ø Keep mental stability and growth.
PUTTING YOUR PLAN INTO ACTION:My congratulations to you, as you must be somewhat motivated to make some
behavioral changes in order to enhance your leadership effectiveness. You undoubtedly
realize that no matter how skilled you are currently, your leadership practices can always
be improved and refined. Perhaps you began, as many others do, by asking yourself
these three questions:
q Can you do it?
q Will you do it?
q Is it worth it?
The critical question to ask is “how” to affect a positive change in your leadership
practices. Most of us need some structure in taking on a challenge as important as this
one. It is simpler to work from a good model than to create our own. The 10-step
approach described below is the most common framework I use in working with
managers on their leadership development plans. It is offered as a way for you to get
started. Adapt it to fit your needs and your style.
1. The first, and most important, step is to make the commitment to move forward in
developing your leadership effectiveness.
2. Remember to carefully consider your current situational context.
3. Collect some data on how others perceive your leadership effectiveness, and be
sure to include tools that provide the opportunity for self-assessment.
4. Draw upon the resources available to you within your organization.
5. Identify your leadership strengths.
6. Determine the areas in which there are major differences in opinion about your
leadership practices.
7. Create your development action plan by identifying two to three areas for
improvement initially.
8. In identifying these developmental areas, visualize the new behaviors you will
exhibit when you are successful.
9. Go public with your action plan.
10.Keep your action plan alive.
Remember that this is a journey – one that will last a lifetime.
