I have been a lover of operations and leadership for most of my life and I have spent my working life in these areas for 20 years. It is through this lens that I want to address the current climate on leadership development, or at least what I perceive that to be from my readings and observations. The challenges as I see them span from fundamental misunderstandings of how leadership is defined and therefore employed. There is a convolution between what a manager is and a leader, the challenge in definition of what is a bad leader. This sounds straightforward on its face; however, as we tease out definitions and actions it will be apparent how ill fitting “bad leader” is. We will begin with defining our terms and as we build on those foundations work out the necessary actions that “must” be taken. It is not a debate, these are as fundamental as gravity is to the shape, growth and outcomes of our universe.
Definitions
The below definitions are an amalgamation of common knowledge, they are my attempt to provide simple, clear, and precise definitions from which to guide our argument.
Firm, a group of people, organization, or business.
Leader, someone who accomplishes a task, by, with and through other people (the firm).
Leadership, art of the relationship of managing resources and specific development of people.
Manager, allocator of resources toward a defined goal.
Leadership Development, the apprenticeship of charges in increasing roles of complexity, accountability and responsibility where they manage resource constraints and work by, with and through subordinates and peers to also develop others while building deliverables for which the firm is accountable.
Manager vs. Leader, The Confusion
Our challenge starts from the basis that society writ large defines anyone in a position of authority over others as being a leader. It is easy to understand why, authority as defined by Oxford:
- The power or right to give orders, make decisions, and enforce obedience.
- A person or organization having power or control in a particular, typically political or administrative, sphere.
These fit most people’s rudimentary concepts on those who are over others, as this is how from a young age we perceive the world around us, it is a false mental anchor point. Even the slightest reflection into management and leadership quickly erodes authority as the defining characteristic and to that of a placeholder.
From these same definitions we see where the manager misconception derives as allocator of resources toward a defined goal dovetails nicely into authority. It is then wrongly assumed that because managers have authority and responsibility to allocate resources, to include people, they are then leaders. As we defined a leader as someone who accomplishes a task, by, with and through others. This false understanding is shown in Figure 1. below.
Fig. 1. False Understanding
