Yesterday, we considered the idea that leadership should not be viewed as a gift to organizations bestowed by singular individuals, but rather that it is, to one degree or another, an extra-individual phenomenon – a truly organizational characteristic, either expressed collaboratively by its members, or collaboratively expressed through them.
I want to underline today that it can come from what will seem to many managers to be unexpected quarters. Managers must learn to be alert to its presence, the various ways it can affect their organizations, and to the need to make it work for them.
First, take a moment to review this brief item from the Economist. It offers a concise summary of the various ways activist shareholders are flexing their muscles, the many reasons why, and the assorted responses to them by boards and managers. As the article notes, a more democratic governance regime may actually give managers greater freedom of movement from the strong foundation, and within the distinct ambit, of a clearer, more firm mandate. Consider the item’s concluding remark:
After all, the best way to get investors to behave like owners is to treat them like owners.”
Next, stop over to read Alan Murray‘s latest WSJ column. He opens the piece by explaining that Andy Stern, president of the Services Employees International Union, has been, at least overtly, a critic of the increasingly prominent trend to take public companies private. However, Murray then reveals that Stern told him he actually prefers working with private, than with public, managers and investors:
Compared to most of my meetings with company CEOs, these men are much more businesslike, and have much more understanding of what we are trying to accomplish.”
Mr. Stern blames company CEOs for their workforce troubles, and rejects their criticism of labor as being too demanding:
They’ve trained us wrongly,” he says. “We tend to get ignored or caricatured, and sent to the human-resources department when we call. The CEO says, ‘Will someone take care of these guys?’ Not until we do something they find ‘unfair’ will they talk to us.”
Managers seem to be getting it from both sides, from labor and shareholders. And, they think it’s all unfair, or somehow an imposition on their prerogatives, or even a danger to their businesses. But the truth is, the danger to business is managers who try to slip the leash of control by their boards and owners, and who ignore their “most valuable resource” until it becomes hardly an asset, but rather more a contestant for the resources – even the reigns – of the enterprise.
These aren’t just examples of proliferating headaches for managers; they are sources of leadership that, ignored, are asserting themselves. Pay attention to the leadership currents in your organization, to where they’re coming from and what is setting them in motion. Benefit from them.
And manage them, or, rest assured, they will manage you.
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