Managing Leadership^®

A short while ago I offered a review here of Captain D. Michael Abrashoff‘s new book, It’s Our Ship. Lee Thayer, the author of The Leader’s Journey, made a comment filled with fascinating insights, one of which I think is of particular relevance in our current discussion. Here’s a quote from it:

Sure, there are probably many potentially better pianists out there than those who are our celebrities. But that by itself does not guarantee they could perform better than those who have competed to get there.”

Do you think that, or something like it, might really be what distinguishes “leaders” from the rest of us – the quest for acknowledgment and influence?

Think of managers (or “leaders”) as those who compete for position and power. The truly superior leaders, perhaps, are really those who don’t do that, who are unknown, and who just want to left alone to be great piano players, to enjoy making the music.

If you are a manager who is aware of Lee’s insight, you might see it as offering you two choices. First, you could use your position to keep those truly more gifted than you toiling alone in the dark – or even to take their pianos away, as it were, so no one finds out about them.

Second, you could view your job as facilitating their expression of their abilities for the benefit of the organization. Mary Parker Follett argued that power is capability. By increasing the capability of your unit – through allowing full range to the expertise and talent of your staff – you thus increase its, and your own, power.

So your job as official business leader, then, is to find ways to help the true working leaders do their work.

There’s something worth competing for.

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Today’s tip: Some while ago, I proposed reason to hope that the modern leadership movement – as evidenced by the increasingly preposterous writings emanating from its putatively most distinguished representatives – might finally be on its way out. Please see this review in the WSJ by Aram Bakshian Jr., which suggests the same, having run across a book about what leaders can learn from toys. The actual review, however, is about lessons to be garnered in this area from President George Washington – take a look.

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