ARE WE BACKTRACKING? ABSOLUTELY NOT! WE HAVE WRITten (and spoken) often about the differences between leaders and
managers, and have turned up the snark machine to 11 in dismissing those administrators who think that riding shotgun is the same
thing as driving the stagecoach.
But we are ultimately realists and recognize that if everyone were
a leader, there would be no one left to be followers. And without
managers and administrators, there would be no one to tell us: 1)
that we were following the right trail; and 2) when we might be due
to arrive at the safety of the fort and the protection of the cavalry.
TO RECAP THE DIFFERENCE …
Peter Drucker, and others of that generation,
spent a lot of time on defining and directing us
toward their perceptions of the value and benefit of scientific management. Never mind that
the concept of leadership may have been trampled in the stampede. And let us turn a blind eye
to the omission of leadership exposure and
development in the coveted M.B.A. degree, even
from the most prestigious academic institutions.
The debate around whether leadership is
inborn or can be learned is a subject for another
day. For now, let’s consider what contemporary
thinkers see as the functions of managers and
administrators. At its essence, the manager’s job
encompasses a range of functions, including organizing; creating
detailed plans; communicating; aligning team members; watching
timelines, resource expenditures, commitments, and milestone
accomplishments; reporting and blowing the whistle as needed; and
conducting meetings.
These are clearly not leadership. But leaders need managers to
turn visions into reality.
In short, someone has to count the paper clips. Someone has to
bayonet the wounded. Meanwhile, it is the leader whose role it is to
think about whether or not we really need paper clips, or what
might replace the paper clip in five years’ time. It is the leader who
must decide how to handle those who can’t keep going.
USING OUR BRAINS
The simple, but too-often ignored, fact is that we are all wired differently. We may look more or less the same outwardly, but we think
in terms and perspectives that are figurative miles apart. And while
BY ART VAN BODEGRAVEN AND
KENNETH B. ACKERMAN basictraining
In (faint) praise of managers
and administrators
environmental influences can have some effect, the
differences are predominantly ones of nature and
not nurture. We are predisposed to be dreamers, or
administrators, or “show me the money” tyrants,
or caregivers.
Vision without execution is hallucination, said
someone famous (often attributed to Thomas A.
Edison, also to Henry Ford). I’d go further and add
a descent into delusion. So, an organization that is
permitted to only focus on vision can easily utterly fail. Think of an Indy car race team that neglects
to change tires or top off fuel.
Where we, in the collective,
fail all too often is in recognizing the value of all the skills
and attributes that are needed
for the highest levels of sustained success. Yes, the leader.
Certainly the dreamer, the
visionary (who is not always
the leader). Definitely the bottom-line person who forces the
organism to aim at what makes
business sense, creating profits,
generating shareholder value,
leveraging assets for optimal
return, and balancing social and economic objectives. For the long haul, the caregiver, who protects
the interests, emotions, and well-being of the
working associates involved in the enterprise. And
finally, the manager/administrator, who makes
sure that processes and protocols are followed,
who eagle-eyes the reality of progress against timelines, budgets, and outcomes—and publicly
humiliates those who would attempt to sweet-talk
their way through the exercise.
WORKING AND PLAYING WELL TOGETHER
All of that is easy enough to say, and consultants
have a way of making almost everything easy, simple, powerful, and difficult to dispute. What we are
talking about here, though, may not be simple—
although it is certainly not rocket science. It is def-
