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Unless You’re the Lead Dog, the View Never Changes
Why good managers and good leaders aren't always the same people
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Business New Haven
10/14/2002
By: Melissa Nicefaro
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It's a beautiful, sunny afternoon. A handful of children are playing together. One says, “Come on - let's play hide-and-seek.” Another calls out, “I'll count and you all hide.”
It's leadership and management at their most essential, and it comes naturally even to young children.
Well, at least to some children. Was the initiator taught through parental example to be a leader, or is it innate? Might the “counter” have a future in management, setting the wheels in motion for a large organization?
Leaders and managers are seldom the same person - whether on the playground or in the boardroom.
“To get the most out of people, you have to be a good leader,” explains Neil M. Yeager, co-author of the book The Leader's Window and co-director of the Hartford-based Charter Oak consulting company.
“You can be a good manager and get things done, but if you really want to catalyze the people around you, you have to develop leadership traits,” says Yeager.
“You can be the most organized and structured person in the world, but if you don't make the personal connection with the people around you, you won't get as much out of them.”
Yeager says leadership is important anywhere a manager wants to
motivate people to perform to levels higher than they might be able to perform on their own. One person can't directly motivate another, Yeager says. “What you do is create the conditions where they motivate themselves. Motivation is tied to a very personal dynamic in the workplace.”
Many people are motivated by money, but pecuniary rewards don't motivate in a sustained way. Yeager's partner, John D. W. Beck, agrees that there are natural-born leaders, but in today's business world, it gives one a tremendous edge to take the initiative and learn leadership skills. Although many managers who believe they are decent leaders may disagree, there are several distinctions between leaders and managers.
“Both leadership and management are critical if you are going to have a successful organization,” Beck says. “When people talk about managerial skills, those are more skills for keeping the trains running on time: identifying and solving problems, managing to the numbers, keeping everything on course along with performance reviews.” Those are the managers.
When people talk about leadership in the broadest sense, they talk about people who are inspirational, creative, visionary and are able to get people on board behind their vision.
Sandra Spataro, assistant professor of organizational behavior at the Yale School of Management, teaches the leadership concept, tackling leadership and management as two different functions that need to be performed.
“It may or may not come from the same person; it may or may not happen at the same time,” Spataro says. “Management has to do with the tactical day-to-day operation and keeping things running smoothly, maintaining status quo, even if that means improving and growing. It's more about staying the course that's been set,” according to Spataro.
Leadership, on the other hand, has more to do with setting or changing a course. “When there's more turbulence and unknown in the situation, there's a greater need for leadership and being a tactical, just-keep-the-ship-running kind of manager is not going to be as useful during those times,” Spataro notes.
The professor says a person who is a split manager/leader is a very special person. One of the core courses that Yale MBA students take is called “Leadership.”
The class addresses the difference between a person leading a situation to a successful outcome and a successful outcome occurring regardless of leader. “It's usually some combination of the two,” notes Spataro. “It's the right person in the right place.”
She also studies informal hierarchy and how people interact aside from job ranking.
“There is a whole hierarchy of who is the most respected and valued and influential, and who the leaders are,” Spataro says. “It's the same thing you see when there are children on the playground. You see a hierarchy form.”
Beck and Yeager teach that there are four types of leaders: directors, problem-solvers, developers and delegators.
Beyond that, there are also different levels of leadership: strategic level (where the organization's direction is covered); organizational level (which puts the structure and all the components of the organization in place); team level (where you've got your players, but you've got to get them to perform); and the individual/personal level.
Most managers operate in all those arenas at least some of the time, but there is one preferred style that each is most comfortable with.
“What it takes to be successful as an individual is very different from what it takes to be successful in a team environment,” Beck says.
The sequence of styles that the best leaders use is directing, delegating, developing and problem-solving, where necessary.
“People want this pattern,” says Beck, noting, “There is flexibility in that you don't always go all the way around that cycle.”
Beck and Yeager focus on the team aspect of leadership. Leadership is as important for a CEO or other senior executive as it is for those in entry-level or mid-level jobs.
“What they have to deal with are different types of issues,” says Beck. “For each management tier added, another team or department is added, increasing the need for more leadership. The foundation should be built upon throughout a career.
“There are people who are very good at keeping the trains running on time, but have never inspired a soul in their lives,” Beck says. “They're not going to rally the troops behind them, they're not going to build something big, but those trains run on time.” Those strictly management skills are not bad, the experts concur.
Beck notes that many companies have structures in place to force managers to meet tangible objectives.
“You'll be in trouble if you don't maintain your budget, or performance reviews, or if you don't deliver to your customers,” Beck says. “But they don't teach you about the people stuff. That's where you get the extra added value in being a leader.”
And, as Yeager says, there are people who, because of their personality or characteristics, are the people who other people naturally are inclined to follow. These are people who learn the skills and behaviors that can get other people motivated.
“The people who have both going for them are more likely to be high-profile leaders - people who have the natural characteristics and also focus on developing those skills and behaviors that make for good leadership,” Yeager says. “Leadership is about understanding what's important to people,” he adds. “Once you understand what's important, you can use that to motivate and build relationships that are high-trust, giving a sense that 'We're all in this together.'”
A good leader instills a sense of mutual commitment and trust, and conveys to the subordinate that he or she is invested in their success. In turn, there's a greater chance that they'll become vested in one another's success.
Yeager recommends: “Be open to learning new things. Be receptive to what you're hearing from people around and below you.
“People higher up in the ranks are less open to hearing ideas of others and more inclined to push their own ideas,” he notes.
In order to become a leader, one has to become a better listener and more responsive. “Put your ear to the ground,” Yeager says.
But when the news isn't so good, a great leader should be able to deliver bad news to a worker about his or her performance in a way that doesn't destroy them.
“It's a critical skill,” notes Yeager. “Some great leaders can make a person feel terrible about what they've done, but optimistic that they can turn it around.” He says the ideal is a balance of being able to deliver bad news, but to convey to the person that you believe in them.
“If you can confront someone, and knock him down, but also catch him and cushion their fall, that's a real art,” he says. Just as tricky is getting personal, without crossing the boundaries of work and personal life, but Yeager says that this can build trust and inspire people. “You get more out of people if you're leading them than if you're simply managing them.”
Beck certainly concurs with that concept. He says workers want someone to take charge of the team and organize it so that every member owns a piece and takes charge of their area of responsibility. This empowers the individuals to take on a lot of leadership.“What they don't want is someone who leaves you floundering on your own and beats you up when you don't do a good job,” Beck says.
He compares strong leadership in business to an old-fashioned game of football: Teams recruit talent, bring them together in practices, put in plays where people know what their roles are, and they go on the field. “But who goes on the field? Not the coach - it is the individuals who really need to dig down deep to do their part,” Beck notes. The coach will call a time-out, regroup, watch tapes to see what works and what doesn't work, and they come out better organized.
Football aside, is leadership born or taught? Some are natural leaders. They have observed people close at hand who are good at it, but even within the family, a mother and father could be good leaders, but out of three or four kids, some are more naturally inclined to lead than others. Beck, Yeager and Spataro agree on one point: Leadership skills are very teachable - and highly learnable.
“Anyone who wants to learn how to be more effective in working with people can learn an awful lot about who they are, what they do and what they can do more effectively,” Beck says. Adds Yeager: “As with anything worth learning, the more you put into it, the more you get out of it. People who are good leaders will tell you it's a lifelong pursuit.”
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